St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Darryl Kile dead.

KMOX ^

[BluesDuke]

Thank you, Sunny.

Here is one of the most striking portions of the entire tragedy: Kile last pitched on Tuesday night (he beat the bristling Anaheim Angels in an interleague game) - the same night Jack Buck died.

[VeritatisSplendor]

I'll never forget watching Tom Seaver strike out the last 10 Padres on his way to 19 in 1970. Much more impressive than Deshaies's feat, not only was it 2 more K's but it was at the end of a complete game when fatigue is a factor.

[WillaJohns]

I am appalled by this thread. It's like watching a gang rape. There are a whole bunch of posters here that need to get a grip. If you don't like what someone says, ignore it. Your name calling is ugly and not worthy of Free Republic posters. I can only conclude your great grief in this great pitcher's untimely death has caused you all to lose your minds.

There are some major apologies owed. Not excuses, apologies.

[ArneFufkin]

Little hyperbole Willa Johns? Gang rape?

Someone needs to get a grip alrighty.

[L.N. Smithee]

ReallY? So a CEO of a large corporation has the luxury of saying, "O.K. everybody back to work", but a small buisness owner has the moral responsibility to send everyone home for the day?

The executives in this particular situation -- the field managers, the general managers, and the commissioner of baseball -- all decided that the game would not be played.

Who are the REAL "wussies" -- people who are too distraught to continue to play, or people who whine about missing a ballgame? What kind of jackass would insist the game be played (besides Servant)? Just think of it as a rainout, and go the heck home.

[L.N. Smithee]

Of course it's sad, of course people are going to greive. Do I agree with cancelling the game, no. No, I don't. It is a matter of opinion, and that is mine.

Yep, it is your opinion, all right. Your ill-informed and unreasoning opinion.

I am apparently in the minority, which is usually the case. Doesn't bother me in the least.

Being in the minority shouldn't bother you if you know what you are talking about. You don't.

Heaven, no, we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's precious feelings, would we?...If I want to be stoic, that's my damn business.

That's right. If YOU want to be an corporate automoton, working practically over the corpse of a teammate you spoke with hours ago, you have a right to be such a person. But you -- given the power -- would insist that others emulate you by not canceling the game.

If you want to compare me with your grandfather who had mental problems, that's yours, doesn't make you right, but you go ahead if it "makes you feel better".

I am sure it didn't make him "feel better." What it made him is perceptive.

[barker]

... mustn't upset all the little boys, um, men, running around in their baseball caps on the weekends.

Hate to disillusion you but there are many of us women who are baseball fans. And, yes I wear my Royals hat a lot.

The teams could not have played today. You must be a very bitter person.

[NYCVirago]

*doh* I think I am the one who is saying the players have a responsibility to play every game -- including the one scheduled today. If you are contending that they are obligated to cancel a game when they realize the conditions are not favorable for them to be at their best, then you are ignorant. That's not what life, or even the game of baseball, is about.

Just like a game rescheduled due to a rain delay, this game will be played later on this season. Nobody (except for maybe a few knuckleheads on this thread) expects players to play when it's raining. And to have expected the players to play a game when they just found out that their teammate had died is just as ridiculous.

And one other thing -- I'm not a NASCAR fan, but I sure as heck didn't go on any of the Dale Earnhardt threads last year and tell off the freepers mourning him. Perhaps you should follow that advice.

[BluesDuke]

You'd want him in a crucial late season pennant race game, and he'd have been the opening game Cards pitcher in the Playoffs or WS if they started on the road. That's your experienced weapon.

Experience isn't as critical in picking Darryl Kile to start a postseason game if a series begins on the road as is the point that Kile had been better on the road than at home, whereas Matt Morris is better at Busch than on the road, customarily. (Morris has a better ERA at Busch than on the road; Kile a better ERA on the road on than at Busch.) Otherwise, if you define "crucial" as a game in which the Cardinals are going against the team they most need to beat to stay in the race, take the division, or win the pennant, I'm not all that convinced you would have gone with Kile as the go-to guy.

