March 22, 1993 -- Baseball Talk

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Date Posted: 00:11:43 03/22/03 Sat
Author: Kathy
Subject: March 22, 1993

In Loving Memory...

03/16/03
The pain endures

The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Bob Dolgan

Little Lake Nellie covers only about 10 acres, not big enough to be shown on the Florida map. It looks like a friendly lake, a quiet place to fish or just sit and read a book under an oak tree as the water bumps against the shore.

A visitor unfamiliar with the lake could come by and cast a rod into the water and never realize it was the scene of one of the most terrible accidents in spring training baseball history.

Ten years ago, two Indians pitchers, Steve Olin, 27, and Tim Crews, 31, were killed there on March 22, 1993, when their motorboat crashed into a flimsy-looking dock on the lake. A third Cleveland pitcher, Bobby Ojeda, 35, suffered serious scalp injuries but survived.

The bare-bones dock is still there, stretching some 165 feet into the water, which stands at a higher level this year than it was in 1993. It stands on skinny legs, but its pylons were strong enough to hold fast when the open-air craft hit the pier, tearing off some planks and causing massive head and chest injuries to the three ballplayers.

The event jolted the baseball world, dominating newspaper pages for days.

"It's still an open wound," said John Hart, then the Indians general manager.

Montes lucky

Fernando Montes, who was the Indians' strength coach, was the first man on the scene after the crash. He was fortunate. He was supposed to be on the boat.

In fact, he was already in the craft when the men discovered they were missing some fishing gear.
Montes, Olin, and Ojeda played the hand game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to see who would have to get off the boat and retrieve the gear. Montes was the lucky loser. He went for the gear. Otherwise he likely would have been killed or seriously hurt.

Montes and another friend of Crews, who had arrived late, went back out and signaled for the boat to pick them up. The others were already on the lake, fishing for bass, on the cool, crisp evening. Crews, who was driving, saw the two men and veered toward them to bring them aboard. In the gathering dark, Crews never saw the dock and crashed. People in the area heard the noise and came running from all around the lake.

Montes saw the blood and head injuries. Ojeda was semi-conscious and was saying, "Help them, help them." Olin was killed instantly. Crews died the next morning.

Olin was rumored to have been nearly decapitated, his head being held to his neck by a single strand of flesh. "That is completely false," said Montes.
Montes has no explanation for the disaster. "It was a simple error," he said. "He made the turn too wide. Maybe he was talking."

In deference to the memory of the deceased men, Montes has never played "Rock, Paper, Scissors" again.

Alone in the crowd

Lt. Steve Moss, of the Lake County (Fla.) Sheriff's Department, was one of the investigating officers. He will never forget seeing a young woman sitting on the back of a vehicle on the shore, huddled with her knees drawn up under her chin.

"There were a lot of people around her," said Moss, looking back 10 years. "She was not a small woman, but she looked small. She seemed so alone, so isolated, even though there were all those people comforting her. She was the wife of the player who was killed instantly."

That was Patti Olin, the mother of Alexa, 3, and 6-month-old twins Garrett and Kaylee. Crews was survived by his wife, Laurie, and three children, Tricia, 10, Shawn, 4, and Travis, 3.

In a blood test later, it was found that Crews had an alcohol level over the legal Florida limit.

"That is an unfair judgment," said Montes, now the Texas Rangers strength coach. "In some states two beers will put you over the limit. I was there all day and I know they were not intoxicated."

It was a horrible end to what had been a beautiful day at the nearby Crews ranch. The families of the three players, along with Montes, had been picnicking, horseback riding and swimming.

Hargrove gets the call

Indians manager Mike Hargrove was told of the catastrophe when Montes phoned him at his apartment in Winter Haven about 9 p.m. Hargrove and his wife, Sharon, were having dinner with pitching coach Rick Adair and his wife, along with some Cleveland friends, when the call came. Patti Olin came to the phone. She and Sharon were close friends. "I need you here," Patti said grimly.

