You can bet that he and the coaching staff and the players talked about Lidle. But you know that none of them were thinking that Lidle’s death made it clear that it doesn’t really matter who wins the ballgame and the series.

Peterson would feel more genuine grief than most of us. He knew Lidle well and liked and admired him. But he, too, isn’t going to step back from the game that is his job because he realizes it’s not really important.

Once the teams take the field and the game starts, no one in the stadium is going to be thinking about perspective. It’s going to be about pitch counts and location and defense and clutch hitting and all the threads that go into the tapestry that is a ballgame.

Peterson felt it all. On the one hand, he talked about how insignificant a game is. On the other, he said, "I don’t wan to diminish how proud we are to get to the second round of the playoffs and what it meant to all of us and what it means to the city and everybody involved."

Death had intruded where it’s not supposed to tread. It had taken one who is not supposed to die. It reminded everyone that another cliché, the one about none of us ever knowing when our time is up, is really as true as any words ever spoken.

In a way, it made you look forward even more to the ballgame and the first pitch that would take us away from the real world where people die; the insignificant game that makes life so much richer and worth living.

The last thing Peterson said to the media was poetic: "You feel like your soul is just totally bruised right now."

And then he left to get ready to play a game.

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