In Speaking From Experience, Giancarlo Stanton Offered Advice to the Angels on Dealing With the Difficulties of Grieving the Loss of Teammate Tyler Skaggs

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RIP Bro, My heart goes out to your family□□ My message to the @angels while having no time for yourself to grieve is to hug each other, laugh, cry, lift the ones taking it extra hard up. You’re going to wonder why all of this is happening , is it real, why are u suiting up to play a game that seems irrelevant. Some Anger will ensue while u have to grieve in a fish bowl.. A lot will go through your mind. So stay together through that. The first days back to schedule are the weirdest feeling, from the energy to the questions to having to walk by his locker. Try to Focus & understand how important your strength is for his family, all of your supporters & anyone looking for the power to overcome something. They’re looking @ you for guidance. So you all really need each other right now. Stay strong fellas I’m thinking about you!

A post shared by Giancarlo Stanton (@giancarlo818) on Jul 1, 2019 at 7:17pm PDT

"RIP Bro, My heart goes out to your family. My message to the @angels while having no time for yourself to grieve is to hug each other, laugh, cry, lift the ones taking it extra hard up. You’re going to wonder why all of this is happening , is it real, why are u suiting up to play a game that seems irrelevant. Some Anger will ensue while u have to grieve in a fish bowl.. A lot will go through your mind. So stay together through that. The first days back to schedule are the weirdest feeling, from the energy to the questions to having to walk by his locker. Try to Focus & understand how important your strength is for his family, all of your supporters & anyone looking for the power to overcome something. They're looking @ you for guidance. So you all really need each other right now. Stay strong fellas I'm thinking about you!"

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Well, when you put it like that. 

That's not to imply that anyone would ever assume it's easy to mourn the gut punch that must be the tragic, midseason loss of a beloved teammate. However, it is to say that the way Giancarlo Stanton spoke from his experience in doing so, following the disastrous death of Jose Fernandez in 2016, really makes real the impossibilities of grieving during the daily grind of which the absence of the dearly departed is ever-present. 

Considering the inevitable emotional toll to be taken by the constant reminders that Tyler Skaggs is no longer with them, the rest of the Angels roster having to lace up their cleats at least another 77 times before having any extended period of time to themselves must feel pretty damn daunting. Trying to battle their own innately human brains in trying to push heartbreak to the back them and focus on playing a game that offers as much time to think as baseball at a professional level on a public stage is just not an undertaking I can even wrap my head around, for a variety of reasons.

The true test of a team shouldn't be something that you'd hope and pray no team would ever, in a million years, have to go through. However, I can't imagine there is any one circumstance more trying of a clubhouse's cohesiveness than having life and death unexpectedly intervene in it's day-to-day operation. Here's to keeping the Angels in mind as they find their way in...well...finding a way, for the best way to honor the unforgettable and disturbingly abbreviated existence of Tyler Skaggs is to keep playing the game he was so passionate about at the highest level possible, as impossible as that currently seems.

Rest In Peace, kid.  

Due to the tragic passing of Tyler Skaggs, Alex and I have decided it best to not record On The Corner this week. The List will be pushed to tomorrow as well.

Instead, let's watch 47 seconds of Tyler Skaggs throwing one of the prettiest curveballs in the game. pic.twitter.com/F10bqKq1wi

— Pitcher List (@PitcherList) July 1, 2019