Bechler

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler, who made his major- league debut five months ago at Camden Yards, died yesterday morning of multisystem organ failure caused by heatstroke. He was 23. Bechler was rushed to North Ridge Medical Center toward the end of Sunday's spring training workout after becoming pale and disoriented on one of the back fields of the Orioles complex. He was attempting to complete his final conditioning run. His body temperature later peaked at 108 degrees, a team physician said.

A few weeks ago, Mike Flanagan grabbed an old file folder stuffed with color pictures and newspaper articles and leafed through it, studying everything once again. It's something the Orioles' executive vice president does on occasion, reliving painful memories stoked by a work file that is never too far away. "It's kept in a drawer by itself," Flanagan said. In a professional baseball career that has spanned 35 years and includes a World Series championship ring, a Cy Young Award and stints as a pitching coach, broadcaster and club executive, nothing has affected Flanagan the way the contents of that folder have.

The widow of Steve Bechler, the Oriole who suffered fatal heatstroke last week at spring training, plans to sue the maker of the weight-loss supplement her husband used - a strategy that experts say holds the best hope to obtain benefits beyond baseball's standard life insurance. A lawsuit against the team, a tactic being pursued by the widow of an NFL player who died under similar circumstances in 2001, is a far more difficult case to make. Workers' compensation laws shield employers from liability for most on-the-job deaths.

It comes in snapshots now, no longer waves. Often it's triggered by the precocious 4-year-old with the wicked sense of humor. Sometimes it happens when Hailie Bechler makes a sarcastic quip that belies her pre-school status. Or when her mom gazes into those familiar, blue-green-gray eyes. Or when the little girl pulls her hair back to reveal a face that looks just like her daddy's. That's when Kiley Bechler really senses the spirit of her deceased husband, former Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler, who died of heatstroke five years ago today.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Orioles owner Peter Angelos had misty eyes and a heavy heart after flying in from Baltimore to attend Steve Bechler's memorial service last night inside the team's spring training clubhouse. After listening to speeches by several of Bechler's family members and former teammates -- including Kiley Bechler, who is 7 1/2 months' pregnant -- Angelos called the pitcher's death "a terrible tragedy ... that defies definition." Then, when the topic turned to ephedrine, the stimulant that Broward County's chief medical examiner believes contributed to Bechler's heatstroke and death, Angelos turned as vigilant as ever.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Three days after rushing to Orioles spring training headquarters in the futile attempt to save pitcher Steve Bechler from heatstroke, the Fort Lauderdale Fire and Rescue Department was back yesterday, when pitcher Jason Johnson suffered a diabetic reaction. Johnson, 29, recovered swiftly from hypoglycemia - low blood sugar - and was cleared to drive from the team's spring training complex. Johnson, who has Type I diabetes, has similar reactions to low blood sugar about once or twice a year.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Without pointing fingers, Ernie and Pat Bechler described their son's checkered medical history yesterday, a few hours before Broward County's chief medical examiner linked his death to the use of a dietary supplement called Xenadrine RFA-1. Steve Bechler, a 23-year-old Orioles pitching prospect, died Monday morning after suffering heatstroke at Sunday's practice. Ernie and Pat Bechler left their Oregon home on Sunday night and flew cross-country to be with their son, but he died while they were in a limousine traveling from the airport.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - While the eyes of America were on six of baseball's biggest names discussing steroids Thursday, two Orioles pitchers were at a South Florida hearing involving another banned substance. Rick Bauer and Matt Riley appeared at deposition hearings Thursday as part of the ongoing third-party lawsuit involving the Orioles and the 2003 heatstroke death of pitcher Steve Bechler. They are likely the last among a group of at least a dozen Orioles players and staff to be called for a deposition in the past two months, according to Pete Murphy, an attorney in the Florida-based Kubicki, Draper law firm that is representing the Orioles.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - One day after the Orioles held a memorial service for teammate Steve Bechler, who died Monday from heatstroke, pitcher Josh Towers tried to clear his head of the tragedy 256 miles away. Towers is grouped with the pitchers at the Toronto Blue Jays' spring training camp in Dunedin, Fla., a nonroster invitee who signed as a minor-league free agent after seven years in the Orioles' organization. Probably no one was closer to Bechler last season than Towers. They were part of the same rotation at Triple-A Rochester and felt like part of the same family.

