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March 30

BLUFFTON — Bits of gravel and shards of glass embedded in Todd Miller's right hand are among the few signs that he was in Atlanta.

That he survived the Bluffton bus crash.

The doctors didn't want to remove the debris, and in a weird way Miller is glad it's there. Even when a twinge of pain creeps in, it's a badge of honor.

"Like shrapnel," he says.

At 23, Miller's soft features, lean athletic stance and buzz cut make him look more like a player than an assistant coach. But circumstances have him leading the Bluffton University baseball team in one of the most difficult situations imaginable.

Hanging in the outfield, illuminated by the March sun, are the white banners for Tyler, David, Scott, Cody and Zach.

The boys who didn't make it.

Just four weeks earlier, on March 2, Miller was launched like a missile through the front window of the bus as it crashed into the wall on the Northside Drive overpass in Atlanta. Miraculously — he doesn't know how — he stayed on the overpass while the bus plunged 30 feet onto Interstate 75.

Plunged the team into the nation's consciousness.

It's a day no one wants to remember and no one can forget. That's why today's game is so important. To Miller. Hell, to everybody. After the nightmare of Atlanta, it's a chance to play baseball again.

As the team kneels to pray, Miller can hear the cameras clicking from behind the right-field fence. "I guess this is a good photo op," he says to himself. "Look at all of them. It's like we're playing in the bigs."

Before Atlanta, the Bluffton faithful had high hopes for this season. Never a baseball powerhouse, even among the nine small schools from Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky that make up the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference, Bluffton last year climbed from the bottom of the conference to the respectable middle. The team posted a 10-11 league record and nearly qualified for the postseason tournament.

But as the players take the field for the first time since the crash, the reminders of Atlanta are hard to miss, and not just because of those banners hanging from the left-field fence.

Some 2,500 people — the biggest crowd ever to watch the Beavers play — surround Sears Field as they take on the College of Mount St. Joseph, one of the teams in the HCAC. A dozen or so television trucks from around the state block views of the bucolic Allen County campus. At least 100 reporters and photographers are here for the game. Before Atlanta, there were lots of times when 100 fans didn't show up for games.

Since Atlanta, nothing is the same.

In the press box sits James Grandey, the fiery head coach whose thinning hair makes him look older than his 29 years. Grandey, who in four seasons has turned around a program that went 2-19 in the conference before he got here, would ordinarily be down on the field, teaching, leading and, yes, yelling. But he can't walk because metal rods protrude from his mangled foot, and he can't yell, or even talk much above a whisper, because wires hold his fractured jaw in place. His absence from the dugout is as conspicuous as the black jerseys the team is wearing in place of the usual purple and white.

Nothing is the same.

Ryan Baightel, the shortstop Grandey recruited as much for his character as his talent, runs to his position with the glove the Red Cross helped salvage from the wreckage, a glove that still reeks of diesel fuel.

Mike Ramthun, the Beavers' right fielder and cleanup hitter, can't walk without assistance and shows up for the opener on an electric scooter.

Greg Sigg, the all-conference first baseman, has a fractured nose and several broken facial bones, but he's playing anyway. Cosmetic surgery to repair the damage will have to wait until after the season.

And then there's third baseman Austin Gray. Everybody on this team lost somebody, but for Austin it was his best friend, and he's having a hard time shaking the gloom he's been dragging around since Atlanta.

Austin and Cody Holp had been teammates since they played on the same Lewisburg-based travel team for 11- and 12-year-olds. They were going to be roommates next year. Cody was one of those guys who could crack up a whole room. Always saying off-the-wall stuff. When Grandey handed out hats to the team before the Florida trip, he barked, "If any of you guys are going to quit, give me your hats back." There was dead silence. Then Cody, one of the youngest players on the team, started laughing. Grandey asked what was so funny. "Well," Cody said, "why would you quit?"

The morning of the crash Austin remembers a big thud, followed by a sensation of rolling downhill and then a loud bang. He doesn't remember getting out of the bus, but he must have, and as soon as he could he called his parents, telling them he was OK. He had a black eye and his hip hurt, but it's the memory of what he said next that won't leave his head.

"Dad," he screamed into the phone. "I can't find Cody!"

In the second inning of the game against the College of Mount St. Joseph, Austin steps into the batter's box thinking a million things.

Thinking one thing.

"Hey, Cody," he says to his friend. "Help me get a hit here."

