Mike Coolbaugh had a dream. It was the dream of countless boys and some girls (especially now in these post-Title IX days) – to play major league baseball. Just like his older brother, Scott. Maybe even better.

Imitating a big brother is common, admirable. Brothers should be close, and after Scott made the big leagues in 1989 with the Texas Rangers, little brother Mike, six years his junior, must have been convinced that his dream could come true. It came true for his big brother, so why not for him, too?

Sure, Scott was not a great player, but he was good. You have to be good to make the majors at all. Scott got into 25 games his first year with Texas and batted .275, the best he would ever hit in the major leagues. Primarily a third baseman, he played part time the next year for Texas and for San Diego in 1991. Then he drifted back to the minors to resurface for a final fling with St. Louis in 1994. He got into only 15 games that year, and finished his major league career with a .215 average for 167 games, a few more than one complete season. But he had played where it really counts, and you can’t take that away, ever.

Young Mike followed his brother into dreamland, even emulating his older sibling by playing third base. He got his start in 1990, while Scott was still playing in the majors, when the Toronto Blue Jays took him in the 16th round of the amateur draft. He signed eight days after the draft. When you’re a 16th-round draftee, you cannot afford to wait.

Nothing came easily for Mike. It took him over a decade to play his first major league game, long after Scott’s final big-league appearance. It was 2001, with the Milwaukee Brewers. Mike was 29 years old, way too old to still be much of a prospect. A career minor leaguer, to be honest, but his perseverance paid off. Mike appeared in 39 games that year and batted an even .200. Twice he hit the ball over the fence. Hitting a home run in the majors is something you can tell your children about, and their children. “Hey, Billy, my grandpa hit home runs in the majors.” Sure, it’s bragging stuff.

The next year, Mike made five appearances for St. Louis. He had 12 at-bats and hit safely once. He surely remembered that final hit, even if those final at-bats did lower his lifetime batting average to below .200, actually, .183. Not that he gave up after 2002. He kept trying. As recently as 2005, he inked a free-agent contract with the Kansas City Royals, but he would not make it back up. Mike knew for a long time that he was never going to be a great player, but he was not about to give up his dream completely.

Mike knew his baseball and could relate to other players struggling to succeed, so he stayed on, coaching. This summer he was doing what he loved, being part of baseball. Mike was with the Tulsa Drillers as hitting coach and first-base coach. It was Sunday, July 22, and the Drillers, an affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, were playing the Arkansas Travelers. Mike was coaching in the first-base coach’s box.

He apparently was not looking at the batter. A first-base coach spends a lot of his time not looking at batters, instead communicating with a runner on first base or seeing where the infielders are playing, and at the time Mike had a base runner to worry about. It was the ninth inning, the game almost over and his team trying to mount a comeback, when one of his players, Tino Sanchez, hit the ball hard but foul – the way a million balls have been hit. This one, though, was different.

The ball rocketed toward Mike and hit him in the neck. He was knocked unconscious, and medical personnel administered CPR. According to first-hand reports, he was alive when he was placed into an ambulance, but stopped breathing on the way to Baptist Medical Center in North Little Rock.

No one seemed to care much after that about the outcome of the game, which was suspended with the Travelers leading, 7-3. Next to Mike’s family, which included his wife and two young sons with a third child on the way, the person who must have been most devastated by the tragedy was Tino Sanchez. It was an accident, but he will carry that around with him for a long time.

According to a preliminary autopsy, the hard smash broke a blood vessel in Mike’s neck. The ball compressed an artery, which in turn compressed a vertebra at the base of the skull, causing a blood vessel to burst. It was a sad ending to a dream. Major league baseball is now considering having coaches wear helmets. That seems sensible, and some coaches have started wearing them already. Perhaps Mike’s death can at least save someone else’s life. That would be even better than those home runs.

Edward J. Rielly is a Westbrook resident, English professor at St. Joseph’s College and widely published author. During the past month he has had two more books published: “Old Whitman Loved Baseball and Other Baseball Poems” (from Moon Pie Press Westbrook) and “Sitting

Bull: A Biography” (Greenwood Press).

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