He has a very impressive looking record in the heat of a pennant race (August-October) overall, but without having at hand a breakdown as to whether he was meeting and beating the other guys' numbers 1 or 2 pitchers in those months; whether he was mostly facing the opponents' second-line pitchers; or, how he pitched explicitly against the team his team most need to beat, and against which pitchers, to stay in the race or win the division, I don't have a way to gauge his actual pennant race value.

The only information I do have at hand is his postseason performances. The only postseason series in which Kile got the opening game's start when the series began on the road was the 1997 National League Division Series against the Braves. Kile faced and lost to Greg Maddux; it was a low-scoring game but the Braves pried a run out of Kile in the first and another run in the second. Interestingly, Kile gave up only two hits compared to Maddux surrendering seven. It was the beginning of a three-game sweep that brought the Braves, a fateful date with the Fire-Sale-In-Waiting Florida Marlins, but there's no question but what Kile pitched exactly as his image seems to suggest - a hell of a road pitcher and the go-to-guy.

In 2000, in a division series, the Cardinals faced the Braves again to play the winner of the New York Mets-San Francisco Giants series for the pennant. Against the Braves, Kile started the second game against Tom Glavine at Busch Stadium; he left the game with an unusually fat 9-2 lead in a game the Redbirds won in due course 10-4, en route a St. Louis sweep (Kile had a 7-2 lead to work with after three innings; you'd better be pitching decently with that kind of jack to work with).

In the League Championship Series, against the Mets, Kile got two starts. He started the first game in Busch against Mike Hampton (who hadn't yet gone to his own Colorado purgatory) and left in the eighth inning behind 3-0; the Mets won the game 6-3. Kile then started the fourth game at Shea Stadium, against Glendon Rusch (their number four pitcher behind Hampton, Al Leiter, and the surprising Bobby J. Jones, whose one-hitter in the LDS bumped him up a few notches for the postseason run) - which should have been manna for Kile given his better road performances overall. But he was gone by the fourth with the Cardinals in the hole, 7-2.

In 2001, the Cardinals met the Arizona Diamondbacks in the division series. Kile started the third game against Miguel Batista, then the Diamondbacks' number three pitcher - at Busch, again. Kile actually pitched just well enough to win the game; when he left in after the sixth inning, he had a 2-1 lead; the Snakes jumped the Redbirds for four seventh-inning runs off two relief pitchers and won the game 5-3 (Byung-Hyun Kim saved it after Brian Anderson and Mike Morgan held it for him).

I'd surmise Darryl Kile's preference as a ballplayer would be to be recalled as a pitcher with heart who never refused the ball, did his best with what he had, and cared about his teammates. I say again: He'll not make the Hall of Fame by any stretch, and he may have been less pitcher than we wish he might have been given his repertoire and his heart (I wouldn't want to think about hitting that snappish curve ball of his when it was working right), but he'll never be remembered as anything less than big league - as a ballplayer, and even more so as a man.

[pariah]

I heard the sad news while listening to the Mariners/Astros game this afternoon. In the bottom of the 12th inning, Bagwell came up to pinch hit with runners on first and third, score tied. I said to myself, though a loyal Mariners fan, 'I don't think Bagwell is going to be denied'. Sure enough, after swinging hard and missing a couple of off-speed pitches, he laced a single into right-center that won the game! Reportedly, Kile was Bagwell's best friend, and I just knew he was saying to himself, 'This one's for Darryl'. Here's the story, from ESPN:

Bagwell delivers with game-winning single

HOUSTON (AP) -- Even after getting the game-winning hit, Jeff Bagwell was too emotionally spent to talk.

The Astros' Craig Biggio, left, gets emotional during a moment of silence for former teammate and friend Darryl Kile before the game against the Mariners.

Bagwell, out of the starting lineup after the death of good friend Darryl Kile, had a pinch-hit single in the 12th inning to give the Houston Astros a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.

"It was so hard to play this game,'' Craig Biggio said.

