Senseless death of 9-year-old girl hits hard

Shootings like Saturday's in Tucson are referred to as assaults on all of us.

Sometimes that sounds like a cliché because the tragedy is distant. This time it hit close enough to home to be real.

Six were killed in Arizona, including a federal judge, and 14 were wounded, including a U.S. Congresswoman critically.

Then there was the 9-year-old girl who died, which makes you want to cry your eyes out even before learning that she was the granddaughter of former Cubs' general manager Dallas Green.

According to the Arizona Star newspaper, the third-grader “already told her parents she wanted to attend Penn State one day and have a career that involved helping those less fortunate than her. She also loved animals and was a passionate dancer who loved ballet, hip-hop, jazz and gymnastics and was the only girl on her Canyon del Oro Little League Baseball team, ‘The Pirates.' She played second base.

That last sentence alone could tear your guts out: “She played second base.”

Christina-Taylor Green was born on 9/11 — yes, that 9/11 — and attended Saturday's event at a supermarket because she wanted to meet U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Remember, this is a 9-year-old we're talking about. If her death breaks your heart, imagine what it is doing to Dallas Green.

Green left the Cubs in 1987, when he and parent Tribune Company had, well, let's just say philosophical differences.

During Green's seven years here, I had the opportunity to sit with him in his office or in the stands hours before a game to talk baseball. He taught me as much about the game as anybody else could.

But that's not important today. It's just an example of how the tragedy in Arizona reverberates through baseball in a six-degrees-of-separation manner.

The 9-year-old's father, John Green, is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose general manager is Ned Colletti.

A Chicagoan known well by most of us still around from back then, Colletti was hired by the Green regime to work in the Cubs' public-relations department.

Round and round it goes: Green must be devastated over the loss of his granddaughter. Colletti must be devastated for the Greens. I ache for all of them, even the ones I don't know.

I did know Dallas Green, an interesting character. Some didn't like his confrontational bent toward people, but he and I got along fine.

Green was a difficult. His relationship with the media often was contentious, just as it could be with his bosses, managers, players and others.

Back then Green was a John Wayne type, a large guy who talked tough and always saw himself as being in control.

Maybe the lesson over the weekend was that no one — not Dallas Green or John Wayne or anyone else — is in control when a crazed gunman goes on a shooting spree.

I was shocked like most Americans after hearing about the tragedy Saturday. Then, being Jewish and learning that Rep. Giffords is the first Jewish woman from Arizona to serve in Congress, I hoped as a sidebar that the shooter's motive wasn't anti-Semitism.

Finally, it struck even deeper here Sunday — as it did in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles and other places around baseball where the Greens have worked — after hearing of the 9-year-old girl's passing.

This time “an assault on all of us” meant even more than it usually does.