FLUSHING, N.Y. -- Late on Wednesday afternoon, the concern here was whether the NLCS was going to be played as a steady rain pelted the area and, subsequently, forced the postponement. Baseball games were the last thing on anyone's mind.
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| Cory Lidle earned his pilot's license during last year's offseason. (AP) |
The death of Lidle has saddened and horrified sports fans here and was a frightening reminder of how a former Yankee player, catcher Thurman Munson, perished in 1979, while piloting an aircraft.
It was so sudden and shocking that the game became irrelevant, at least for now. Rick Peterson, the Mets pitching coach who knew Lidle when Lidle was with the A's, was stunned at the news. He heard about it while walking through the clubhouse and spotting it on the television.
When asked how difficult it is to prepare for a game after hearing about such awful news, Peterson said: "I wish I had the answer. I don't have an answer. You try to deal with the emotions first. It's horrific. It's almost unbelievable. It's like a surreal moment. There's no way that this could happen."
"I think it just goes to show how insignificant some of the things that we think are significant really aren't," Peterson continued. "When this comes down to the fact that we're about to play a baseball game and how important is that, really."
Lidle took off from Teterboro Airport in nearby New Jersey. He was not instrumented rated, according to news reports. I received my pilot's license in nearby Caldwell, N.J., and got my instrument rating at an airport in Morristown, N.J.
I have flown throughout New York and New Jersey airspace, off and on, for almost 15 years, piloting Cessna 152s, Cessna 172s, and Cessna 172RGs.
A few dozen times I have done what some pilots call the "River Run" where you fly on the New Jersey side of the East and Hudson Rivers at 1,000 feet or below, turn near the Statue of Liberty, and then fly down the New York side, fairly close to the towering skyscrapers. There were a number of restrictions after the Sept. 11 attack but some of them have since been loosened.
In fact, a radar plot, according to authorities, shows Lidle's plane attempting the same kind of flight down that corridor that I have done many times.
That flight, up and down the river, is done under visual flight rules, meaning you mostly use your eyes to navigate.
The "River Run" is stunning and gorgeous, particularly at night, but it can also be, unfortunately, slightly dangerous. The reason why is because of the tight quarters. There are dozens of other planes and helicopters flying all around you. If you are qualified, it is not necessarily dangerous, but it is tricky. There is little room for error and if the visibility is poor it is that much riskier.
There is a great deal of controversy within the flying community about whether a plane should even be allowed to make such flights so close to Manhattan.
Athletes have long been attracted to flying and it seems more and more are becoming pilots. I once flew with Jacksonville tight end Kyle Brady, a highly skilled pilot who owned his own plane.
Brady got into flying for the same reason many athletes -- and almost every pilot -- begins to fly. There are few bigger thrills than piloting an aircraft, even the simple, single engine planes.
The accident will be dissected in the weeks and months to come. Now, it is just terribly sad.
And this postseason just won't be the same.
