Posted on 08/24/2011 6:52:37 PM PDT by Alistair Stratford IV
Orioles Great Mike Flanagan Found Dead Near Monkton Home
The Cy Young winner is dead at 59.
By Tyler Waldman and Sean Welsh
Orioles great Mike Flanagan was found dead Wednesday afternoon outside his home in northern Baltimore County, according to Orioles officials and news reports.
WBAL-TV reports that police found a body shortly before 4:30 p.m. outside Flanagan's Monkton home in the 15000 block of York Road.
The Baltimore Sun reports that police remained outside Flanagan's home Wednesday night, and a police car blocked the driveway.
Flanagan was a member of the 1983 World Series championship team, and in recent years served as a front office executive and television broadcaster for MASN.
He appeared in 526 games in 18 seasons, going 167-143 with a 3.90 ERA. He won 23 games for the Orioles in 1979, winning the American League Cy Young Award, voted on by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America as the best pitcher in the league.
Flanagan was named vice president for baseball operations on Dec. 4, 2002, working alongside Jim Beattie. He was promoted to executive vice president of baseball on Oct. 11, 2005, working closely with vice president Jim Duquette. With both partners, the job was a rare role that was viewed around baseball as a dual-general manager tandem.
He was elected to the Orioles Hall of Fame in 1994—his first year of eligibility.
He was drafted in 1973, and debuted in 1975. After spending three-plus years in Toronto, he returned to Baltimore as a free agent in 1991, appearing in 63 gams as a reliever—including Oct. 6, 1991, when he entered with one out and struck out two Tigers hitters before 50,700 fans in the final game at Memorial Stadium. He retired in 1992.
He was the Orioles pitching coach in 1995 before spending two years as a television analyst. He went back to the field in 1998, again as pitching coach, before spending four more years in the broadcast booth preceding his move to the front office.
Flanagan was born in Manchester, NH on Dec. 16, 1951. He pitched for the University of Massachusetts.
His grandfather, Ed Sr., and father, Ed Jr., played in the Red Sox organization.
Flanagan lived in Sparks with his wife, Alex, and three daughters—Kerry, Kathryn and Kendall.
It’s the ABERDEEN PATCH - it’s a local paper (Aberdeen, MD - home of Cal Ripken) meant for local audience. It’s in MD, and is recognizable to most of us natives.
There are updates - check it out again:
“WBAL-TV (note: Baltimore station) reports that his death may be a suicide.”
>>“WBAL-TV (note: Baltimore station) reports that his death may be a suicide.”<<
Thanks for the update (sad though it is).
I guess I was a least expecting the reporter to say “this is preliminary and more info will be reported as it becomes available.”
Aaah, I guess it’s just a small-time local yokel reporter. I’ve seen lots of glitches in various local reporting here on FR.
I hope it wasn’t suicide. It seems strange he was not far from home, rather than far away or in it.
>>I hope it wasn’t suicide. It seems strange he was not far from home, rather than far away or in it.<<
Suicide has its own set of pathological.
Should it be true, it leads us all to the question “you had it all, so few people even come close — WHY???”
I agree in the hopes that it wasn’t suicide.
But a death in someone so young is always a tragedy.
Used to ride my bike down sherwood road which is a block away or so; the library was there, and I’d ride over from the Springlake community (up Pots Springs Road), and then come back down york/warren road. My wife is from Cockeysville, and there’s a nice little diner across the street and down a little ways from there.
Didn’t know Flanagan still lived there; I used to ride my bike past several of the Oriole homes; Ripken didn’t live too far from my house at one time.
Sorry to here this — he was too young.
Be patient. This barely happened less than 12 hours ago. And he’s not a world figure or well-known celebrity, so Geraldo won’t be reporting outside his home. Remember this is real life, not TV where everything is figured out in 60 minutes less commercials.
Also, I doubt suicide. People that commit suicide don’t usually do it in their front yards. But I could be wrong.
>>Also, I doubt suicide. People that commit suicide don’t usually do it in their front yards. But I could be wrong.<<
No matter how it happened, it is a tragedy.
Yes, we must wait for more information.
“People that commit suicide don’t usually do it in their front yards.”
That’s what I was thinking with the 1st report - but this was updated later:
‘The body was found on a trail “some distance from the house,”’
So now it doesn’t sound like it was in his yard at all.
I gave this some thought and I can now understand why someone would commit suicide outside of their home, especially with a gunshot. It’s possible he wanted to spare the family of seeing the gruesome scene and having to deal with the clean-up. It also allows the family to think of happy moments spent in the house without associating them with their loved one’s death and makes it easier for the family to continue living in the house, if they choose to do so. I would have a hard time living in a house after something like that happened in it.
In our newspaper it said that he was having financial troubles, even though he was still broadcasting games. What a tragedy.
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