On a day the A’s lost 10-1 you probably don’t much care to discuss the team anyway. We’ll save that for a day, hopefully tomorrow, when the A’s give a glimpse of being good in 2027 and not just flirting with 100 losses in 2026.
Baseball matters, but when an injury like Ryan Lasko’s occurs we are reminded that was truly matters is the lives of the men who take the field for our entertainment.
Yesterday brought some good news — and a sobering reminder of what constitutes good news these days with regard
to Lasko. The A’s OF prospect headed home, but with the longest road still ahead in his quest to regain feeling and mobility in his entire body.
Lasko’s terrifying injury, incurred diving for a fly ball, brought to my mind another horrible incident back in 2009, when a drunk driving collision took the life of Angels’ pitcher Nick Adenhart just hours after his best career start — against the A’s. Two others in the vehicle also lost their lives, and only one of the four passengers survived.
The surviving passenger was Jon Wilhite, like Lasko an accomplished athlete who played for Cal State Fullerton. In the crash Wilhite suffered an “internal decapitation,” which is when the skull base detaches completely from the cervical spine, that left him initially paralyzed.
Wilhite eventually began the long, long road to trying to regain as much mobility as possible, similar to the journey now in front of Lasko. Wilhite’s recovery has been described as “miraculous” — it is miracle enough that he was able to throw out the first pitch at an Angels game in May, 2021 and today he works as a supply chain manager while maintaining close ties to the Angels’ organization.
One of Wilhite’s teammates at Cal State Fullerton was Kurt Suzuki. While with the A’s, Suzuki’s wife spearheaded a fundraiser for Wilhite’s recovery and I was able to link with her to use the AN platform to raise money from some of our generous and caring readers. Suzuki is now, of course, manager of the Angels.
No one yet knows what Lasko’s recovery will look like and so currently baseball is very much on the back burner of anyone’s thoughts around his future. A dream might be to once again play baseball, while a goal might be to once again walk without medical aid. Lives can change in an instant and rarely does that instant announce itself ahead of time.
One prospect I have thought about since the injury is Devin Taylor, who is moving up the ladder fast and whose bat likely will put him into the 2027 conversation for the big league club. Taylor is the outfielder Lasko collided with as they both chased that fateful fly ball.
Through absolutely no fault of his own, Taylor became the barrier Lasko’s neck hit in just such a way as to cause the paralyzing injury. I wonder how this has been for Taylor, as guilt is not a rational emotion and can strike the profoundly innocent. Taylor is one step from the big leagues now, while Lasko is just hoping to take one step.
I hate it when the A’s lose, even more so when it’s 10-1. And I would take 50 consecutive 10-1 losses in a New York minute if it meant seeing Ryan Lasko run in the outfield again. Best wishes in your recovery, Ryan, and here’s hoping we at least see you throw out the first pitch some day soon.
