Close to home

Some of you know that I follow minor-league baseball pretty closely. I love prospects.

I found out last night that one of my favorite fellow minor-league enthusiasts, Brian Bluhm, was killed in the attack at Virginia Tech. Known to me usually as "VtTigers" and an active poster on my message board of choice, www.minorleagueball.com, Brian liked to share his ideas about Detroit's prospects in particular. He was a cool dude, a really level-headed guy who had strong opinions but always diffused disagreements with a laugh.

I got to know him after mentioning that former Tigers great Charlie Gehringer is my favorite player of all time. He was Brian's favorite player, too.

Just before a moment of silence at their game Tuesday, the Tigers mentioned Brian by name at Comerica. Tigers OF Curtis Granderson, who is my new favorite player, saw a newspaper story about Brian's love for the Tigers, contacted his family through MySpace and offered to do anything he could to help. If that's not cool, I don't know what is.

Brian would be so stoked about that.

RIP.