Today in sports history -- Little Lake Nellie

Probably the saddest episode in Cleveland Indians history happened 15 years ago today on Little Lake Nellie in Clermont, Florida. Tribe pitchers Steve Olin, Tim Crews and Bob Ojeda had a little cookout and a couple of beers at Crews' ranch, and then Crews took his new teammates out on his power boat. After circling the lake once, Crews unwittingly drove the boat into a neighbor's dock. Olin was killed instantly from head and neck injuries; Crews died at 6 a.m. the next morning. Ojeda survived because he was slouching in his seat, but sustained serious injuries. Three members of the Indians' pitching staff were out at the start of the season -- two of them never to return. More importantly, two young women were widowed, and four young children were left fatherless.

I'll never forget the day Ojeda finally pitched on a major league mound again. It was Aug. 7, 1993 (I admit I had to Google that, but I knew it was fairly late in the season), and it was a road game, at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Ojeda came in about the sixth or seventh inning, and the Baltimore fans gave him a standing ovation, in recognition of what he and the Indians organization had been through that year. I found it very touching.

Five years ago, Jayson Stark did a 10-year retrospective on the tragedy, and here's a transcript of the look at it from "Outside the Lines" around that same time.