The Hargroves and Adairs immediately left the apartment and got into Hargrove's car. The manager drove to the site, which was about 35 miles north of Winter Haven. Nobody said a word on the way to the remote location. The manager was so upset that at one point he almost drove off the road.

When they finally reached Little Lake Nellie they saw ambulances, police cars, and huge lights. Crews and Ojeda were taken to a hospital by helicopter. Crews underwent an operation and died at 6 a.m. the next morning. Olin was still in the boat.

The scene in the Crews home was chaotic.

"There were so many children," Sharon Hargrove remembered. "Some did not understand what happened. Patti just stood there. I was surprised she was not crying. She was in shock."

Hargrove took a quick look at Patti and said, "You need a hug," and gave her a fatherly embrace. Hart also came to the house. They all stayed most of the night. Olin's frantic parents were on the phone from their home in Beaverton, Ore. They had been following the news reports on television.

Second guess

Hargrove regretted that he had given the team a day off from spring training that Monday. Hart and Los Angeles Dodgers chief Tom Lasorda had suggested the teams play an impromptu extra game that day. But Hargrove turned down the idea.
"I can't do that to the team," he said. "They've been looking to this off day for weeks."

Now Hargrove was telling himself if he had allowed the game to take place, the crash would not have happened. The Indians did not have a day off in spring training for the remainder of Hargrove's six years as Cleveland manager.

The Olins nearly missed the get-together. Patti said they had trouble finding Crews' house that day and almost went back to Winter Haven. If that had happened, Olin would have avoided the tragedy.
Life went on amid the sorrow. One of the Olin children needed a diaper. Patti asked Sharon Hargrove if she could go to the family's car and fetch some diapers, which were in the trunk.

Sharon could not open the trunk. She needed a key. She went back in the house and asked Patti for the key. Then Patti remembered. "Steve has the keys in his pocket," Patti said.

Mike Hargrove went to the boat and asked the police to get the keys from the dead man's pocket. "I'll never forget them handing me those keys," Hargrove said.

When the car trunk was opened, Olin's golf bag and a fishing pole were inside, along with the diapers. "It looked so full of life," said Sharon.
Wives kept away

The police would not allow the women anywhere near the boat. "Maybe it was better that way," said Patti. "If I saw Steve I'd have that vision the rest of my life."

Sharon drove Patti back to Winter Haven that night. When they passed the scene of the accident the young widow glanced over and said in despair, "How am I going to take care of the children?"

The next day, as Hargrove headed for the Winter Haven ballpark, he was profoundly depressed. He knew he would have to discuss the tragedy with the players and the media. "Lord, I can't do this," he thought, asking for divine help. "You'll have to take over."

"He liked Olin so much," Sharon said.

Hargrove walked into the clubhouse and simply told the players and coaches to pull up chairs and sit in a close circle. He invited them to say whatever they were feeling. The therapeutic session lasted more than an hour.

A memorial service for the deceased players was held in Winter Haven. Hargrove, Hart and former Indians first baseman Andre Thornton, whose wife and daughter had been killed in a car crash in 1977, all spoke.

"Every team sent a representative," Hart, now GM of the Texas Rangers, recalled.

"We all cried."

Hargrove's worry

"It was unbelievable how many players from other teams were there," recalled Hargrove, who was worried he would not be able to talk without crying.

Olin and his wife's favorite song, "The Dance" by Garth Brooks, was played. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. "It took Mike until mid-season to feel better," said Hart. "It was the most difficult time of my tenure."

When the Indians clinched the American League Central in 1995 and raised the flag after the game at Jacobs Field, Hargrove selected "The Dance," as the accompanying music, in memory of Olin.

The widows were both helped financially by the Major League Baseball Players Association. Each received a $1 million check. The association also pays them a pension as though their husbands had retired at 62. Olin will receive at least $2,800 a month for life, while Crews gets $5,000 a month.
Crews' wife received more because he was in the major leagues five years and 41 days. Olin was in the majors two years and 170 days, all with the Indians. Each child also receives $200 a month until age 19, or through age 23 if they are going to college.

