Why did darryl kile die

Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Lance Pugmire. Louis Cardinals in The team woke up and headed to Wrigley Field to play the Chicago Cubs, but there was someone missing. Starting pitcher Darryl Kile was nowhere to be found. What they learned shortly after stunned and saddened not just the Cardinals franchise, but the entire baseball world. Darryl Kile was one of the most reliable starting pitchers in the MLB during the s.

He started at least 22 games in each of his 11 full seasons as a pro, including six straight seasons with over 30 starts. He started his journey in Houston, where he played for seven seasons and made two All-Star teams in and By Fangraphs at least, he had three straight seasons of virtually identical baseball with wildly different ERAs.

But his second year, well that was a bad one. Part of his success as a pitcher was due to him cutting down his walk rate. He still walked batters at a below average rate, but a 3. It returned to above 5 in his second year as a Rockie and his strikeouts fell to a career low, even below his first couple years. He had a 6. And then the Cardinals traded for him. For a whole lot of nothing. You can see the logic in a Jose Jimenez , but he was below replacement level in 28 starts in and was going to be Rich Croushore was a year-old reliever with two below replacement seasons under his belt and who lasted exactly 15 more innings in the majors.

Brent Butler was a former top prospect who had a. And Manny Aybar was a year-old long reliever with 97 IP in , but with They got year-old Daves Veres, who had a 2. And they got Luther Hackman, a year-old probable reliever. Hindsight and all, because the conventional wisdom was that Kile was toast, but even accounting for that, this seems like a ridiculous swindle by Walt Jocketty.

Then the magic of Dave Duncan coupled with getting the hell away from Coors proved to be exactly what Kile needed. He went in , but in So wins are important was in full force at the time. He definitely deserved another All-Star nod this year at the very least. And then in , his season trended way down. The circumstances surrounding Hancock's death don't even leave you with a choice -- there's no doubt this is a death that should have been avoided, and that might be the saddest fact of all.

According to the police report, Hancock left Busch Stadium at about p. That was only about an hour after the end of the Cardinals' loss to the Cubs, in which Hancock pitched three innings.

There's little doubt Hancock's drinking began then, in the team clubhouse. It continued during dinner at Mike Shannon's, a restaurant and bar owned by the former Cardinals player who is now a broadcaster.

The report said that Hancock got there about and stayed until after midnight. Some witnesses have said he declined offers of a cab ride home. Hancock opted to do his own driving. Ultimately, the responsibility belongs to Hancock, of course. But a lot of people will live with hard questions about whether they could have done something to persuade Hancock to help himself. Major League Baseball is all about going to the ballpark and drinking beer.