Pete Pavusek

Pete was the best man at my wedding and I was his best man. When I got married, I was struggling to get by in community college. By the time he got married, he was well on his way to a graduate degree from a small school in Tennessee.

Pete and I met when we played on the same Little League Baseball team. He was a slick fielding shortstop who used to pout like a baby when he didn't get a hit, which led to long animated lectures from his mother and father -- two angels from my developmental years.

Our love of baseball sparked a lifelong friendship. We traded baseball cards together, Pete's mom even brought me to a few card shows. We wore out the garage door at my mother's house by playing fast pitch with a tennis ball. Sometimes we played at Max Bear Park, too.

One time I went with Pete and his mother to see the Red Sox and A's play at the Oakland Coliseum. I thought it would be neat to fold a piece of paper into an airplane and throw it from the mezzanine level. A security guard saw me do it and to my horror motioned for me to come talk with her.

I was embarrassed as hundreds of fans saw me get a stern talking to from this woman. Pete's mom never said anything to me, but she had to be horrified. Thank goodness I didn't get kicked out of the game.

I was prone to thoughtless and foolish behavior during that period of my life, yet Pete and his mother always invited me to spend a week each summer with them at a friend's cabin in a remote part of California. One time while at this place, I was messing around with Pete's BB gun, acting like I was holding him off as I shot it near him, yet far enough away not do any harm.

That's what I thought, anyway, until he started screaming and clutched his calf. I never was a marksman, unlike my dear, sweet wife.

Throughout high school, Pete was the gold standard for what a friend should be. My mother loved him. She still communicates with Pete's mother.

He used to ride a red moped over to my house. As he got older he used the red moped less and less and started driving his dad's 1971 Ford LTD, which, after Pete and his family moved back east, later became my first car. I paid $600 cash for it.

Pete was a Granada Matador, Class of 1988, and one of the best friends a guy could have. He is now a school teacher somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee. He also coaches baseball and, I'm confident, does a splendid job of teaching cocksure boys how to be young men of stature.