The phone call came during a shift at K-Mart. Just days after Christmas. The voice belonged to his stepmother.
“You got to come home,” she said. “Something happened to your dad.”
Jason Hammel was 17 then, a high school senior preparing for the next move. He held down a job as a retail cashier to make extra cash. He pitched on the baseball team at South Kitsap High School in Port Orchard, Wash. He thought about heading south and trying to walk on at Arizona State. They had a good arts program. Hammel wanted to major in graphic design.