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Rays' bat boy dies in motorcycle crash

Family and friends mourn the death of an 18-year-old who they remember for his kindness to others.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published December 7, 2005

CLEARWATER - At 18, Elliott Pape still believed in dreams.

A bat boy for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, he dreamed of one day stepping on the field as a pro baseball player. That fantasy was his and he wouldn't let it go.

"He was not a typical teenager," said stepmother, Lisa Pape, 44. "He was like an old soul. There was so much light and happiness in him that he was infectious."

On Monday afternoon, Pape was riding his 2006 Suzuki motorcycle home to Dunedin. He took the Roosevelt Boulevard exit ramp off Interstate 275 at 4:08 p.m. when he lost control in the turn, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

He hit the brakes, but the motorcycle skidded into the guardrail, throwing him over the rail and onto the embankment, troopers said. Investigators told his family he had been traveling about 90 mph, Lisa Pape said.

Elliott Pape, who was wearing a helmet, was pronounced dead at the scene.

"The lives that this boy touched is phenomenal," Lisa Pape said.

As news of the accident spread by phone and e-mail, friends started showing up at his house on Patricia Avenue. More than 40 cars lined the street. Teenagers and their parents filled the yard.

Few knew how serious the crash had been until Lisa Pape came outside and told everyone to come closer. He's dead, she told the crowd. People stayed, hugging each other and sharing stories about the young man.

What distinguished Pape, many said Tuesday, was not so much his dreams for his own life, but how he gave so freely to others. He would take time off his own job to drive friends to work.

"He would do something for you that would make him broke for the next week. He was always like that," said Cory Whissler, 19.

Matt Moon, 19, who had known him since the second grade, said Elliott Pape was the friend he went to with his serious problems.

"My other friends are just friends," Moon said. "He was my brother."

Pape left Dunedin High School last year without graduating. He planned to obtain his GED and in the meantime held down two jobs. He worked at a restaurant and as an electrician apprentice.

He planned to return to the Devil Rays next season, his third, Lisa Pape said.

"He just absolutely loved the Devil Rays and he wanted to go back," she said.

Representatives of the team did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

Many of Pape's friends visited the crash site Tuesday, retracing his path from the guardrail to the embankment. Some left flowers and stuffed animals.

Moon said many of Pape's friends planned to take today off so they could return to the crash site, the place where he died.

"I looked at the site and you think it's something you'd see on the news," he said. "But it's different because it is Elliott."

Lisa Pape said the family was very proud of the man he was becoming. He had a girlfriend he loved, Tiffnay Way, and had begun to look toward the future.

"Elliot was larger than life," she said "If you knew him, you couldn't resist him."

Pape also is survived by his father, Brian Pape; his mother, Rebecca Pape; sisters Maria, Brianna, Shawna and Holly; and brother Frank.

Times staff writer Tamara El-Khoury contributed to this report.

[Last modified December 7, 2005, 00:33:18]