Eighteen years ago, the Cleveland Indians were in a similar place to where they are today. They were a team trying to find its way, a mish-mash of veterans and younger players who believed that regardless of roster, every spring provided some sort of new hope.
And for most clubs, it really does. But for the Indians of 18 years ago, that hope ended quickly, horribly.
It was March 22, 1993. The Indians were given the day off from spring training, and new pitcher Tim Crews invited a few teammates to his ranch. Crews had just come over from the Los Angeles Dodgers and wanted to get to know some of the guys in the rotation.
Crews' family was joined by pitchers Steve Olin and Bob Ojeda, and a few others. Following a day of cooking out, horseback riding and swimming, Crews invited Olin, Ojeda and Indians strength coach Fernando Montes for an after-dusk boat ride on Little Lake Nellie. The lake was on the edge of Crews' ranch in Clermont, Fla., not far from the Indians' spring training facility in Winter Haven.
After boarding the boat, the men realized they had forgotten some gear, and played a game of "rock, paper, scissors," to see who would go get it. Montes lost and exited the boat, while Olin, Crews and Ojeda took it for a spin as they waited for Montes to return.
According to an Associated Press report, "Crews circled the lake and signaled to a friend who had joined Montes ashore that he was going to make one more trip around."
Moments later, the boat smashed into a neighbor's dock.
Olin and Crews were standing up at the time of the accident. Olin died instantly from chest and head injuries. Crews was airlifted to a hospital, where he died the next morning. Ojeda suffered severe injuries to his scalp, but survived -- mainly because he was slouched in his seat at the time of the collision.
In a matter of moments, the '93 Indians were changed forever. Both as an organization as a whole and as individuals who were associated with that particular team.
"It was a shock throughout the organization, we all felt it,"; former Indians first baseman Jim Thome, who was in his first season with the team in '93, told the AP. "I always remember it. It doesn't go away."
Mike Hargrove, the Indians manager at the time, agreed. "I relive (the accident) three or four times a year," he said on the 10-year anniversary.
Several weeks later, the Indians opened the season at home against the New York Yankees. The game was played at old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a considerably bigger venue than their home today, Progressive Field.
Those in attendance recall that opener as anything but a celebration of a new season. It was more like a memorial, with 80,000 fans in tears.
Olin was just 27 years old, Crews just 31. They left behind families, friends, and thousands of fans. Ojeda was understandably never the same, becoming a free agent at the end of the season and signing with the Yankees. He pitched two games for them in '94 before being released. Today, he is a pre- and post-game analyst for local broadcasts of New York Mets games, and is married with a son and five daughters.
Meanwhile, the '93 Indians lost the emotional season opener and went on to finish the season 76-86. But two years later, they would reach the World Series with many of the same players from that '93 team.
"It changed the whole team, the whole chemistry," said former Indians catcher and current first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. "We never recovered because of the way it happened. Three guys, in a boat, on a day off..."
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Several members of the FOX Sports Ohio family would like to share their individual memories from that day. We invite you to include your memories in the comments section or on our Facebook page.
Hal McCoy, member of the Baseball Hall Of Fame/Sportswriter, FOXSportsOhio.com
The Cincinnati Reds trained in Plant City, Fla. in 1993, just a few miles west of Winter Haven, where the Indians trained at the time.
The Tribe and the Reds played each other many times each spring, but what struck me that year was that 1993 was the first year the Indians trained in Winter Haven after many years in Tucson, Ariz.
Had they still been in the desert on that fateful day, a day off from camp for the Tribe, Crew, Olin and Ojeda more likely would have been in a Jeep or an ATV on the desert rather than on a high-speed boat in Little Lake Nellie.
The first thing that crossed my mind after hearing about the accident was that it was another case of young men feeling invincible, having that "Nothing will happen to me."
Why else would be on the lake in the dark with no running lights turned on traveling close to 50 miles an hour after Crews had enough beer to be determined legally intoxicated.
So sad, so sad.
It was the talk of the Reds camp for the rest of spring training, how two young pitchers lost their lives senselessly and how another nearly lost his life.
