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Following the sudden death of Hayden Panettiere, a surprising connection has resurfaced between the late actress and Chicago Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Crow-Armstrong, 24, grew up in Southern California with his parents, actors Ashley Crow and Matthew John Armstrong, both of whom had recurring roles on the NBC drama Heroes, which starred Panettiere.
“Hayden Panettiere babysat me. I had the biggest crush on her,” Crow-Armstrong told NBC Chicago in 2022. “Yeah, I’d say she was probably the coolest one for me.”
The center fielder said he would hang out on the Heroes set “all the time.”
“That was fun for me,” he recalled. “I liked being around the older actors, and I liked being babysat by my mom’s costars and whatnot.”
Despite growing up with his parents on TV, Crow-Armstrong said his mother and father still managed to keep daily life “quiet” and as normal as they could.
“We didn’t live in Hollywood. We didn’t live under any spotlight,” he said. “Nothing about my childhood had anything to do with the entertainment business, it felt like, because I think my parents wanted me as far away as possible.”
Crow-Armstong attended Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, where he was, of course, a standout baseball player.
After being drafted in the first round by the New York Mets in 2020, he was traded to the Cubs in 2021 and made his Major League debut with the franchise in September 2023.
Crow-Armstrong has since been named to two MLB All-Star teams — in 2025 and 2026 — but before realizing that dream, he was just a kid playing catch with his famous mom.
In the years after they broke up, Hayden Panettiere’s relationship with Brian Hickerson was still complicated even at the time of her tragic death. “Hayden and Brian have been on and off for years, but have pretty much always remained in contact,” a source exclusively shares with Us of the pair’s history prior to her […]
“She was just out there with me in the yard just as much as my dad,” he told MLB.com in May 2025. “I know that’s not really the case for a lot of people. My mom and my dad played softball together in their actors’ league. She was pretty in tune with how baseball was played.”
Crow-Armstrong added, “My mom’s super empathetic. She would never tell me to do this or do that, but she just always knows what to say when she’s just asking how I’m doing. That’s how she’s invested — making sure you know she’s thinking of you. She’s done that my whole life.”
Panettiere was found dead in Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday, August 16. She was 36.
An official cause of death is not yet known, but her autopsy showed “no signs of trauma” and dispatch audio stated that she may have suffered an overdose. The actress’ body was transferred to a mortuary chosen by her family on Tuesday, August 18.
