A Tragedy Revisited : Tim Crews’ Wife Laurie Is Still Asking Why a Year After the Fatal Boating Accident. : Friends and Family Asked Same About Her Engagement.

There is a boat being pulled from the still water of Little Lake Nellie, not far from the dock where Tim Crews and Steve Olin were killed last spring. That dock, once thought to be too long, is on dry land now. The lake is down this year and the shore is about 75 feet away.

The first time Laurie Crews walked from her house to see where her husband’s boat had rammed that dock was the day of his funeral. She walked alongside Kirk Gibson and Bobby Ojeda, and they spent time talking, trying to make some sense out of it. But she knows now it can never make sense, especially to her three small children. Still, they try.

“People say what if--what if the water was lower and it hadn’t been such a wet season, what if Timmy wasn’t with the Cleveland Indians and living so close to camp, what if we wouldn’t have had the picnic that day . . . ?” Laurie said Tuesday, tears welling in her eyes. “But I have to think that if it’s your time, then it’s your time. I guess, it was Timmy’s.”

There have been times that Laurie Crews yelled out the window at her husband, angry that he would take a chance and go boating in the dark. It was about an hour after sundown last March 22 when Crews, 31, Olin, 27, and Ojeda got into Crews’ 18-foot Skeeter bass boat to do some fishing. Olin, Ojeda and their families had driven from the Indians’ spring training camp in Winter Haven to spend the day on the Crews’ new 45-acre ranch.

“We had played with my toys and gone (horseback) riding, then the guys had played on the tractor, and then Timmy wanted to show off his toy, his boat,” Laurie said. “I asked him not to go, saying, ‘Don’t you think it’s getting too dark?’ But that didn’t do much good. Timmy even spent 45 minutes getting the water pump to work . . . “

It was cloudy, the last overcast night Laurie remembers from that spring, and there are no street lights in this rural area of Central Florida. Perry Brigmond, a family friend, arrived late and drove his truck to the shore, flashing his lights to let Tim know he was there. Tim turned the boat toward home to pick him up, pushing the throttle to 39 m.p.h.

The nose of the boat rose when he gunned it, and when it came down, it had slammed into the end of the 185-foot wooden dock that juts out from a neighbor’s back yard. The boat hit the dock head-level, decapitating Olin and killing him instantly. Part of Ojeda’s scalp was torn off, but he was saved through surgery. Crews was taken to an Orlando hospital, where he died 10 hours later.

“I went running down to the lake and it was so dark that I ran into a chain-link fence,” Laurie said. “The paramedics were there, and Tim was already on a stretcher, so I ran further and I saw Bobby out of the boat, then I looked in the boat and saw Steve. . . . And I remember the paramedic telling me that Tim was being airlifted.

“When I was in the hospital room, I had this feeling that Timmy was trying to decide whether he should leave or stay. He would get bad, then he would get better, then he would get bad again. I think he was trying to decide if he should come back and be part of a person, if he could do that. But if Timmy couldn’t do it perfect, he couldn’t do it. He would have been miserable.”

*

There are friends and relatives of Laurie Crews who still have trouble driving up the narrow clay road that leads to the top of Autumn Lane, where Laurie and Tim built their dream house, a large two-story country home set against a backdrop of rolling green pasture. They had moved in only six weeks before the accident, and after, many of Laurie’s friends told her she should move out.

“They didn’t think I should be here, in this big house by myself with three kids, with the lake right here and all,” Laurie says. “But I couldn’t leave here. I wasn’t even unpacked when it happened.”

Suitcases remain in the upstairs recreation room, still packed with Tim’s spring training clothes. Boxes of photographs and memorabilia of his six years with the Dodgers are nearby, below the walls where one day Laurie will hang them. And outside is the dock that claimed her husband’s life.

The first two months after the accident remain a blur to Laurie. She remembers trying to explain it to her children, Trisha, 10, Shawn 5, and Travis, 3. She remembers not being able to get out of bed and feed the kids; then the first day she was able to. She says it was her children who made her pull herself together. She also had a ranch to put together. There were fences to build and horses to tend to. She remembers it all as being very spooky.

Laurie and Patti Olin, Steve’s wife, spoke frequently during that time by telephone. They had met the day of the accident, and had vowed to stay connected for life. Patti also had three children, two babies and a 3-year old. Together they stood at Cleveland Stadium for a special ceremony on opening day, an extremely emotional time. But when Laurie was brought to Dodger Stadium to attend that opener, she said it was devastating.

Tim Crews had been with the Dodger organization since the winter of 1986, when he was traded by the Milwaukee Brewers for Greg Brock. He played for the Dodgers some of 1987 and most of 1988, then became an effective middle-relief pitcher. The Dodgers did not pick up his or Ojeda’s contract after the 1992 season, however, and both signed with Cleveland. One of the few photographs that Laurie has been able to display is the one taken on Family Day during the 1992 season. It is the last family photograph and shows all five Crewses dressed in Dodger uniforms.

“Tim being gone a lot, that wasn’t easy,” Laurie says. “I used to always tell my girlfriends that I would trade my life for theirs, and they would say, great. But I would have loved to be in my house every day and know that Tim was going to come through the door after work and we would have dinner together, rather than eating alone. Obviously, the money is nice and I wouldn’t change anything, but we looked forward to such a day when we could just sit here and have a normal life.”

