Dominican Republic national Oscar Taveras who played for St. Louis Cardinals in the Minor League Baseball as an outfielder died in a tragic car crash on Sunday at his home town. His girlfriend Edilia Arvelo also died in the car accident. Taveras has been performing quite brilliantly in the past few seasons and was one of the team’s top prospects. The incident took pace when Taveras was heading from Jamao to his hometown Sosua, near Puerto Plata along the Atlantic coast of Dominican Republic.
Just two weeks back, he played a very crucial role in his team’s victory by hitting a home run in the League Championship series. Taveras was very passionate about baseball and loved to hit the ball all day long with his unconventional left-handed stroke. Although he still needed to learn a lot about fielding and base-running, being a 22-year-old, he had all the time in the world which has been cut short in a tragic manner. His sudden death has shocked the whole baseball fraternity which is still reeling with the loss of Nick Adenhart to a similar accident few years back. The team is still awaiting the details of the accident.
Taveras made his debut for the Cardinals this season making 80 appearances and finished the season as a part-time outfielder. The team was planning to make him compete with Randal Grichuk for the position at the right field.
The general manager of the Cardinals, John Mozeliak expressed his commiserations to the family of the deceased. The chairman of the team also expressed his sadness as they have lost one of their youngest members. The Director of the MLB Players Association Tony Clark as well as the commissioner of MLB Bud Selig made a statement expressing their shock over the incident.
Oscar Taveras lived a life and left a mark, which is precisely what he always had the potential to do. May the families find warmth in winter.