Rockies' Welker supports school after tragedy

Valentine's Day was normal for Colton Welker until nothing was normal anymore. Until the TV in front of him showed horrifying images from home. Until the world turned inside out. Valentine's Day was normal until it became a nightmare.
When the Rockies selected Welker with the 110th overall selection of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft, his high school was on the national scene for the thing he's made his life: baseball. Welker and his teammates -- among them Jesus Luzardo, now the Athletics' No. 2 prospect-- compiled a 27-2 record in his senior year, a Class 9A state championship and recognition as Baseball America's national team of the year.

On Valentine's Day, his alma mater was foisted into the cold national spotlight.

The day of

It was just before 11:30 Arizona time that Wednesday morning when a gunman began his assault on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Welker, in his second Spring Training, had just come off a back field at Colorado's Salt River Fields at Talking Stick complex when his phone buzzed with a text message, a friend alerting him to what was unfolding back home.
"I thought -- I mean, I don't know who would kid about that -- but I thought literally that area, where the school was, I was like there's no way that would happen at my high school," he said last week at Rockies camp in Scottsdale. "He was like, 'No, turn on the news.' I turned it on and was watching a live rundown of it and just couldn't believe it. It was insane to see."
The rampage took less than 6 1/2 minutes. Bullets pierced windows and walls and doors and students and teachers. Welker watched the coverage into the night, 2,000 miles away, helpless and devastated.
"I called both my high school coaches," he said of Eagles head coach Todd Fitz-Gerald and assistant David Taylor who also served as a security guard at the school. "They were at the scene still and were telling me the rundown of what actually happened. They knew who the [gunman] was before they released it on TV and stuff like that. I just talked to them, called my mom because I live a couple blocks away from the school. She said it was just crazy. They shut down everything."
Welker was aware of the attacker, who was expelled the year after Welker's graduated. The two attended the same middle school and rode the same bus for three years.
"I didn't really know him, know him, but I knew who he was," he said.
When the horror ended, 17 members of the Stoneman Douglas community were dead and 17 more were wounded. Welker knew name after name on the list of victims.
"A majority of them, honestly," he said, his voice trailing off.
Fitz-Gerald, Taylor and members of the varsity and junior varsity baseball teams were OK. Others in the Eagles athletic family were not. Athletic director Chris Hixon and assistant football coach Aaron Feis were killed, Feis while using his body to shield students from the fatal spray of an assault rifle.
"When I played baseball, they were all there," he said. "They would come to our regional games and stuff like that, so I had a pretty good relationship with a lot of the people there."
Also lost was Meadow Pollack, the 18-year-old younger sister of one of Welker's best friends.
"You always hear about them in different states and never think, 'Oh, that'll happen to me,'" he said. "It did, and it took a few days for it to kick in. But once it did, it was a terrible feeling."

Out of the darkness

When the carnage ended and the mourning began, Welker and Luzardo took on the burden of action alongside their community. Like his classmate, Welker worked out at his high school during the offseason. Luzardo was still in Florida at the time of the attack and attended a vigil two days later with fellow alumnus and Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo. Luzardo and Welker began using social media as a platform to support Stoneman Douglas victims and survivors. Perhaps more importantly for both, they grieved together three time zones from home.
"It's definitely made it a lot easier having him," he said. "He was in the same position as me and did a [fundraiser] and reached out on social media, both of us, to try to help people, lighten their moods and stuff. He's really good about giving back. He's a great kid and has made it a lot easier."
Luzardo established a YouCaring campaign to fund a college scholarship in Hixon's name. Welker became a symbol of strength between the lines.
The last time he'd worn an Eagles cap with its interlocking "SD" in red, Welker was celebrating a state championship with his teammates. On Feb. 23, he put one on in a Major League game. Teams across the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues donned Eagles caps that Friday, nine days after the shooting, to honor those lost and support those seeking the strength to go on. Welker might have been the most visible.
"We put him in that Stoneman Douglas hat game," Rockies senior director of player development Zach Wilson said. "He's handled it unbelievably well. I hold a lot of respect for him because of it, but it's him. That's who he is. He's just a mature young man.
"Because of who Colton is, it's been easier for us. We basically went to him early and said, 'Listen, whatever you need, we're here to help. If you feel like you need to go home, if you feel like you just need a couple days to yourself in the hotel, whatever it is, just let us know.' He's been such an unbelievable man, former student, son to the school, son to his family who's still back there about this that we really haven't had to deal with it a whole lot. It's all really to his credit."
What Welker needed was baseball. And Stoneman Douglas needed Welker.
Nearly two years after that state title, Welker put on his "SD" cap again and took the field. He got two at-bats in his first big league Spring Training game and played third base, where he entered 2018 as No. 8 on MLB Pipeline's position rankings. He stood alone on the dirt but shoulder to shoulder with every member of his community in spirit.
"The way Zach handled it, putting me in that game, he reached out right away and (so did) lot of the other guys on my team," he said. "They were just amazing. I didn't expect anything less than that. I love that guy and he's been nothing but amazing to me.
"It just felt good, maybe people using me as, 'Hey, that kid went to our high school.' It was surreal to wear that hat, see all the All-Stars in the field wearing that hat. It was a blown away experience being two years out of high school to see that."

The healing process for Stoneman Douglas -- if it can be called that -- probably won't ever feel complete. But for Welker and countless others, something has come out of the tragedy that cut 17 lives short: a glimmer of hope. Recent history has dictated that the conversation in the wake of mass shootings will go from a roar to a whisper until the next massacre. Stoneman Douglas may have represented a tectonic shift. Welker's former schoolmates, parents, teachers, administrators and others have been at the forefront of a movement that has called on lawmakers to address gun violence and reached a new level in Saturday's March for Our Lives rallies that attracted hundreds of thousands of marchers around the world.
That Welker's community is leading the movement hasn't surprised the 20-year-old.
"It's just the area, just how the kids were raised. I expected nothing less," he said. "They're going out, speaking to the President and all this big-time stuff. That's amazing to see. I expected that to happen. If you haven't been there, you really just don't know.
"Now people will start to realize how amazing of a place it is."