Darrell Porter Found Dead

[moose]

From ESPN.com - This is pretty brief, so I'm full-posting it:

Tuesday, August 6, 2002
Porter, 50, found dead in suburban Kansas City
Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Former major league All-Star catcher Darrell Porter, who was the Most Valuable Player of the 1982 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals, was found dead Monday in a park in suburban Kansas City. He was 50.


Sugar Creek police said a motorist reported seeing a man lying next to a car in La Benite Park late Monday afternoon, The Kansas City Star reported in its Tuesday editions. When police arrived, they found Porter's body.


The cause of death was not known, but police said there was no evidence of foul play. The Jackson County medical examiner will perform an autopsy.


Porter lived in Lee's Summit, another Kansas City suburb, according to driver's license records.


''We heard he went out to get a newspaper and went to the park to read it,'' Art Stewart, senior adviser to Kansas City Royals general manager Allard Baird, told The Kansas City Star. ''That's the only thing we knew. It's very, very upsetting.''


Porter hit .247 with 188 home runs and 826 RBI in 17 major league seasons with Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis and Texas. His best season came in 1979, when he set career highs by hitting .291 with 20 homers and 112 RBI for the Royals.


Porter started his major league career with the Brewers in 1971, and was traded to the Royals after the 1976 season. He was an All-Star twice in his four years with Kansas City.


During spring training in 1980, Porter checked into a drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation center. He returned to the team but his production dropped, with his average falling to .249, but was still a key factor in helping the Royals reach their first World Series -- which they lost to Philadelphia in six games.


Porter chronicled his struggle with addiction and recovery from it in a 1984 book, ''Snap Me Perfect! The Darrell Porter Story.''


He filed for free agency after the season and signed with St. Louis to play for Whitey Herzog, his manager in Kansas City.


Porter struggled in his first two seasons at St. Louis but was the NLCS and World Series MVP in 1982 when the Cardinals beat the Brewers in seven games.


He played in his third World Series when the Cardinals lost to the Royals in 1985. Porter then spent two seasons with the Rangers before retiring in 1987.


Porter had recently shown interest in getting into baseball broadcasting. He was at the Royals' spring training camp this year and spent time in the broadcast booth during the team's last homestand to get some tips from the Royals' radio team of Denny Matthews and Ryan LeFebvre.


Survivors and funeral arrangements were not immediately known.

[KCBOOMER]

Darrell Porter was really tough when he was a Royal. In 1979 He had over 100 walks, runs, and rbi's. He will be missed.

[Max Power]

If I remember right, and I could be wrong, in his last book (circa 1999-2000) Whitey Herzog had some wonderful things to say about him.

50. Man, that's way too young. Sad.

[Ytown Tribe fan]

When I saw that, I thought it was a terribly bad joke at first. Man, you talk about a tough year for the Cards!

Porter will probably always be remembered for what he didn't do for KC (in the 1980 WS) as much as for what he DID do for St. Louis in the 1982 WS.

In fairness, he had a lousy WS in 1980, but he sure was one of the big reasons the Royals were so successful during his tenure.

As a side note -- isn't it interesting how many ex-Royals choose to live in KC? It's a good place to live, to be sure (my family and I were there for 10 years).

[SmedIndy]

I heard it on the way to work. Very sad. I wonder if it was a heart attack? He lived fast in the 70's, but I thought he really cleaned himself up.

[soxfan121]

Too much "real life" in the sports pages this summer...

Godspeed Darrell.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Originally posted by soxfan121
Too much "real life" in the sports pages this summer...

Godspeed Darrell.

Ditto!

Darrell Porter was an overcomer in his lifetime, and someone I WOULD hold up as a role model in baseball (they are few).

I also think that, because of his intensity and intelligence as a player, his career is one that is truly much better than his stats.

I don't know that I'd pick him for the HOF, but he is definitely better than a number of HOF catchers. But that's for another time.

I've just recently attended a funeral of a friends wife who was 46 (I'm 45) so this is perhaps affecting me more than I care to admit.
I will be praying for his family, as I'm sure many others will.

[Max Power]

ESPN.com is now reporting that Porter, who beat alcohol and drug addictions during his playing days, had cocaine in his system when he died last week, according to autopsy results released Monday.

What a shame. Demons. Sad.

[SmedIndy]

The reports of his death remind me of when the drummer for Toto died while mowing his lawn.

Cocaine is a nasty thing. Glad I never tried it, and never will.

[KCBOOMER]

You knew something was up when you heard the initial autopsy revealed no cause of death and they were waiting on the toxicology reports.

[VNV Nation]

OD'ing on coke is so 1983.

[spitball]

Ugh.....So sad.
Cocaine is the Devil's work.
Side note:
I was playing a club a month ago. After we were done playing I packed up my stuff and got ready to leave. Before I left I took a trip to the can because nature called. I could'nt get in though because all these rocker posers were hogging the john while they were doing blow.
I shouted at the top of my lungs, "What is this , the 80's?!! You guys are so lame!!!"....blah blah blah.
I feel bad for Porter's family. The crap they had to put up with.....

[Max Power]

For the record, he did not OD - it was just in his system.

[TimmyB]

Originally posted by Max Power
For the record, he did not OD - it was just in his system.

Just like Entwistle...

[Fuzzy Bear]

It was my understanding that Darrell was in recovery, so he obviously relapsed if he was in recovery. This discovery was very sad news to me, personally.

We are not kind, as a society, to persons with addiction problems.
I grant you that living with addicts and alcoholics is burdensome, but put yourself in Darrell Porter's shoes.

Darrell Porter fell hard, then was lionized for his recovery. Somewhere along the line he relapsed. What could he do?

He could have reached out for help. But would you have done so if you were Darrell Porter, and you saw the public ridicule inflicted on Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden every time they fell? Would you want that for yourself and for your family? Or would you entertain the thought of "riding it out", "getting control of this thing on my own"?

He could have gone to NA or AA. What would the reaction there have been? Darrell has probably seen enough relapsers come back, sometimes to be grilled on what they should have done.

He could have gone back to church. Darrell was, as I am, a Born-Again Christian, and I'm sure he's witnessed people coming back from a binge going to the altar to make things right. I have too. I have also witnessed misunderstanding and lack of compassion for such persons in some Christian circles (though by no means all). Darrell probably saw that, too.

Are these excuses for his choices? To some degree, yes, they are. Doing the right thing is hard. If it were easy, more people would do the right thing, and the world would be a better place.

Darrell Porter was a drug addict, and he died because of drug use. This is sad. Darrell had resources available to him that he didn't use. That's on him.

What is on you and me is to realize just how difficult it is to make the decision to come clean and seek help. It's even more difficult to make that decision if you've been clean and sober for a while and then relapsed; others send messages that you're a jerk in little ways. If a person is actively using drugs, we don't need to excuse it, but if that person is willing to stop using and seek help, we should, for his sake and ours, have an attitude of supportive restoration. When I fall in life, I want to be restored. The Darrell Porters of this world need to know that restoration can follow admission and change.