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Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle died after his plane crashed into the a 50-story condominium building in New York City on Wednesday.

You can hunker down in your bedroom and barricade the doors and windows, and yet some mishap could still befall you. You can refrain from getting on an airplane and get killed in a car accident. You can tell yourself that eating raw fish is risky, and then get E. coli from tainted spinach.

I have a friend who has been taking flying lessons. He craves adventure and loves being among the clouds. Who am I to tell him he’s nuts, even thought I wouldn’t get up in a small plane if you gave me five parachutes? He might enjoy 30 to 40 years of perfect flights. He might have an accident tomorrow. He doesn’t have a contract with a professional sports team, but his life is just as important as Cory Lidle’s, and if that’s what he wants to do then that’s probably what he should do.

I’m not an aviation expert, so I don’t know why Lidle’s plane crashed into that Manhattan building, and I’m not sure the aviation experts will ever know, either. It does appear that the second person in the plane was his flight instructor. Even the most experienced pilots or skydiving teachers are not immune to Mother Nature, the unexpected twists of technology, or human error.

It’s clear that after Thurman Munson died while piloting his plane in 1979, all the sports leagues did not come together and forbid employees from flying while they were under contract. Many athletes have since taken up the activity. The list of sports figures who have died in plane crashes is long.

What is often forgotten about the Munson accident is that two companions on that flight were injured but did not perish. It was not their time. It was Munson’s time, as sad as that is.

If you’re a representative of a sports team, you can draw up a contract that prohibits an athlete from activities that might bring about his time. But lots of contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, especially those that contain unrealistic terms.

Cory Lidle flew his plane Wednesday because he wanted to fly, and no amount of contract language would have changed that. It’s a time for those who knew him to mourn, and for those who didn’t to refrain from second-guessing.

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