A WIN FOR THE WITNESSES
For those who saw Farquhar in peril, there’s inspiration in seeing him recover
Drmorrissey@ suntimes. com | @ MorrisseyCST anny Farquhar’s ruptured brain aneurysm and rapid recovery have touched many people, most of whom have never met the White Sox pitcher. Their cards, texts, tweets and prayers came from all over the country.
Why did this particular crisis have such an impact?
There are plenty of convenient answers. He’s a professional athlete, and Americans worship at the altar of sports celebrity. He’s only 31. He’s married with three young children. Decent explanations, all of them, but they don’t fully satisfy.
There’s something more visceral here, something that better explains the outpouring of support he has received from complete strangers: We saw the crisis happen. We saw it play out — live, if we were watching the game on April 20, or via a replay bombardment in the days that followed.
It’s one thing to watch an athlete get injured on the field of play. We take that for granted. We’ve seen the warrior being carried off on his shield so many times, we’re almost numb to it. This was a seemingly healthy pitcher collapsing in the Sox’ dugout at Guaranteed Rate Field for reasons that weren’t clear to us. We could see teammates and staff lift his limp body.
It’s hard to watch someone so strong become so vulnerable in a matter of seconds. We didn’t know what we were witnessing until after the fact, but not knowing didn’t erase what we had seen.