KANSAS CITY - Oscar Taveras was nearly playing in this week's World Series. Instead, the 22-year-old St. Louis Cardinals rookie outfielder was killed in a car crash in his native Dominican Republic.
Oscar Taveras of the St. Louis Cardinals celebrates after hitting a solo home run against the San Francisco Giants during Game Two of the National League Championship Series at Busch Stadium on October 12, 2014
As players for the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants prepared Monday for Tuesday's sixth game of the best-of-seven Major League Baseball final, they pondered the tragedy that befell a young star who felt like one of their own.
Taveras hit .239 with three home runs and 22 runs batted in over 80 games for the Cardinals this season after making his major league debut in May.
Just two weeks ago, he hit a homer in the Cardinals' 5-4 win over San Francisco in game two of the National League Championship Series, which the Giants won in five games to earn a World Series berth against the Royals.
"I want to send out our deepest condolences to the Taveras family," Giants game six starting pitcher Jake Peavy said. "That was really hard to hear and all the jubilation, and the excitement and joy that we were in, that was really tough to hear that news. Devastated."
Peavy said the Giants team meal Monday was a somber one in the wake of the news.
"Didn't know him, but we're a fraternity. When you get the news we got, it's beyond heartbreaking when you don't even know him," Peavy said. "Spoke to a couple guys who played with him and sent out our regards. Just want to make this clear that we are obviously thinking about the St. Louis Cardinals and the Taveras family and our baseball family."
Yordano Ventura, the Royals' Dominican starting pitcher Tuesday, knew Taveras well from time in their homeland as well as from games at the developmental level in the United States.
"I know him very well," Ventura said. "When we would play against each other, we would go over to each other's houses and hang out during the minor league season. I consider myself a friend of his, and my thoughts are with the family and of all of those who know him. It's a very difficult time."
Royals manager Ned Yost said that any lessons about enjoying every minute of life to be learned from Taveras' untimely passing are secondary to the sadness being felt by those in the baseball community.
"Maybe down the road it is. This hurts. This hurts everybody," Yost said. "A kid this young, for something like this to happen. I think we were all shocked when we heard about it, and we're still shocked.
"You look back on your club, and what if this happened to one of your young players on your club? You just know what the Cardinals are going through.
"Maybe down the road a little bit once you know you can slow down and think about it, and all the details come out to exactly what happened. But right now I just think everybody's just really, really saddened and shocked by this whole thing. It put a damper on everything, even the joy of the World Series last night. When you hear something like that, to fly back and think about that, it was just a sad, sad, sad thing."