He may have left early, ‘but he completed nine innings’

Jaw tight, eyes wet and firm and full of courage, Areta Pearson strode toward the field where her late son had spent so many of his youthful afternoons.

She gripped a baseball tightly. She rocked back and leaned forward and flung it. This first pitch, a strike, was the symbolic start of a hard and heartfelt memorial Thursday; a celebration of the life of Areta and Nigel Pearson’s only son, Henry.

Henry Pearson died last week, too young, too soon, at 25. It happened in the horrifying car accident that claimed two of his friends -- Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and Cal State Fullerton student Courtney Stewart -- while leaving his former high school teammate, Jon Wilhite, 24, struggling for life in an Orange County hospital.

On Wednesday, a memorial was held for Stewart, 20, in Fullerton. On Thursday, in Williamsport, Md., a private service was held for Adenhart, several Angels attending.

At about the same time Adenhart, 22, was memorialized, a Manhattan Beach tribute honoring Pearson’s energy, charm and unyielding love for baseball was underway. About 500 people surrounded the Mira Costa High baseball diamond to share the story of his life.

Since Pearson was a true son of Manhattan Beach, raised there from the time he was a young boy, this was a perfect day. The air was warm and fresh. Sea gulls arced over the high school’s little green stadium, its bleacher seats stuffed with people wearing Dodgers, Angels or Mets caps, the teams Henry Pearson rooted for.

Areta Pearson’s pitch began the day, a celebration broken up into 9 innings -- complete with a national anthem, a seventh-inning stretch, peanuts donated by the Dodgers, and one of Pearson’s best friends, Steve Hershey, acting as master of ceremonies and mimicking the voice of Vin Scully.

“It was one thing to be introduced to Henry,” Hershey told me, just before the matter began. “It was another thing to be introduced by Henry. He had a way of pumping you up, a way of making you feel like you were special. . . A way of making you feel what you did in life was just so important to him.”

Added Nigel Pearson, Henry’s father, to the crowd: “It’s difficult to see everyone here today and not see Henry here too, making sure that everyone knew one another.”

Henry Pearson, it became clear to an outsider like me, was the type who reveled in other people’s success. He had many goals in life. As a profession, he hoped to be a sports agent. But his greatest goal seemed wrapped up in being a great friend.

This, I was told, was how he ended up with Nick Adenhart on that fateful night. The two had met in Arizona, when Pearson was a student at Arizona State and Adenhart was rehabilitating from an injury. They grew close, and even though they weren’t best friends, Pearson made sure he was there at Angels Stadium on April 8, when Adenhart pitched the best game of his fledgling career.

“Of course my brother had to be there, in the stands, to support Nick,” said his sister, Jessica. “It makes perfect sense.”

When the accident happened -- a crash caused by an alleged drunk driver now charged with three counts of murder -- Pearson and his pals were headed to a night club to do country music line dancing, which also made perfect sense. Henry Pearson, after all, was something of a bon vivant; a guy who loved to dance and sing and even rap. A guy who, whenever he attended a party, managed to make the occasion happier, livelier and lighter.

All during Thursday’s memorial, stories were dished about his moxie and pluck. How he’d been, from the time he was a toddler, infatuated with sports: mostly with baseball and mostly with the Mets, since he was born in New Jersey. How he used his knowledge of sports trivia, even as a first-grader, to converse with adults.

How he loved to talk trash on the baseball field at Mira Costa High, where he was a second baseman with medium skills but major guts. There were memories of college days at Arizona State, memories of his two years at Western State Law School in Fullerton. Memories of girlfriends and the prom and volleyball on Manhattan Beach, games he’d sometimes play in a baseball uniform.

I was never lucky enough to meet Pearson, but it was an honor to be there Thursday. You could sense his spirit in the dignified way his parents and sister moved and spoke, in the warm embraces and memories, in the laughter and the tears. It felt as if his story should be told, as if we’d be well to know about him.

Said Hershey, wearing a Phillies cap, bringing the ceremony to a close: Henry Pearson loved baseball “because the clock didn’t determine the outcome. It was an event. He would say: ‘You gotta play nine innings, it’s never over. There’s gotta be something that completes the game.’ I don’t think that can be any more appropriate. . . . Henry may have left us early, but he completed nine innings. He touched us all, and the best legacy, the best thing we can do, is to live our lives in the way he lived his.”

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kurt.streeter@latimes.com