**Don’t read if you are sensitive or have a Conscience**

“I’ll become a top-flight major league pitcher one day, or may lightning strike me dead.” – 11-year old Geremi Gonzalez to his 4th grade classmates

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the death of former Major League pitcher Geremi Gonzalez, who had a brief stint with the Mets in 2006. Gonzalez was a valued member of the rotation for one inning on May 19, 2006 when he tossed a solid scoreless second frame. The six other runs he gave up that night are credited to his character and talent.

“A great manager’s player, you know?” former manager Willie Randolph commented. “When I needed a clubhouse mole to help me destroy Carlos Delgado, he was always like ‘If I’m not sticking around, the big guys are coming with me.’ Great team player. We don’t see too many guys with that type of funk anymore. You just turn the page and keep battling.”

“I’m always looking for pitching depth, so it was good to finally have answers,” Mets GM Omar Minaya said in regards to Gonzalez’s unanswered call-up in mid 2008. “I thought maybe his agent’s cell was dead and word never got to him, but I now understand it wasn’t a cell battery that died.”

It was an early summer evening in Gonzalez’s native Venezuela during the offseason when he wore his favorite chain-mail swimming trunks and aluminum foil bucket hat to go kite-flying on a local beach. The forecast called for thunderstorms, but Gonzalez ignored the weather and set out for a few hours of relaxation. He even wore the fuzzy slippers he used to use on his lush home carpets. Unfortunately, lightning somehow managed to strike Gonzalez dead on the deserted beach in an unlikely freak accident. Gonzalez was previously pronounced dead on May 31, 2006, his last game with the Mets, but was officially DOA when paramedics arrrived at the scene.

A tribute service is scheduled for Gonzalez later today at a local KFC in Caracas, Venezuela, where his six fans are expected to appear, filling the chain store to capacity.

Editors Note:  Odds of being struck by lightening: 1 in 5000.  Odds of becoming a Major League Baseball player: 1:16000.  What does this tell us?  Geremi Gonzalez was very lucky.  He defied all odds.

• If you’ve learned anything from this post, its the fact that now you know that Geremi Gonzalez was the other guy in the Jose Lima photo that you’ve always wondered about.

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