Tonight marks anniversary of Coolbaugh's death

A husband. A father. A coach. A year ago, he was 'gone instantly'

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 21, 2008 at 8:57 p.m.

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Photo by Otto Greule Jr. / Getty Images

Mike Coolbaugh would have turned 36 on June 5, which wife Mandy called "a very difficult day."

Photo by Robert S. Cross / Tulsa World

Mandy Coolbaugh, second woman from left, looks at the jersey of late husband Mike Coolbaugh. The jersey was presented in August 2007 after the Drillers first base coach was killed by a line drive during a game. His two sons, Joey, now 6, left, and Jake, now 4, ask about their father every day, Mandy says.

Photo by Aram Boghosian / Tulsa World

Tulsa's Jeff Dragicevich, wearing a patch to honor Coolbaugh, remembers his hitting coach's positive outlook.

TULSA, Okla. - They had started talking about death, in particular those final moments of life. Mandy Coolbaugh remembers it "weird" that the topic even came up, since she and her husband, Mike, were in their 30s with two young boys and a third child on the way.

They were married seven years with a together-for-life bond and so close, so deeply in love and so open that they had broached a very dark subject.

"Mike was very scared of the actual act of dying," Mandy said. "He was worried about it. Mike said to me one day, 'I don't want to feel pain. I hope when it's my turn, I don't know what hit me. I just go.'

"And as much as I hate what happened, I feel a comfort knowing he didn't know what hit him, and he was gone instantly. And I thank the Lord every day for that. I'm glad he wasn't in pain."

One year ago tonight, Mike Coolbaugh was killed while coaching first base for the Tulsa Drillers, the Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. The Drillers were playing at North Little Rock, Ark., losing 7-3 to the Arkansas Travelers in the ninth inning. Tino Sanchez, a backup catcher, lined a ball that struck Coolbaugh in the neck, compressing an artery against the vertebra at the top of his spine and the base of his skull and causing a brain hemorrhage. Coolbaugh was 35.

Oddly, the Drillers on Monday night completed their fourth and final trip of the season to North Little Rock. Returning there always makes Coolbaugh's death more vivid to the Tulsa players and staff who witnessed it.

"Standing in the dugout from the same perspective, it kind of haunts you a little bit," Tulsa trainer Austin O'Shea said.

Not that a visit to Dickey-Stephens Park is necessary to summon memories of what happened there to Coolbaugh.

"I have reminders about it every day," Tulsa pitching coach Bo McLaughlin said. "Every time a coach walks out on the base paths, they're wearing a helmet. Why are they wearing a helmet?"

At their meetings last November, major league baseball's general managers mandated the helmet rule for coaches this season. When Coolbaugh was killed, Tulsa manager Stu Cole was across the diamond, coaching third base. He still mans that post every time the Drillers bat, albeit a little bit differently in the wake of Coolbaugh's death.

"Before that happened," Cole said, "a guy would get on second base, I would usually be further down the line (toward home plate) to kind of want to help that guy out before the ball is hit.

"Now, I'm positioning myself pretty much where the bag is, and when that ball is hit, now I'll adjust and move. Because you never expect anything like that to happen, but once you see it happen, it's always going to be in the back of your mind. I think about it every pitch, especially when a guy like (Matt) Miller and (Tony) Blanco (both right-handed power hitters) get up there, who can hit a ball as hard as anybody."

'It's no one's fault'

It was Miller who opened the fateful ninth inning a year ago at Arkansas with a single. Trying to escape a slump, Miller had been diligently working with Coolbaugh, who had joined the Rockies organization three weeks earlier as Tulsa's hitting coach and happily was immersed in his work.

Miller had gone hitless in three at-bats before his single, in this case a never- to-be-forgotten single quickly freighted with philosophical overtones.

"You can always think, 'Well, if I would've hit a double or struck out, (Coolbaugh) would've been in a different position,' " Miller said. "You can't really think like that. Just like Tino can't think, 'I wish I didn't swing at that pitch.' It's no one's fault . . . There's really no way to rationalize it in your mind."

Miller is one of a handful of current Tulsa players who were with the Drillers last year. Infielder Corey Wimberly is in that group, as was infielder Jeff Dragicevich until his promotion Saturday to Triple-A Colorado Springs.