Feb. 17

Twelve days

before the trip

"Dude, you're definitely making it," Austin Gray tells Cody Holp, as they wait for the posting of the traveling roster for the Bluffton team's annual spring trip to Florida. "You're one of our top pitchers. Don't even think like that."

When Cody asks his former Tri-County North teammate again, Austin looks at him with mock disgust and says, "You're an idiot."

At 10 a.m. Grandey posts the sheet in the locker room. It's broken down by classes in alphabetical order with juniors at the top — there are no seniors on the team — and freshmen on the bottom.

Talk about torture. Cody is sweating the news so much he asks fellow freshman A.J. Ramthun, Mike's brother, to come with him to look over the list. But A.J., a utility infielder from Springfield, thinks his propects for making the team are worse than Cody's. He can't bear to look just yet.

Cody is alone when he scans the list of freshmen: Zach Arend ... Lukas Baumgartner ... Will Grandlinard ... Scott Harmon ... Cody Holp.

He's in.

A.J. had made Cody promise not to tell him if his name wasn't there, so when A.J. sees him he asks, "Did you look?"

"Nope. You told me not to."

A.J. is trembling as he works his way to the bottom of the 28 names on the dreaded list. When he gets to No. 28 — smack.

"There you are," Cody says, giving A.J. a rap on the back so hard it knocks him forward.

"So, you're sitting with me on the bus, right?" A.J. asks.

"Yep," Cody says.

They start counting down the days.

Thursday, March 1

6:30 p.m.

Leaving Bluffton

With 57 seats on the motorcoach and 33 passengers, including coaches and managers, freshmen are expected to double up and share rows on the trip. Sophomores too, if necessary.

Juniors, the elder statesmen, get two seats each. Coach Grandey, four.

Ryan Baightel, last year's co-captain from Wapakoneta, stakes out a spot in the back on the driver's side. One seat for him, one for his stuff.

Sophomore Tyler Williams from Lima also gets a row to himself across the aisle from classmates Mike Ramthun and Austin Gray.

Side by side in the third row, three seats ahead of Tyler, are Cody Holp and A.J. Ramthun — just as they promised.

Tyler, the only black player on the roster, is a team favorite, and he taps that popularity to boost sales of his self-produced rap album released through his label, No Gimmix Records. His stage name is Lord T.

Ordinarily the price is $10, but today he's offering a discount — 50 percent off.

"All I have is a twenty," Mike tells him. "Can I get you a five when we get back?"

At this stage, nobody is thinking about getting back, not when it's pelting rain and the temperatures are in the 40s. Not when "God's weather" is beckoning, as A.J. calls the Florida sun.

After the players throw their gear in the bus, they trudge into Founders Hall, where Grandey is waiting. Bluffton University is affiliated with the Mennonite Church, and before almost any event of significance, Grandey makes sure there's a team prayer. He does a quick head count and begins.

He prays for nice weather.

He prays for good baseball.

And then he prays for one last thing: a safe journey. With that, he hands each player $45 — spending money the team raised over the previous nine months — and switches to coach mode. "If you need to do anything," he bellows, "do it now."

Tyler asks if he can get a milkshake from the campus cafeteria, and is quickly followed out the door by 10 of his teammates. Just before he gets back on the bus, his cell phone rings. It's his mother. Tyler is one of 14 kids Geneva Williams has raised or is raising on her own. Two are Tyler's biological sisters, LaShawna and Charnell, while the rest are cousins and Geneva Williams' grandchildren.

Williams likes to say she spoils all her kids "but not so much you can't stand them." Hers is a simple message: "When you walk out that door, what you do is a direct reflection on me. I don't embarrass you when I walk out this door, so don't you embarrass me, because people know me and I will find out."

Williams admits she can't listen to some of Tyler's music. But she knew he was serious about it after he went to the Netherlands with a U.S. Junior team and came home so excited about meeting the hip-hop artist Common.

"I didn't know the dude was famous and Tyler kept telling me, 'Mom, it's Common,' " Williams recalls.

She phones her son today because that's what she does when he goes on one of these trips.

"OK, Mom, do the rundown," Tyler says, the bus already in full idle. She runs through the list of essentials he'll need for the trip: glasses, contact lenses, underwear, T-shirts.

Tyler assures his mom he didn't forget anything, adding, "I'll call when I get there."

