For Cardinals fans, it is deja vu. It feels as if we have taken a trip back to the Summer of 2002. We get the call or we log on and look at the news. Some of us catch it on the ESPN bottom line feed. By now, everyone in Cardinal Nation has heard the somber news: relief pitcher Josh Hancock is dead at 29.

If you haven't heard what happened, Hancock was driving on Highway 40 in St. Louis late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, when he ran into the back of a tow truck park on the side of the road. The truck driver said the vehicle did not slow down at all. Hancock was pronounced dead on the scene. I'll link the story later on in this post for the rest of the details.

As a fan of the Cardinals, you become attached to the players. It is that way with any fan of any team. The names, the faces; they all change throughout the years, but while a certain player wears your team's uniform, you embrace him. You spend countless hours cheering for him, sometimes cursing him, but most of the time pulling for him.

And when you hear the news that one of your team's players has died, it feels as if you've lost a friend. I don't care if that sounds weird or whatever, it is the truth.

Hancock was a pitcher who would tackle any assignment with tenacity. Sometimes he'd blow it, and sometimes he would excel in it. I'll be the first to admit, I was frustrated from time to time with his performance. But I admired his willingness to take any situation he was thrust into and pitch his game no matter what. And even if he did give up a big home run, Hancock always had the ability to bounce back the next day. That is the kind of player that is loved in Cardinal Nation. Every player has their bad moments, but the ones who brush it off and give it their all for the fans, the team, and the organization the next day are exactly the type of player that define a "true" Cardinal. Hancock was the perfect definition of a "true" Cardinal.

For this to happen twice in five years to one team is almost unheard of. The Darryl Kile incident was devastating. In fact, the team still has a large "DK 57" sign painted on the bullpen wall to this day. Kile's death is still so fresh in the mind of several players, that they become worried when a teammate is late to the ballpark.

Just three days ago, when Hancock overslept and didn't show up to the park on time, teammates who experienced the Kile incident firsthand began calling Hancock's cell phone frequently, worried that something had happened.

I can only imagine the grief that hit every member of the team when they heard the news last night and this morning. I received the news when my cousin, a Cubs fan, called and asked me if I had heard the news. I immediately had a Darryl Kile flashback.

Hancock was an integral member of the bullpen that were the unheralded heroes of last year's World Series club. Hancock could be used in many situations. At times he was brought in to be the 8th inning setup guy. Other times, when the starting pitching struggled, Hancock was brought on to pitch a few innings to save the rest of the bullpen from fatigue.

And now, fans, friends, teammates, and the baseball world mourn his loss. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Josh Hancock. He will always have a special place in all of the Cardinal fans, just like DK before him.

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