Wimberly recalled working with Coolbaugh hours before his death, participating in drills and taking swings in the indoor batting cage, the way hitters and coaches regularly do, hoping to find a groove or maintain it. That night, Wimberly went 2-for-3 with a triple.

"The day that happened, I actually started going good," Wimberly said. "(Coolbaugh) told me after I got a base hit, 'You look like a professional hitter. That swing is going to get you to the big leagues.' "

Dragicevich heard no such encouragement, simply because he was recovering from a hamstring injury during Coolbaugh's brief time with the Drillers. Coolbaugh had been hired July 3, 2007, to replace Orlando Merced, who had begun the season as Tulsa's hitting coach but resigned for personal reasons.

"I had a pulled hamstring, so I was on the bench a lot with him," Dragicevich said. "He was just such a positive presence on the bench. It's just nice to have. There's just a lot of struggles that you go through in baseball, and he never got into being down or negative. Everything was positive."

Hours before Coolbaugh's death, Dragicevich said he and Coolbaugh spent time trying to solve the brain-teasing riddles they enjoyed working on together. And that same day, Coolbaugh participated in the Drillers' mock fantasy football draft, a tuneup of sorts for the real thing a few weeks later.

"He was pumped," Dragicevich said. "He was on it. He knew all his guys."

The visitors dugout at Arkansas is on the third base side with two sets of steps. One set leads toward the on-deck circle. Dragicevich remembers being on the other steps, which are nearer third base, when Coolbaugh fell awkwardly in a horrifying instant.

"When I go back there, I always remember where I was, and I think about it," Dragicevich said. "Whether it's purposefully or subconsciously, I haven't stood on those steps again. I try to just go about the game and just play. But I keep him in my mind. I have a picture of him in my room right now, and I have a jersey of his hanging in my closet. I brought it from home."

Coolbaugh would have turned 36 on June 5, which Mandy called "a very difficult day." She finds it difficult to believe a year somehow has elapsed, that the anniversary of that awful day has arrived.

"It is going to be overwhelming," Mandy, 33, said from her home in San Antonio. "I don't know how I'm going to deal with it."

She has two sons, Joey, 6, and Jacob, 4, and a daughter, Anne Michael, who was born Nov. 2.

"The boys ask something every day about Mike," Mandy said. " 'Is Daddy watching me do this? How did Daddy do that? Now that Daddy's gone, can I use his hammer.'

"And with the baby, every little milestone that she hits, I'm so aware that Mike's not here with me to enjoy that."

Family not forgotten

When the Rockies reached the World Series last year, the players voted Mandy a full playoff share, which amounted to a little more than $233,000. She is grateful for their generosity and thankful for calls from members of the organization to see how she and the children are doing.

When the Drillers visit San Antonio, either O'Shea, the trainer, or broadcaster Mark Neely calls Mandy to invite her and her children to the ballpark. Joey and Jacob visit the Drillers clubhouse, interact with the players and, best of all, take some swings on the field.

Tulsa made its second and final visit to San Antonio at the end of June, and both O'Shea and Cole said Mandy seemed to be doing much better. She was, but only momentarily, because of a song that inexplicably was played during batting practice at Nelson Wolff Municipal Stadium and like all the others, played loudly.

"When I was talking with Stu and Austin, my wedding song came on, Love of My Life, by Sammy Kershaw," Mandy said. "I view that as a sign that Mike's right there with me. It's a love song. It's not something someone would just play to pump guys up on the field. I did perk up at that moment, because I sat there thinking, 'That is Mike. He is here. And he's telling me he's with me.' It was very comforting."

The Drillers played their final game at San Antonio this season on July 1, then headed home. Mandy was left to grapple with her day-to-day challenges, made more difficult by the realization the calendar had taken a cruel turn.

"July used to be my favorite month," Mandy said, "and now I've dreaded it all year, dreaded knowing he's been gone for that long."

July used to mean the middle of the baseball season, Mandy said, and a three-day break at the All-Star Game. Save for 44 games in the big leagues in 2001 and 2002, Coolbaugh spent his 16-year career in the minors, the bulk of it at Triple-A. And July was a good time.

"He was always doing well, and we were with him and it was summer," Mandy said. "It was barbecues, having a drink at the baseball game, the smell of the field. By this time, the wives had made connections, and we were all close and we just enjoyed each other.

"I miss it. I loved it so much, and now this month is such a burden now. July 1st came around, and I just sat there thinking, 'It's July.' "

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