Friday, March 2

After midnight

Some coaching duties aren't in the job description, and before the bus takes off, the DVD player doesn't work. With 19 hours between Bluffton and Sarasota, Grandey knows this is an emergency. At the last minute he gets the thing to work. Todd Miller takes an informal poll to pick the first movie and, not surprisingly in a bus full of college-age men, "Beerfest" wins hands down. The next two movies offer more serious fare: "The Prestige," which involves illusion and death, and "The Departed," which is basically just death.

The players watch the movies, listen to music, play video games. Anything to pass the time. But with spring break just beginning, not many do what sophomore second baseman David Betts of Bryan does: pull out a textbook.

David fits in well with his teammates, but he's not one of these guys who says, "Look at me." He has his quirks, though. In high school he was so superstitious he didn't wash his socks for five games because he didn't want to break the streak he had going at the plate. After he went 0-for-3 in the sixth game, his dad, John Betts, joked that the smell affected his concentration.

David has a surprise planned for his dad and his grandfather, Feroen Betts, who are planning to fly to Florida for the games. After not making last year's roster, David has unexpectedly vaulted into the Bluffton starting lineup.

He can't wait to see their faces as he bolts from the dugout with the rest of the first-stringers.

Friday, 4:30 a.m.

Adairsville, Ga.

As the bus stops at the Quick Trip gas station, 54 miles north of Atlanta, a bleary-eyed Mike Ramthun runs in to buy some Tylenol PM. He hasn't been able to sleep, mainly because of the light from Zach Arend's handheld Sony PSP.

Jerry Niemeyer, a 65-year-old retired factory worker from Columbus Grove, Ohio, has come aboard as the fresh replacement driver. So has his wife, Jean, who is counting on the Florida trip to cure the cabin fever she's had since getting laid off from her fast-food job around Christmas. Watching baseball isn't exactly her ideal vacation, but it's free, and her husband of nearly 40 years is getting paid to do it.

After the last players board, Jerry Niemeyer gets back on the interstate and sets the cruise control to 72 mph. Before sprawling out on the front four seats, Grandey tells him, "We're in no hurry. If you need to stop, stop. If you need to go to the bathroom, pull over. If not, we'll see you at daybreak."

Scott Harmon is just about to settle back on the floor of the bus when Lukas Baumgartner asks to switch places.

Lukas, a 200-pound catcher, feels cramped and hopes stretching in the aisle will help.

A little while later, Austin Gray vacates his seat next to Mike Ramthun and also plops down in the aisle, ignoring the grime on the floor.

Todd Miller is still awake, mostly because the twists and violence of "The Departed" are keeping him up. When the movie ends, Grandey gets up, turns off the DVD and returns to his spot stretched out along four seats in the first row. Before long the only sounds are the hum of the engine and the rumble of tires rolling down the highway.

Miller looks back through the bus one last time. Everyone seems to be sleeping except junior outfielder Jimmy McMonagle in the last row.

"I've got to get some sleep," Miller tells himself. "We've got a big day today."

Friday, 5:38 a.m.

Atlanta, Ga.

Among the 35 occupants in the bus, Jean Niemeyer is the first to scream.

"This is not the highway!" she shouts from the jump seat, her voice cutting through air like plates hitting a restaurant floor.

"Oh, shit!" her husband calls out.

The bus is traveling at a blurring 65 mph up the High Occupancy Vehicle lane exit ramp toward a T-shaped intersection at Northside Drive, the first left-hand exit inside the city's northern boundary.

The entire crash sequence happens in a blink.

As the bus barrels onto Northside Drive, Niemeyer frantically veers right, but the left front side of the motorcoach smacks the lone safety barrier protecting the interstate below from the traffic above: a 3-foot-high retaining wall topped with a chain-link fence.

Bodies start flying. Todd Miller, assistant coach Jason Moore, student-manager Mike Engler and outfielder Allen Slabaugh rocket through the windshield and slam into the retaining fence — somehow landing on the overpass.

The bus sideswipes the wall, slowing it down, but the force of the impact and the vehicle's high center of gravity topple the fence and the bus becomes airborne, rotating as much as 180 degrees in midair before crashing to earth on its left side.

In that instant, there is death.

On impact, Tyler Williams and Cody Holp are hurled out side windows near the front of the bus and plunge 30 feet, vanishing under the 24-ton hulk that seems to fall from the sky.

