February 25, 2008 12:09 am
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By Jim Henry
jhenry@joplinglobe.com
His Missouri Southern baseball teammates remember Danny Sickles’ sense of humor.
“He’s the funniest man I’ve ever met in my life, without a doubt,” said center fielder and roommate Juan Hernandez. “Since he was 7 years old, he’s the funniest guy I’ve ever met.
“You couldn’t be sad around him. You couldn’t be upset around him. He would break the ice with something. You could be mad at the world. You could be mad at anything going on, and he would be the guy who would say something and brighten the mood, to get you out of the funk. It was really good to have him around as long as I did.”
“Danny wouldn’t let you be serious,” said pitcher and roommate Jacob Garrison. “If it was one of those moments where everybody was serious, Danny would give you that smile, or more creatively do something that you couldn’t do anything but laugh.
“Danny was a character that God brought into this world to make everybody smile. He made the world a happier place for us to be around. Baseball and college sports can be a long drag, a lot of practice and work. Danny is the guy who made it tolerable. He made it OK to go practice, and he was even better to come home and live with.
“We were jokesters together. He and I could sit for hours, making jokes at each other, and that’s what I’m going to really miss, my friend that I could joke with.”
Sickles, 20-year-old pitcher from Orlando, Fla., was found dead at his home Saturday night. The cause of his death is unknown, but school officials reported he had been battling influenza for a few days.
Sgt. Kevin Klink of the Joplin Police Department said an autopsy would be performed today.
Rod Surber, public information director for MSSU, said the university’s counseling team would be meeting with the team.
Sickles threw a 25-pitch bullpen session and jogged 20 minutes on Friday.
“It was the best he’s thrown in a while,” Garrison said. “We went out on Friday night, went shopping at the mall, got a bite to eat at the mall, rented a movie.
“We talked about baseball the whole night. We had a rough week the week before, and all Danny was saying was ‘I’m going to turn it around. The team is going to turn it around.’ Nothing but positive. It was the same Danny Sickles I’ve known ever since I met him.”
“I talked to him Friday night,” said Brian Sickles, Danny’s father. “About 10:30, I was on my way to work. I called him. He was hanging out with a bunch of buddies. He didn’t complain about anything, but I know last Sunday he was sick in bed the whole day.
“My wife (Stacey) spoke with him Friday also. He said he was doing a little better. That’s why we can’t figure out what went wrong.”
The baseball team and Sickles’ parents gathered Sunday night at head coach Bryce Darnell’s home. Brian Sickles told the team Danny would be buried in Florida wearing his Missouri Southern uniform and with the baseball his teammates signed.
“We came up (Sunday), and I can’t believe how nice everybody has treated us,” Brian said. “People in the hotel, then coming over here to Coach’s house, it’s been unbelievable. Everybody has been so supportive, helped us try to get through this. It definitely helps.”
“This is so unthinkable,” Darnell said. “It’s more unthinkable from a parents’ standpoint. My heart aches for Danny’s parents and Danny’s two brothers. We’ll do the best we can in terms of grieving with Danny’s family.”
Hernandez played baseball with and against Sickles in Orlando and recruited him to Missouri Southern.
“I called him all summer. I got in contact with Coach Darnell a lot over the summer,” Hernandez said. “It took a little pulling and pushing. We worked out a lot together over the summer, and every time I’d talk to him ... ‘You should come up. It’s nice.’ I didn’t tell him about the weather. ... He hasn’t been real happy with me over this winter, but the big thing was he wanted to play somewhere he knew somebody. We’ve competed at a pretty high level together in Florida, so it was good for both of us.”
“One thing I remember is he hates the weather,” Darnell said. “That’s the Florida blood in him.”
“When we came up here, it was 104 the first day we got here,” Brian Sickles said. “So it was hotter than Florida. But I told him it was going to be cold. When we moved to Florida, he was 6 years old. He didn’t remember what it’s like to be in the cold.”
Danny Sickles was not a bookworm, but his father marveled at his son’s ability to retain information.
“He was like a genius to me,” Brian Sickles said. “He would never pick up a book or study very rarely, but every bit of information stayed in his head. He always did good on tests and in school, and he never really had to study.
“He was a real bright kid who had a real bright future, in baseball or whatever it would have been. He was going to try to be an accountant, and he would have been successful in that, too.”
Globe reporter Joe Hadsall contributed to this story.
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