Man, is life fragile. And do we ever spend an enormous amount of time getting bent over trivial things. Which, I guess, is not as bad as it sounds, because that helps take one's mind off of the fact that ... life is fragile.

I'm flipping back and forth between ESPN and CNN for reports about the plane crash in Manhattan in which, most people are reporting, the Yankees' Cory Lidle was killed. He was on the A's when I was in San Francisco; in fact, I remember vividly that he was the starter in Game 5 of the ALDS in Oakland against the Yankees in 2000, when everyone had to rush back across the country one night after the Yankees had tied the series in the Bronx. The A's couldn't go with their Big 3 (Mulder, Hudson, Zito) on such short notice. Terence Long misplayed a fly to center in the first inning, Lidle got run early, and from that moment I've had a soft spot for him, battling in tough circumstances to keep his team alive. He always seemed like a good guy and definitely a gamer, always playing better than his ability would indicate. I hate that I'm now writing about him in past tense.

Of course, until this news broke, everything else around the Yankees seemed in total chaos, with everyone finding someone else to blame for the horrible, unacceptable, division-winning, best-record-in-the-AL, first-round-losing season. It's pretty hard to fret about whether they should trade A-Rod at a time like this.

And naturally, the news of a plane hitting a building in Manhattan - please. It wasn't what we all feared from five years ago, and thus you feel guilty for saying, "Thank God it was only a private jet and only two people got killed.''

Same thing down here. The hand-wringing over the Ravens' first loss of the season hasn't eased up, but it's not easy to get that upset after realizing that the team plane had to make an emergency landing in the middle of the night to get Corey Ivy medical help for the kidney injury he suffered in the Broncos' game. Internal injuries like that can't help but freak you out - appendices, spleens, kidneys. Always scarier than bones and ligaments.

Now they're reporting that they haven't been able to notify Lidle's wife yet. This gets sadder and sadder every second. And now some of the baseball people on ESPN are remembering where they were when they heard about Thurman Munson and Roberto Clemente. It will be hard to watch baseball tonight.

CORRECTION: Witness the dangers of blogging. It wasn't Cory Lidle who pitched that Game 5 in 2000; it was Gil Heredia. Lidle joined the A's the following season. I apologize. It doesn't take away from the impression that Lidle was a strong-willed pitcher who took the ball when asked, usually under tough circumstances and without the stuff the Big 3 had. Believe me, he did it plenty of times. But that's what I get for going off straight memory.

CLARIFICATION: My memory wasn't off by that much. I was thinking: Yankees series, chance to clinch, in Oakland, bad spot for a starter, fielding miscues behind him. I was just a year early. Game 4 in 2001 had Lidle as the ill-fated non-Big 3 starter, with the A's having won the first two games, then lost Game 3 on the Derek Jeter backhand relay at the plate. In Game 4, F.P. Santagelo booted a double-play grounder in the second that opened the door, and Johnny Damon misplayed a flyball to center in the third. Plus, Jermaine Dye broke his leg fouling off a pitch. The A's lost that and Game 5. Read about it here. See, I didn't get it too wrong. And yes, I did feel for him the rest of his career after that.