"It’s unfair and probably a little dishonest spiritually and intellectually to try and claim that their success was spurred on by a new feeling “beyond devotion” or that their success came despite the emotional toll of something so devastating." <- The latter potential strikes me as true on the face of it. Presumably, there was an emotional toll, and not a fundamentally good one. So I think it's simplistic, though not "unfair" per se, to claim that the success came /in spite of/ Adenhart's death. What I would dispute is the claim that the success /was due to/ it. I'd assume the season has a different feel in the players' own minds than it otherwise would have. But if they wouldn't have had the motivation to win the division otherwise, something is wrong.

Oh, and I had the "college English class" experience a bit early, taking Advanced Placement Literature in high school. If I got nothing else out of that class, I did learn that things that don't seem to represent Jesus may actually be doing so. I "found" a Jesus allusion on the test, so maybe my teacher was on to something, despite the fact that I couldn't stand him.

It is emotionally compelling to see a team carry on after a teammate falls, the archetype of which we’ve seen in war movies immemorial. It’s a charged thing. That said, it’s all in the delivery. The voiceover guy has a PR kind of tone, which we’re used to hearing in those half-hour pseudo documentaries that follow the decline of some murdered celebrity. I don’t trust voices like that, and I don’t believe them. They’re reading a script. For that quick moment hearing the Angels teammate speak, though, I believed it, and it held more authenticity than all of the rest of it combined.

Some motivations are best left told by the motivated, without mediation (although mediation is pretty difficult to avoid in at least some form).

If you’ve ever taken a college English class, you’ll know that people have a tendency to read their own meaning into places where others might not see it. Santiago in Hemingway’s the Old Man and the Sea represents Christ, one scholar might say. He’s just an old man, the author might (did) respond. The fish is just a fish.

I think a commercial like that, detailing the Angels’ success as “in response” to Adenhart’s sad death, is probably oversimplifying a little bit. It’s attaching a narrative to one that might not previously exist. There’s obviously no way to say whether the success of the Angels is a reaction to the tragedy, or whether it’s actually beyond devotion or beyond baseball (whatever that means).

There’s no way to know what would have happened if Adenhart /hadn’t/ died. He did die. And the Angels had an excellent season. It’s unfair and probably a little dishonest spiritually and intellectually to try and claim that their success was spurred on by a new feeling “beyond devotion” or that their success came despite the emotional toll of something so devastating.

Basically what I’m getting at is that the commercial is making something big and sweeping and very very clear out of an event whose implications are in fact impossible to define. It’s ascribing meaning where it may or may not be.

The commercial detailed the Angels’ success in response to Nick Adenhart’s death (This is beyond devotion; this is beyond baseball). And it made me wonder–if Adenhart /hadn’t/ died, would they be slacking off or something? Inappropriate, irreverent, but I want to know.