Baltimore Sun: Friends saw Flanagan's pain, still shocked by suicide

[ChaosLex]

Really good article here. The authors are a few members of the Baltimore Sun's staff.

Scott McGregor worried about his old Orioles teammate, Mike Flanagan.

Once admired in baseball for his toughness on the pitching mound and his droll wit off of it, Flanagan seemed to disappear after he lost his job as Orioles executive vice president in 2008.

"Literally, I would leave him messages just angry at him," McGregor recalled Thursday after police confirmed that Flanagan had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. " 'Just call me. Come on. Are you all right?' I think there were some things there — I don't know what it was — but he wouldn't open up."

McGregor thought his friend had taken a turn for the better this year. Flanagan seemed rejuvenated when calling Orioles games on television or swapping baseball tales with the club's manager, Buck Showalter.

That made it all the more difficult for McGregor and other friends to process the news of Flanagan's suicide. "I am just shocked," McGregor said. "I thought he was through all that."

Police said that Flanagan, 59, appeared to have shot himself in the face, making identification difficult and causing official confirmation of his death to be delayed. Flanagan did not leave a note, police said, but they added that he had apparently been upset about financial issues. Police said that Alex Flanagan had also called 911 in June, asking officers to check on her husband.

Friends said they had no inkling that Flanagan might be facing financial difficulties and, recently, had seen little indication that he was depressed.

"Not at all," said former Orioles executive Joe Foss, who began a close friendship with Flanagan when he came to the club from the business world in 1993.

Foss works about a mile from the Flanagan home and noticed his friend sitting at a stoplight recently. He began tailgating Flanagan, prompting the former pitcher to open his sunroof and waggle a middle finger. A few seconds later, Foss' cellphone vibrated with a call from Flanagan, and the two talked merrily for the rest of a 30-minute drive downtown.

Duquette spoke to Flanagan on Tuesday night and said he detected no hint of what was to come. He rushed to his friend's house the next afternoon after a reporter's call alerted him that a body had been found there. Duquette's heart sank when he saw police cars.

"He cared so much and that was most times a good thing, but oftentimes, it was tough on him because he tended to pay attention to that criticism a little more," Duquette said in reflecting on Flanagan's time as a baseball executive.

"You know there are certain moves that aren't going to work out because it was the nature of the sport, but he expected and wanted them all to work out," Duquette added. "He expected every player acquired to have the same work ethic, the same heart and desire that he possessed as a player — and that the other guys did that were part of the great Orioles clubs that he was on. It became a frustration for him at times. It would keep him awake at night."

Former Orioles manager Dave Trembley said he had spoken with Flanagan several times over the winter and called his death a "bad dream."

"He wanted to talk about the young guys we had," Trembley said. "He loved the Orioles. I think he really, really was hurt when he felt that he wasn't involved anymore. He just wanted to help."

Thorne said he developed a bond with Flanagan while calling games with him the past two seasons on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. He refused to blame his friend's death on Flanagan's disappointing tenure running the club.

"While there was disappointment, I don't think he ever thought of it as failure," Thorne said. "It was an effort that didn't succeed. It wasn't for a lack of effort and work at it. That's a big difference. I don't think everything that happened to him should be put on the fact that his time in the front office didn't get the results that he wanted. He was a much bigger person, a much stronger person."

Thorne said he was struggling to accept that he would not call this weekend's Yankees series with his friend as planned.

McGregor recalled how Flanagan failed to return calls in the months after he lost his job. McGregor even mentioned his concerns to other former teammates such as Jim Palmer and Rick Dempsey.

"I said, 'Guys, I'm afraid. He's in a bad spot,'" McGregor remembered Thursday. "I was concerned about this back then."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-flanagan-follow-20110826,0,1246386.story?page=2&obref=obnetwork

[EddieMurrayfan]

Thanks for posting this.

It shows that we will never really know why he got to this point. Thorne's comments reaffirm what many have thought - Flanny wasn't so shallow a person that he would do this just over the Orioles lack of success or his "part" in that.

