Squeeze every drop out of each day

October 02, 2023

It was a sad weekend for many in the sports world, with four deaths of men who had worked in sports as athletes, journalists and sports executives, all gone far before their time. First came the news late last week that Chris Snow, who had been battling ALS for 4 years, had suffered a catastrophic brain injury and was unlikely to survive. I met Chris when he was covering the Boston Red Sox for the Boston Globe and I was covering the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He left sportswriting to join the front office of the Minnesota Wild and ultimately became assistant general manager for the Calgary Flames before dying this weekend at 42. It was terribly sad news, news many had been preparing for for several years as he and his wife Kelsey very publicly spoke up about his battle in hopes of raising money and attention to fight ALS, which they most certainly did.

The other two deaths caught most more by surprise, or with little notice. Héctor Cruz, a former colleague of mine when at ESPN Deportes, had been battling cancer, I’d learned recently, and he died this weekend at 51. Héctor was a tireless editor who worked long hours but always had a smile, he loved Disney and his homeland of Puerto Rico, his wife Marilyna Rodriguez and their two kids. He had worked for ESPN for more than 15 years, and his wife also works there. He will be dearly missed by many.

Another sudden-to-most death was that of former Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, who died of brain cancer at 57. Wakefield was dearly beloved by Red Sox fans as part of the team that “broke the curse” and won the World Series, also beloved by teammates, admired by sports executives and respected by journalists. He was deeply active in the community and won MLB’s prestigious Roberto Clemente Award, given each year to someone who stands out for giving back.

While writing this, I learned that Jim Caple, who wrote for ESPN for more than 15 years, also died this weekend at 61. I don’t know the cause. I greatly enjoyed his writing, and it is another sad loss for the sports world.

Four men, all gone far too soon. I don’t know the inner dreams or thoughts of any of them, but all certainly seemed to live pursuing dreams. Is that accurate? I don’t know. Yet none took the well-traveled path. All chose difficult routes in which few succeed, and all made it to places like the pinnacle - to win a World Series with the Red Sox, to give up a highly promising journalism career and to rise to assistant general manager of an NHL team despite being diagnosed with ALS in your late 1930s, to be a widely respected and beloved editor at ESPN and part of building the network for Spanish-speakers in the U.S.

I don’t know what dreams they left behind, in spite of having achieved so much at young ages. I do know that many of us push aside our dreams, putting them off until the time is right, until roadblocks are out of the way, until we have more money or less debt or less to distract us. But when we do that, there are no guarantees that we’ll have those years we think we will. There are no guarantees that we’ll live to be 80 or 90, or that we’ll have the health to pursue those adventures and ambitions.

I’ve always had a somewhat acute sense of the shortness of life, as my mom battled cancer for several years when I was a small girl. Thankfully, she survived, and while I have always packed a lot into life, I also let work dominate almost everything in my 20s, missing most of my friends’ weddings and girls’ trips and dating while I traveled 180 days a year as a sports reporter. When I left sports reporting to get my MBA at Wharton and Masters in International Studies at Penn’s Lauder Institute, I started to put more of a premium on life experiences beyond work. Yet I still got most of the need to live life to the fullest pounded into me in the typical way, by having a major health scare and nearly not coming out of it. I had a concussion that led to a stroke, I spent two years living as a shell of myself due to the extreme pain and other side effects from a 24/7/365 migraine. And as I regained my life, reshaping it along the way and pivoting in new directions, adapting in order to pay my medical loans and survive yet also in order to squeeze every lemon drop out of that sour lemon; I became what Spaniards would call a vividora or a disfrutona de la vida. That doesn’t mean I don’t work hard, I just try not to waste a lot of time. We don’t have much time. We truly don’t.

Please try to absorb the lesson before it bangs you on the head (mine was quite literal with a concussion!!). Squeeze all you can out of each day. There’s so much life to live, this world is rich with possibilities, and you can change the world in ways big and small, for one person or for many. Never forget that. And on the days you do, I do, think of someone who would love to have that day available to them.

Top articles of the last 2 weeks

  • On Hudson River Park contributing to revitalization of Manhattan West Side. Hudson River Park was essentially my “back yard” for many years living in Manhattan - where I ran, biked, sat in the park and read, laid out in the sun, got food with friends, watched sunrises and sunsets. Loved taking a look at how 25 years of Hudson River Park have improved the west side of Manhattan.

  • Analysis of Relevo and its launch - I have been enamored by Relevo Sports, a less-than-two-years-old sports media outlet in Spain which has provided tremendous coverage of the Spanish women’s soccer team that won the World Cup and all the aftermath of Rubiales and “se acabó” but also of other sports.

  • A look at my brother Brendan O’Brien’s new book “Homesick” on the housing crisis by a long-time reporter in our hometown, Ed Tibbetts

  • Illegal child labor being increasingly used. I would say my dad, who spent 40+ years enforcing violations of child labor, minimum wage and overtime; is turning over in his grave, but he’s still alive so he is just mad and shocked.

  • On Padres GM A.J. Preller

  • Electric vehicles and massive violation of human rights in their making

  • Relevo sobre las futbolistas, 24 horas claves

  • The warming hole in the middle of the country

  • Are Never Trumpers now just Democrats?

  • Agriculture and impact on climate in Iowa

  • Carbon inequality

  • Penn faculty member and now Nobel Prize winner Katalin Karikó and her long journey

  • Mapping climate risk around the U.S. - I found this fascinating. Unbeknownst to me, almost all my apartments in NYC were in extremely low-risk areas for the U.S., lowest 10-20%. Part of that is that I mostly lived in Manhattan, which has fewer high-risk areas than most of NYC; yet part of it is really random luck as at times I happened to wind up in a neighborhood or on one block just based on someone choosing me as roommate or landlord taking my application. That said, I think the lowest climate risk spot I lived in is where I was most impacted by climate - when I lived on Thompson Street in Soho and we were without power for almost a week after Hurricane Sandy, and on the next block (same low risk on the map), a favorite restaurant had to close permanently after more than $100,000 in flood damage. Nevertheless, it’s a super interesting map!

Podcasts

  • Lux Capital Securities podcast on democracy, broken elections, increased propensity to violence with ex-Trump admin figure turned whistleblower Miles Taylor 

  • Iowa’s role in the Underground Railroad

  • Tim Ferriss and Arthur Brooks on happiness, unhappiness and life choices

Books

  • Canción de Despedida - by Elisenda Hernández Janés - a wonderful novel about three friends who were close, with one other who has since disappeared, as teens and go on a vacation now in their 30s, but face up to traumas and life challenges they have mostly hidden from one another. Wonderfully done.

  • Chaos Kings: How Wall Street Traders Make Millions In the New Age of Crisis - by Scott Patterson

  • Los Cipreses Creen En Dios - José María Gironella - historical novel on years leading up to start of Spanish Civil War

  • After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics - and How To Fix It - by Will Bunch