Fishing seems to be a favorite pastime for many baseball players, but I remember Reds' captain Barry Larkin saying, "I don't think I can go out on my boat for a while."
And Larkin was such a devout fisherman that when the Reds moved to Sarasota, Fla., Larkin drove a truck to the stadium every day, towing a fishing boat behind it.
Barry McBride, Digital Content Manager/Sportswriter, FOXSportsOhio.com
In 1993, I was in a very different world than I am now, working away from home with a team of technical architects to design a huge imaging system for a large mortgage bank. My wife was home by herself dealing with our 1-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. Technology was different, banks were different, I was different. The client was in Columbus, so I traveled to be at their site five days a week, living out of hotels, rental cars and suitcases.
The moment I learned of the tragedy at Little Lake Nellie has been burned into my mind forever. I was driving to the client, listening to the radio, hearing intimations of some sort of bad news with the Indians. I initially thought it was some sort of joke, playing off how horrible the Indians often were, until I was rounding up the entrance ramp to Route 23 in Dublin. Then I learned what happened, and was stunned. I almost had to pull off the road, and the image of that entrance ramp is blazed into my mind. I remember exactly where I was. I will never forget it.
If they know me at all, Cleveland sports fans know me as a fan of the Cleveland Browns who built the Orange and Brown Report. But in '80s and early '90s, the Indians were my primary sports love, and I was obsessive. I went to dozens of games a year until I became a father, and Tuesday and Friday night games on Channel 43 were special nights. I loved that team, and the tragedy hit me like a hammer to the head. I continually thought in the years that followed, how Olin, Crews and a healthy Ojeda could have helped the Indians win it all. Around 2007, I started falling out of love with the Indians, for personal reasons. But the impact of that day has never, ever diminished.
Sam Amico, Sportswriter, FOXSportsOhio.com
I was working as a part-timer at the Akron Beacon Journal that night. I remember seeing an alert come across the Associated Press wire. First, it was just a notice that there had been a boating accident at Little Lake Nellie near the Indians' training facility in Winter Haven.
A few moments later, there was another alert that some Indians may have been in the boat. I remember each update providing a little more information, but no names and nothing overly specific.
Then all of sudden, another update came that told everything -- that Indians pitchers Steve Olin, Tim Crews and Bob Ojeda were in the boat, that the boat had smashed into a dock, that Olin had died, and that Crews and Ojeda were badly hurt. (Crews died the next morning.) I remember everyone on the copy desk seeming to read that update at the same time, because a big hush came over the entire sports department. It's not something you're prepared for in any walk of life.
After reading the news, I remember my immediate thought as being that life can change, and end, so quickly. Then everyone quickly got to work, moving stories around on the pages and replacing them with what was sure to be a season-long story. And it was. But it was one of those stories, in sports or otherwise, you never want to cover.
Jeff Seemann, Digital Content Coordinator/Sportswriter, FOXSportsOhio.com
I was 23 years old on the night of Little Lake Nellie. The Cleveland Cavaliers were in a neck-and-neck battle with Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls for the Central Division crown, so naturally I was watching the sports news to get the latest on the race.
But the broadcast was very different that night.; Dark and hazy images of a dock on a lake in Florida were barely visible through the flashing police lights. That image is burned into my brain and is the only image I can recall that night through my shock.
I had tickets to the home opener two weeks later with my best friend and his family. The 1993 season opener was supposed to be a celebration, as it would be the last at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Instead, that day turned into a giant funeral service that still leaves me numb when I recall it.
The fans of Cleveland sports are truly special because no matter what their teams' chances are, they always show up and they always truly believe that this will be the year everything changes. But on this day, the aura of death lingered over the entire city, the entire state, the entire sport.
I am a Cleveland sports fan. I can take losing. I can accept failure and misery. Losing a game or a championship is easy.
The Shot, The Drive, The Fumble, The Decision, you name it. I can take those over and over again. Just please don't ever let me go through anything like Little Lake Nellie again. That's a loss I can't handle.
