Major league and minor league ballplayers are in their Yukons and their Lexuses these days, driving all over Florida and Arizona, and here's hoping they buckle up. Because there have already been too many funerals.

The San Diego Padres just buried one of their outfielders on Wednesday, and it turns out they had a close call with their starting catcher, too. It's like this almost every spring. The players are en route to their training complex or to an exhibition game or out on the town at 2 a.m., and they disregard their seat belts. First of all, nothing good can happen if you're on the road at 2 a.m., and, second of all, nothing good can happen when your body's not strapped in.

It was just sad to see Trevor Hoffman in tears the other day, talking about 25-year-old Mike Darr, talking about the wife and the two young sons Darr left behind. Mike Darr is the Padres outfielder who allegedly was drinking last week before he flipped his 2002 GMC Yukon in the middle of the night and was ejected 80 feet through the air. He and his good friend Duane Johnson -- the front-seat passenger -- weren't in their seatbelts, and died. But a minor league pitcher in the back seat, Ben Howard, was strapped in -- and lived. Just brushed himself off and walked away.

As a result, the Padres have to begin their season the way the Minnesota Vikings began theirs, and naturally they are numb. Their catcher, Wiki Gonzalez just joined the club from the Dominican Republic, and kept telling teammates it could've been him, it could've been him. He says that a month ago, he was driving a mountain road in Venezuela, plowed into a curb and violently rolled his car. But he and his passenger -- Brewers catcher Henry Blanco -- were in seatbelts, and so they live and breathe.

"If we weren't wearing seatbelts, I don't think we'd be here right now," Blanco told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

It's always a Mike Darr or a Derrick Thomas -- somebody strong -- who dies like this and makes us wonder how people can be so careless. It's either machismo or their naivete, and I, myself, am just as guilty. When I interviewed Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his car a month ago, he didn't wear his seat belt, and -- for the first time in maybe 20 years -- I decided I wouldn't wear mine. I didn't want to offend him, wanted to visit his world, so I just didn't slip it on. I lived to tell about it, but I was an absolute fool, and I won't be a fool twice.

Neither should these baseball players. You forget how much driving they do during spring training, how much time they spend on the Florida bee-line between Fort Lauderdale and Port Saint Lucie, and so forth. Or how much time they spend speeding between Chandler and Mesa in Arizona. It just gets old hearing about their close calls.

Just the other day, two Minnesota Twins minor leaguers were in surgery, but probably would've been at the morgue if not for their seat belts. Pitcher Jeff Randazzo and catcher Josh Johnson were driving to Fort Meyers when Randazzo's SUV crossed a highway median and flipped. Randazzo suffered a ruptured aorta, a fractured sternum and a fracture of his second cervical vertabrae, while Johnson -- the driver -- was briefly on a ventilator with a head injury. They were strapped in, and they hadn't been drinking, thank heavens. Apparently, Johnson just fell asleep and lost control of the vehicle.

It was 2 a.m.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.