[OFFNY]

Excellent post. Chaos.

[blid]

They say he seemed to have improved but another article made it look like his wife was still very worried. Apparently, she'd called the police just recently when she couldn't find him and called the police again this time before she had found him. The poor guy must have been struggling.

[TiredofLosing20]

I have yet to see anything from AM... I find that extremely odd... I am wondering if he is taking it particularly hard.

[ledzepp8]

I have yet to see anything from AM... I find that extremely odd... I am wondering if he is taking it particularly hard.

I would be if I was AM. You've got Baltimore TV stations erroneously blaming Flanny's suicide on how he felt like he had failed in his tenure in the FO and AM is the man who replaced him in that position.

He's probably trying to wrap is head around the whole thing and probably putting a little blame on himself, even though he should not.

[TiredofLosing20]

I would be if I was AM. You've got Baltimore TV stations erroneously blaming Flanny's suicide on how he felt like he had failed in his tenure in the FO and AM is the man who replaced him in that position.

He's probably trying to wrap is head around the whole thing and probably putting a little blame on himself, even though he should not.

Yeah.. sorta what I was alluding to.. Still a little surprised he didn't do some kind of statement.

This whole thing just blows.

[ledzepp8]

Yeah.. sorta what I was alluding to.. Still a little surprised he didn't do some kind of statement.

This whole thing just blows.

Agreed...it's a ****ty situation for anyone to be involved in. We're just fans and it still sucks.

[Sports Guy]

Wow..how difficult is it going to be for Thorne this weekend?

[TGO]

Yeah.. sorta what I was alluding to.. Still a little surprised he didn't do some kind of statement.

This whole thing just blows.

I think MacPhail is probably letting PA's statement stand as the official statement of the team. I'm sure now that the team is back in Baltimore the reporters will ask him about it.

[Dannyboy]

Wow..how difficult is it going to be for Thorne this weekend?

He was one of the first people I thought of him when the news broke. It seems to me that the interactions between him and Flanny were more than just two analysts doing a baseball game. It had the feel of two friends watching a baseball game.

[gtown]

Bill Madden of the Daily News has a similar story. Ken Singleton and Lee Mazzilli paint a similar picture as McGregor. Madden doesn't mice words about PA.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2011/08/25/2011-08-25_mike_flanagans_suicide_leaves_former_baltimore_orioles_teammates_friends_searchi.html

"It's just so sad," Singleton said, as I approached him after Girardi had concluded his press conference. "It's just unbelievable. The last time I talked to him was when (the Orioles) were here, July 31. After the game, I drove him to Penn Station. We were together in the car for about 25 minutes. It was a good talk. He told me: ‘This is no way for this team to be.' Everybody told me that he was really despondent about the Orioles and the fact that people were blaming him.

"We all told him to stop reading the Internet."

"It is just a terrible, terrible tragedy that Flanny should have felt the way he did," said Lee Mazzilli, who was hired by Flanagan as Orioles manager in 2004 - over the dissent of all the others in the Baltimore front office who wanted to keep the job in-house and go with bench coach Sam Perlozzo. "There's no question the Orioles would not be where they are if they'd allowed him to do his job the way he wanted to. I know he was devastated when he was let go."

[NewMarketSean]

I was just about to post the NY Daily News story -- I think that is the most eye-opening account yet.

[TiredofLosing20]

I will reserve judgement but if this is true:

Among the other distressing stories going around Thursday was that Flanagan never got over being jerked around by Angelos and the owner's son, John, over his broadcasting contract - one that apparently never was consummated - last year. That, too, conceivably contributed to the financial distress his friends say he was dealing with.

Then I retract all positive posts I have made about Angelos in regards to this situation.

[NewMarketSean]

Re: The NY Daily News story...was Flanagan hammered that badly on the internet? Maybe over at the Sun boards...but definitely not here.