Bagwell, Biggio and Brad Ausmus, among Kile's best friends when he pitched for Houston from 1991-97, did not take batting practice and did not start. Kile's Astros jersey -- No. 57 -- hung in the Houston dugout.

"This was a very difficult day. I went back and forth between disbelief and sorrow,'' said Ausmus, fighting back tears. "When you play this game for a long time, you learn to focus on the game and not on outside things, but the gravity of this was a little heavier.''

All three came into the game as pinch-hitters, with Bagwell winning the game. After his single drove in Julio Lugo, Bagwell's teammates gathered around him while he hung his head.

After the game, Kile's former teammates remembered him fondly.

"The day I broke into the big leagues, he called me up and took me to breakfast,'' Houston closer Billy Wagner said. "He didn't know me from Adam, but he made me feel good and feel like a teammate. It was tough. It's like losing a part of your family.''

With one out in the 12th, Lugo reached on a bunt single against John Halama (2-2) and advanced to second on a balk. Lugo advanced to third on a single by Jose Vizcaino and the Mariners intentionally walked Lance Berkman, loading the bases for Bagwell.

"Bagwell is cold for 12 innings. He's coming off the bench and you've got to think you've got a good chance to get a groundball,'' Mariners manager Lou Piniella said.

Ricky Stone (3-2) pitched a perfect 12th for the win as the Astros snapped Seattle's four-game winning streak.

[BluesDuke]

I was given to understand Larry Walker of the Colorado Rockies had a pretty good day on the field and maybe thought, "This one's for DK," too - Walker was badly shaken during a press conference he gave after he arrived at the ballpark. My sense is that Darryl Kile was very well liked around the league. You can't get any better than that.

[pariah]

Old (and young) baseball players never die. They just called up to the real Major League!

[Neets]

Thank you for your comments and for the reminder of the passing of his father at an early age too. My heart goes out to his kids.

[Neets]

No, you can't get any better than that, and what a fitting tribute from his colleagues.....

[Neets]

When people knowingly come on to threads such as this, after being coraled over, and make comments on a subject they are ill informed in, they need to be adult enough to stand up to the heat in the kitchen....the title of the thread clearly stated what it was about...I think gang rape is a little over the top

[lonestar]

I would think out of respect for Darryl and the game they would have sucked it up an played.

Have you ever felt like "playing" after hearing of the sudden death of a friend?

I was playing golf one beautiful Spring day many years ago, when friends came to tell me that one of our friends had suddenly died. We were sophs in college. I was in shock. I didn't want to "play" golf!

Besides, who are you to opine on what others should do in a situation you've never experienced. Like me, you aren't a professional ballplayer and have no clue what it takes to "play" a game.

[Angelique]

Have you ever played team sports? The team is like a family. And the team knows the man, and in this case, his untimely death, leaving his young family fatherless, is tragic. I was taken when the announcement came, the man so choked up. The cancellation had to do with respect for Kile, and the shock. A game is hardly equal to those emotions.

My condolences and prayers to the team, and Kile's family.

[geege]

Very sad.....I remember when Thurman Munson was killed....they had to send me home from work I was so upset.......

[The Iguana]

he's a top 10% guy in the World at his profession.

??????In an 11 year carreer, he only won 13 more games than he lost (W:128 , L:115 ). Am I missing something??

That's distorted by his two disastrous seasons in Colorado, where he discovered his curve ball couldn't curve in the thin Rockies air. But then he's not the first pitcher to come to grief in Denver.

Kile is a two time All Star who finished fifth twice in Cy Young balloting, with a 20 win season and a no-hitter to his credit. Not many pitchers can claim as much.

He's clearly one of the best starting pitchers in the game. Not quite a Big Unit or a Rocket, but not far below, either.

In any case, if you factor in pro baseball leagues worldwide then there's no question he's one of the very, very best pitchers in the world.

More than that, however,he was one of the few genuinely "good guys" in the game.

It's a sad day for baseball and for St. Louis. But nothing near as sad as for his family.