With a heavy heart, Perez gets big hit

— -- SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Giants outfielder Juan Perez was preparing himself in a training room near the team's dugout early in Game 5 Sunday when he overheard a major league official outside the door say that St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras had been killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic.

What? Oscar had been killed? Perez could not believe it. This cannot be true, he thought. Please, do not let this be true, he pleaded. Taveras was just 22 years old. Perez and Taveras, good friends and former teammates in the winter leagues, had played against each other just 10 days earlier in the National League Championship Series.