"The money helped, but you'd be better off if you went to a store and ran the counter," said Sharon Hargrove. "The money is not the answer."

Out of the spotlight

Laurie Crews has not been giving newspaper interviews. Neither has Ojeda, who is a minor-league pitching coach for the New York Mets.
Crews is still living on the ranch near Little Lake Nellie. Friends believe she is not married. Her children now range in age from 20 to 13. In 1994, she was reported to be engaged to a man who had been hired to fix fencing on her ranch. It was stated he was awaiting sentencing for his role in a bank robbery before he met Laurie and was out on bond.

Patti decided to live in Westlake after the accident. When she came into the house for the first time, she saw a note from her dead husband, who had stopped there alone for a night on the way to spring training. "Welcome to our new house," the note said.

Patti could not stay in town. Before the season was over, she moved to Portland, near Olin's parents.

When another Indians pitcher, Cliff Young, died in a car wreck later in 1993, Patti joined the team's entourage to the funeral in Louisiana, to give support. She broke down in public for the first time, remembering Olin.

She found herself growing bitter over Olin's death. She kept thinking about the good life they had together. Olin had led the Indians in saves for the previous two years and seemed on his way to a stellar career after working his way up from the minor leagues. He finally had a guaranteed contract of $650,000 for each of two years.

She asked God how he could take away a fine person like Steve at such a young age, while many villains and hoodlums in society live to old age.

The gentlemanly Olin was the sort who would stop at the family room at the ballpark in spring training and actually watch Alexa play for a long time. Most of the other players would look into the room, say a perfunctory, "Be good now," and exit.

Comes to terms

She had trouble overcoming her feelings of guilt. "I finally realized that I was not being punished for something and that it was a random tragedy that happened to us," she said.

Patti met future husband Billy Winter through a mutual acquaintance, Tom Lampkin, a catcher who had played in the Cleveland farm system with Olin and lived in Portland.

They were married in February 1996. Gary Olin, Steve's father, walked her down the aisle, since Patti's father had died years before. Garrett was the ringbearer and Alexa and Kaylee were the flower girls. Steve's sisters, Joell and Heather, were bridesmaids.

"Billy got me back on the right track," Patti said. "He's a great person." They have a son, Sam, 3, who was born on Christmas Day. Winter, the golf coach at the University of Portland, played baseball against Olin in college.

The memory of Olin is always alive. Winter has many stories to tell about batting against him. "We talk about him all the time," Patti said.

Saw No. 31

Patti and Winter watch baseball on television but they saw only one game at a ballpark. They went to Seattle two years ago to see Lampkin's team play against the Indians. Chuck Finley pitched for Cleveland and wore Olin's old number, 31.

The old pain returned to Patti. She suddenly felt distressed. "It was not a good day," she said. "Secretly, I wished nobody else ever wore that number with the Indians."

She has not been to a game since.

Patti has not been back to Florida or Little Lake Nellie, either. "I'll never go there," she said.
Patti is thinking of visiting Cleveland to see friends, now that Olin's old teammates are gone. "It would be too hard if all the same players were there," she said.

If she comes she will take a drive past her old house in Westlake but she will not want to see the site of Cleveland Municipal Stadium, where Cleveland Browns Stadium now stands. It would bring back too many thoughts.

She keeps in touch with Sharon Hargrove. "I love Sharon," Patti said. "She's like a second mother to me." They call each other a few times a year and every Christmas. They do not talk on the anniversary of Olin's death.

"It really means a lot to me to know that people in Cleveland are still thinking of Steve," Patti said. "It makes me feel good."

Hargrove, now managing Baltimore, has never completely gotten over the shock of the accident.

"I relive it three or four times a year," he said.

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Replies:

Re: March 22, 1993 -- Seth, 09:41:34 03/22/03 Sat
Re: March 22, 1993 -- Seth, 09:42:55 03/22/03 Sat