The scars on Laurie’s heart are far from healed. She can talk about the accident almost in the third person, but she can’t say much about her and Tim without breaking into tears. What’s more, she says, most everything she has done the last year has met with disapproval of those closest to her.

The boat she bought recently raised some eyebrows, and when she sold Tim’s truck, that became a problem for some. Friends thought she should have taken the children to counseling and were amazed that she hasn’t sought therapy for herself. But nothing has driven a wedge between her and her friends more than her relationship with 24-year-old Sean Griffith.

Three months after Tim died, Laurie met Griffith, who was building fences for her on the ranch. They became close quickly, Griffith moving in shortly after they met. Now, they are engaged.

Laurie says the news was greeted with disdain by most of her close friends and relatives, who questioned how she could be dating so soon. She said Ojeda, who had invited Laurie to Cleveland to witness his comeback, reneged on the invitation when she said she wanted to bring Griffith. She and Patti Olin quit talking.

“I wanted Sean with me in Cleveland for emotional support,” Laurie said. “What people don’t realize is that with them isolating themselves from me, who did I have? I had Sean and the kids, and that brought us closer together. Staying away was probably the worst thing they could do.

“I understand it was hard for everybody because it happened so fast, but I didn’t plan it. People think I’m replacing Timmy, but no one can ever take Timmy’s place, not in my mind or in my kids’ minds. We spent 15 years together, and we were married for 13. When I thought of growing old, I never thought I would be without Timmy.”

Laurie says friends are worried that Griffith, who is nine years younger than she, is after her money. Financially, Laurie is very comfortable, thanks to Tim’s baseball pension and an insurance policy.

“I’m not going to sell everything and go live in a shack to see if he’s for real,” Laurie said. “Sean is good with the kids, and he’s not taking Timmy’s place. The kids like him.

“The way I look at it is, there are two sides to a tunnel, a dark side and a light side. Bobby, Patti and I all started out in the middle because it was a tragic thing. You can choose which way you want to go, and I wasn’t going down the dark end. It’s very easy to put yourself in a grieving situation, where you look at photo albums or put on music that reminds you of Tim or sit down and have too many drinks. But where do you think you are going to go, upward? No way. I wasn’t going that way.

“If it had just been me, it would be easy to be just depressed. But I had three kids who depended on me, I had people coming to work for me and they depended on me to have a job for them. Everybody deals with things their own way. I’m sorry if mine has been easier.”

Not all have turned their backs on Laurie. Some say they have tried to call her but that she hasn’t responded. Many of her friends from Tim’s days with the Dodgers have been in touch, including the wives of Jay Howell, Brett Butler and Dennis Cook. Tim Belcher has tried to reach her. So has Dave Anderson’s wife, Gina.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, who delivered a eulogy at Tim’s funeral, called to congratulate her when he heard she had a boyfriend. “Tell him to take care of my kids,” Lasorda said.

And recently, Patti Olin called.

“Everybody still expects me to be Tim’s wife, but he’s not here anymore and people have a hard time accepting that,” she said. “Just because I have Sean doesn’t mean I don’t grieve. It used to be that there is a certain period for mourning. Well, mourning for me is always. It’s not like it’s been a year and I can stop mourning now. I don’t think I will ever get over it.”

*

It’s late afternoon at the Bass & Bridle, as Tim and Laurie named their ranch, and the children are home from school. Little Travis has been there all along, quietly watching “Dennis the Menace” on television in the other room. But Travis soon comes and tugs at Laurie, wanting to know why his show has suddenly disappeared. He doesn’t understand where Dennis went. He doesn’t understand that the show is over.

Trisha recently went on a trip with some friends and talked about some things that were bothering her. Later, Laurie spent some time working through those things with her daughter.

But there were other things after the accident that Trisha had to deal with. At school, she heard her dad had been drunk when he drove the boat. Crews’ blood-alcohol content of .14 exceeded the legal limit of .10 for driving a boat.

“I said to Trisha, ‘You were there that day, and you saw your daddy. Do you think he was drunk?’ ” Laurie said. “He drank beer and a swig of vodka on the boat. But there was never a question of not wanting him to go boating because I thought he was drunk. That never crossed my mind. I didn’t want him to go because it was dark.”

Trisha sits down at the dining-room table to do her homework, and Laurie spends time helping her before walking the visitor down to the lake. On the way, she stops at the barn, introducing her six horses in addition to the 15 others Laurie boards there. Her dog, Stetson, is sleeping under a horse trailer with a couple of the cats. Her other dogs are playing in the lake and hunting through the brush on the shore.

“Two weeks before the accident, a friend of mine and I were talking philosophically, and she asked me what I would do if I ever lost a child,” Laurie says. “I told her I would probably go into the insane asylum. Then we took it further and said, what if we lost our husbands? And we decided, same thing, we would probably get committed.

“But you never know what you are going to do. You never know how you are going to react. You have to walk in somebody’s shoes before you make judgments.

“Everybody has their own way of dealing with things.”