David Betts, the second baseman who always stays for extra batting practice or grounders, is partially ejected. When the bus lands, the top rests across his chest.

Jerry and Jean Niemeyer, the driver and his wife, are left in their seats, the only occupants bolted in by seat belts.

Incredibly, the bus misses all traffic, coming closest to a pickup truck on the interstate driven by 56-year-old Danny Lloyd of Frostburg, Md.

His truck is pelted by debris.

He jumps out.

He sees limbs hanging from the coach along with the sounds of mangled wreckage and wailing passengers.

A Vietnam veteran, he has flashbacks.

Frozen in time

In the few seconds it takes for the motorcoach to travel up the exit ramp, past the stop sign and through the retaining wall and chain-link fence, time freezes for the Bluffton baseball team.

As the bus hits the wall, A.J. Ramthun's head crashes through the window. The shade pops up, and Cody Holp is propelled to A.J.'s left and out the window. A.J. remembers a whooshing sound, "like somebody swinging a baseball bat."

"I don't know if I was trying to grab him or brace myself, but my right hand went out there. I ended up grabbing the handle on the back of the seat in front of me," A.J. would say. "I'd like to think I was making an attempt to grab him. But if that's the case, I missed.

"That's my best friend I just missed."

Stephanie Wood, a 33-year-old waitress from Atlanta, is at a Northside Drive stoplight and facing the exit ramp when, not 20 feet away, the bus jumps the overpass and disappears.

It happens so fast she begins to question what she saw. Then she spots movement on the overpass, probably Miller, who gets up after crashing into the fence and is wobbling like a prizefighter whose legs don't know he's been knocked out. Miller's head hit a pole, and the impact snapped two vertebrae in his neck and nearly ripped off his left ear.

When Wood sees motorists rushing from their cars toward the victims on the bridge, she panics.

"I thought I was going crazy," she would recall. "I felt like I was in a movie, the one where the kids cheat death and death comes after them. I was screaming. I was shaking. I was beating my car.

"I questioned life."

Wood pulls into a gas station and calls a friend, asking him to check the news to verify what she thought she saw.

She is so shaken she can't remember how to get home.

As the bus flips off the overpass and begins its descent, junior pitcher Brandon Freytag finds himself perfectly balanced like a surfer, one foot on the overhead compartment and the other foot on the outside of a seat. When the bus lands, he is upright.

Brandon, whose father is the Auglaize County coroner, has been at grisly accident scenes before. Instinctively, he climbs for the windows above, then realizes that would put him farther from street level.

With players standing ankle-deep in spilled diesel fuel from the just-filled 243-gallon tank, he kicks open one of the ceiling latches and becomes the first to exit the bus under his own power.

Scattered on the highway are his teammates Will Grandlinard, Kyle King and Zach Arend, and senior student assistant Tim Berta.

One player he doesn't recognize is having convulsions.

"Are you OK?" Brandon asks.

There is no response.

'My legs, my legs'

In the scramble to get out of the bus, junior pitcher Tyler Sprunger finds Coach Grandey sitting cross-legged, dazed and wounded. He and sophomore pitcher Tyler Hill drag him through the opening in the windshield and sit him down on the 3-foot-high median.

Grandey says he needs to reach his wife and manages to give Hill the number to call. He seems lucid. But when Sprunger tries to explain what happened, Grandey can't comprehend a word of it.

Mike Ramthun's legs are trapped under the wreckage, and each time he tries to scoot himself out, shattered glass pierces his palms.

His teammates try to help, but they can't budge the mass of metal.

"Calm down," Mike tells himself, grabbing a stray bookbag for a headrest while he waits for help.

Nearby, Scott Harmon of Elida, who traded places with Lukas Baumgartner not long before the crash, also is trapped. He's lying in the fetal position with his back to Mike and doesn't respond to his teammate's voice.

About 30 feet away, Chris Bauman of Milford is pinned directly under the bus along a row of windows. The glass has been blown out of one of the openings, allowing him to move his head, but his lower body is stuck under a window that has remained intact.

Bolts of pain shoot through Chris as the players exit and the weight of the bus shifts.

"My legs, my legs. Lift up the bus!" he screams.

"Chris, I can hear the sirens," Mike says. "Hang in there, bud."

Emergency personnel arrive, but in the predawn darkness they can't easily tell what they're facing.

Mike hears one of the first responders, the one they call Chief, say, "We're going to need some body bags."