There are those whose misfortune gives us some quiet pleasure, or affirms some idle and uncharitable judgment of their character. Not so Dontrelle, who was a mess in Detroit, the victim of injuries and what appeared to be the sudden and sinister disappearance of whatever alchemy he’d harnessed in Miami. Even when it was clear he didn’t have what had once made him so dominant, he still inspired a kind of good-natured boosterism in fans. Something about that smile, something about that motion, something about the blazing memory of what he too-briefly was—whatever the reason, no one who cared about baseball did not care about Dontrelle, or want him back.

— “The D-Train at Rest,” on the retirement of Dontrelle Willis, for Vice Sports