I am not going to sit here and deny it, I consider Nick Green to be my friend. I think he is a great person, and I admire him for working hard to try to live out his dreams of being a big league baseball player.

Nick is with the Triple-A Nashville Sounds this season, hoping to get a shot at pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers sometime in 2009.

He starts his first game Sunday, and has spent this week getting adjusted to living in Nashville.

But something has happened to put a lot on anyone’s mind, especially a young man who is trying to live out his dream.

Nick’s roommate from last season, Nick Adenhart, was killed in an early morning hit-and-run wreck Thursday morning in California. Adenhart had just pitched six scoreless innings for the Los Angeles Angels in a game against the Oakland Athletics.

The report has Adenhart and three friends hit by a drunk driver, who was charged with murder Friday.

I have not talked to Nick Green, but Adenhart’s death means Nick has lost two very close friends in five years due to car wrecks. The other is Stefanie ten Hoope, who died in 2004. Nick thought so much of Stefanie he has done his best to wear the same No. 23 she wore as an ABAC Fillie softball player during his career in minor league baseball.

Nick also saw a coach killed by a line drive two years ago during a game in Arkansas. The first base coach was hit in a temple by a line drive, and is the reason you see base coaches wearing batting helmets in professional baseball now.

That’s a lot of death for one person to have seen in five short years, especially for a person who is only 24 years old.

I would love for Nick to get a chance to make the Major Leagues, but I am also going to be praying that he will be able to live a good long time now without having death hanging over his head. He is too good of a person to have had to live with what he has gone through in a span of five years.

I am also going to be praying for Nick Adenhart and his family, and I will also be praying that folks will finally learn that you shouldn’t drink and drive. It is just too deadly of a proposition.