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I went to Mike's viewing on Sunday, mostly because a very close family friend is one of Mike's cousins and I wanted to be there for her and her family. It was agonizingly emotional for everyone there. I could only imagine if he had been my friend and teammate. At best, Mike and I were nothing more than adversarial compe ors who shared a lot of fields with each other -- always him shining far brighter than me. I spent a lot of my high school days despising Mike in a compe ive sense, because it seemed that Roosevelt always beat us.
I vividly recall the clipboard incident. It brought about an immediate change in my sentiments towards Mike. That game was between an undefeated Judson team and an undefeated Roosevelt team that was something of an upstart in that district. Things didn't go well early for Roosevelt in the first half (they were down something like 21-0) and, as I understood the course of events, Ferrara -- who was reputed to be quite a hothead (my junior year, he pulled his team off the field to protest a call that went against them) -- entered the dressing room and threw the clipboard.
I have little doubt that it's proximity to Mike was not a coincidence -- everyone around in those days knew that Mike was that team's leader and a damned good quarterback (he was the consensus All-City First Team QB in 1989, besting players like Kyle Allen (who played at University of Houston, IIRC) and Mike Jinks (who played in 2 state le games while at Judson) among others. He was good enough that he had opportunities to play football at places like BYU, Purdue, and LSU but decided to play baseball. In any event, I don't think Ferrara was just randomly throwing his clipboard and his asinine rage cost Mike a couple of games and, I'm sure, a great deal of anguish. His cousin told me yesterday that until the clipboard incident, Mike was always a football player first and a baseball player during the football off-season. I'm told -- though I don't know -- that the clipboard incident forever altered his view of those things.
One thing that immediately struck me about about the ceremonies on Sunday was just how many people came to pay their respects and express their grief. Obviously, a large percentage of the younger people there were friends and teammates from Mike's days at Roosevelt; but I did notice other guys who were my age who played at other schools but felt some need to be there. There weren't many dry eyes in the house. A screen at the front of the room, just to the left of the casket played a slideshow of pictures from his life, mostly pictures from his baseball playing days. It included a short video clip of his first major league home run. It also included video from his wedding reception. The whole thing evoked such a profound sadness from most, if not all, who were there.
