The most wondrous night in the life of the supernova known as Yordano Ventura was Oct. 28, 2014, when all the promise and potential and thrill he was capable of crystalized in a majestic performance in Game 6 of the World Series.
What was unforgettable wasn't just that Ventura pitched seven scoreless innings in a 10-0 victory over San Francisco that enabled the Royals to reach Game 7.
It was the mystical aspect to it all as Ventura sought to honor friend and Dominican countryman Oscar Taveras, the rising Cardinals star who had died in a car crash two days before.
Ventura's hat that was soon bound for the Baseball Hall of Fame, It bore the inscription, "RIO O.T. #18," and he also had etched tributes to Taveras in his glove and shoes and on Twitter.
"All for you my brother. Wherever you are, I will always remember you, bro," Ventura wrote, roughly translated from Spanish. "You do not know the pain you left on my (heart)."
And now, suddenly on a late Saturday night, it's Ventura's death that pierces from Kansas City throughout Major League Baseball to the Dominican Republic, which treasures its baseball heroes and no doubt will be convulsed in grief for days to come.
Ventura, 25, died in a car crash about which little was known as of midday Sunday.
What we know, though, is enough.
A vibrant young man is gone too soon, leaving an excruciating void in a city that embraces its athletes as its own and an organization that cultivated and in some ways helped raise Ventura.
A mercurial player who at times was confounding on the diamond is gone, and now you are left to think about what his true essence was.
Whatever was behind the veil in Ventura's life, off the field he was a radiant guy "full of youthful exuberance and always brought a smile to everyone he interacted with," as Royals general manager Dayton Moore put it in a statement on Sunday.
There always seemed perhaps more to Ventura's story than what we could see, or maybe it was just the language barrier.
But there was no mystery in that sweet face, or the warmth you could see between him and his teammates and with fans.
And it's hard not to just cry thinking about his smile, isn't it?
It's telling, too, that even with his meteoric rise he was never happier than when he returned to the Dominican to see his mother ... or go back to the ballfield where he first played ... and to the beach and eat at his favorite place, Restaurant Luis.
"I don't want to go anywhere else, because these are the people who loved me," he said as he ate lobster there accompanied by friends and visitors from The Star in January 2015. "I want to live here for the rest of my life."
In time, his story will seem like the stuff of myth, rising out of a remote region of the Dominican to become part of the core of the Royals revival ... only to die with so much that still seemed ahead of him despite his struggles the last two seasons.
Ventura grew up in a tourist region known for its mountains, beaches, fishing, annual migration of North Atlantic humpback whales, and on a 2014 trip there he showed The Star where he often swam _ a practice he believed to be the well-spring part of his arm development.
He dropped out of school at 14 in what he has alternately described as a spat with a teacher and the need to help his mother and sister financially after his father left for Germany.
Although Ventura was only about 5 feet 6 and 125 pounds when the Royals signed him as a non-drafted free agent in 2008, he would tell you that this, too, figured in his arm strength:
He worked at his grandfather's hardware store, and he drove a truck, mixed cement and lugged concrete blocks.
Other major-league players have come from the region, Las Terrenas.
Still, then-Royals scout Pedro Silverio couldn't believe what he was seeing when he first witnessed the wispy Ventura.
After watching him repeatedly uncork pitches into the 90s and a deft curve and changeup, Silverio believed Ventura could pitch in the major leagues ... that day.
Though he appreciated Silverio's breathless report about the budding flamethrower, Victor Baez was puzzled. The field director of the Royals' Dominican Academy laid eyes on the scrawny kid and said, "You?!"
"Yes," Ventura told him, "I'm the pitcher."
Yes, it turned out, he was.
And through all his ups and downs, the bumps in the minors and curious tantrums and puzzling inconsistencies in the majors, he was a comet across the sky for the Royals and their fans _ a wonder abruptly gone.
