With the news we received yesterday about the death
of former Major League reliever Todd Frohwirth, most of us probably paused
to lament the loss of such a young man. What most people probably didn’t stop
to notice was that Frohwirth’s death was the continuation of an unfortunate
trend. That trend? Members of the 1991 Baltimore Orioles dying.
In total, 42 players cracked the box score for the Orioles
that final season at Memorial Stadium. Only 26 years later, seven of them have
already passed on. One out of every six. That rate is staggering by modern-day
standards. You’d have to go back to the Deadball Era, when lifespans were
shorter, to see anything comparable.
It didn’t start out this way. At the end of 2010, all 42 of
them were still with us. Nothing out of the ordinary. A team with all its
players living nineteen years later is hardly unusual. The coaching staff,
however, had already been hit hard by then. Johnny Oates, who
began the season as bench coach and replaced Frank Robinson as manager, had
been lost to cancer six years earlier. Three other coaches, Elrod Hendricks, Curt Motton, and Cal Ripken, Sr., had
gone to the great beyond by that point too.
Not long into 2011 though, the players started joining them.
The first to go was Francisco de
la Rosa on January 6. His death didn’t get much attention here in the
United States, as he was a relief pitcher whose entire career consisted of two
late-season games for a non-contending team and a total of four innings.
The next one came later that year, and hit home with a lot
more fans. Beloved pitcher, executive, and broadcaster Mike Flanagan
committed suicide
on August 24. The former Cy Young Award winner and franchise icon’s unexpected
death was the sad end of an era, just before the long-struggling franchise
turned the corner and began to contend again.
After that, another former lefty reliever, Kevin Hickey,
died after a diabetes-related
coma on May 16, 2012. Better known for his time with the White Sox, he
spent three years with the Orioles, of which 1991 was the last.
This bunch managed to escape 2013 without losing anyone, but
in 2014, it happened again. Once again it was a pitcher, this time right-hander
Jeff
Robinson. The journeyman hurler died on October 26 from “undisclosed
health issues.”
Early in 2015, the ’91 O’s lost their first position player,
and their second guy named Jeff, when utilityman Jeff
McKnight lost his battle with leukemia
on March 1.
As it had been in 2011, August 24 proved to be a fateful day
in 2016, as infielder Juan Bell
died from kidney
disease in his native Dominican Republic.
And now in 2017, we have another to add to the list: Todd Frohwirth on March 26.
Does this amount to anything more than a statistical
anomaly? My guess would be no. However, if I were in some way associated with
the 1991 Orioles, I’d start living my life to the fullest. You never know who the grim reaper will claim next.