A few weeks ago, Mike Flanagan grabbed an old file folder stuffed with color pictures and newspaper articles and leafed through it, studying everything once again. It's something the Orioles' executive vice president does on occasion, reliving painful memories stoked by a work file that is never too far away. "It's kept in a drawer by itself," Flanagan said. In a professional baseball career that has spanned 35 years and includes a World Series championship ring, a Cy Young Award and stints as a pitching coach, broadcaster and club executive, nothing has affected Flanagan the way the contents of that folder have.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - While the eyes of America were on six of baseball's biggest names discussing steroids Thursday, two Orioles pitchers were at a South Florida hearing involving another banned substance. Rick Bauer and Matt Riley appeared at deposition hearings Thursday as part of the ongoing third-party lawsuit involving the Orioles and the 2003 heatstroke death of pitcher Steve Bechler. They are likely the last among a group of at least a dozen Orioles players and staff to be called for a deposition in the past two months, according to Pete Murphy, an attorney in the Florida-based Kubicki, Draper law firm that is representing the Orioles.

The company that makes the controversial ephedra-based diet supplement Xenadrine RFA-1 has filed a motion to include the Orioles as a third-party defendant in the $600 million lawsuit brought by the widow of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler. Nutraquest, formerly known as Cytodyne Industries, hopes to establish that the team was responsible for Bechler's death from heatstroke, though Broward County (Fla.) medical examiner Joshua Perper pointed to his ingestion of three Xenadrine capsules before a spring training workout as one of the major contributing factors in the tragedy.

New York yesterday became the second state to ban over-the-counter sales of ephedra, the herbal supplement that has been linked to the death of Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler. Orioles vice president Mike Flanagan was in New York City to see Gov. George E. Pataki sign the bill into law. From now on, each sale of the supplement in that state will be subject to a $500 fine. Illinois was the first state to pass such a measure, and Flanagan said he hopes Maryland and other states will soon follow suit.

On the six-month anniversary of her husband's death, Kiley Bechler spread the ashes of former Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler on the Camden Yards mound and both bullpen mounds during a quiet ceremony after yesterday's game. Steve Bechler died on Feb. 17 from complications related to heatstroke suffered during a spring training workout in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "I think this is where he would want to be," said Kiley, who made the trip from Oregon along with her nearly 4-month-old daughter Hailie, her grandmother and younger sister.

The widow of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler has filed a $600 million lawsuit against the maker of the ephedra-based diet drug and stimulant that was in his system when he died of heatstroke in February. New York attorney David Meiselman, representing Kiley Bechler, filed the suit Wednesday against Cytodyne Technologies, the company that produces Xenadrine RFA-1, and named New York-based manufacturer Phoenix Laboratories and Cytodyne president Robert Chinery as codefendants. The suit alleges the controversial nutritional supplement was directly responsible for Bechler's collapse during a spring training workout at the Orioles' training facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Feb. 16. Bechler lost consciousness and his body temperature rose to 108 degrees, causing his major organs to fail.

SEATTLE - Kiley Bechler still keeps her husband's last love letter in their daughter's baby book. She volunteers to read it, and as the warm thoughts come rushing back, tiny cracks form in her confident, 22-year-old voice. Steve Bechler made a habit of leaving little notes for Kiley every time baseball took him away from home. On Feb. 7, the day he left for spring training with the Orioles, he wrote his thoughts about their new marriage and the baby they had on the way. One night earlier, the whole thing had him in tears.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The widow of Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler will likely receive a $450,000 life insurance premium when Major League Baseball's pension committee finalizes her case Tuesday, sources close to the situation said yesterday. Kiley Bechler, who is eight months' pregnant with the couple's child, was in jeopardy of not qualifying for a sizable premium. Two weeks ago, Orioles executive vice president Jim Beattie said the situation could "fall through the cracks" between baseball's latest two collective bargaining agreements.

A FEW WEEKS back, the Bechlers made a strange discovery. Their son, Steve Bechler - or at least a video image of Steve Bechler - appears in PlayStation's MVP 2003 baseball game. "Our other son got a call at work to tell him Steve was on it, so my son went out and bought a few copies of it. I guess the teams include every player on the 40-man roster, and that's where Steve was. It's a nice treasure to have," Patricia Bechler said, choking back tears before adding: "But I can't watch baseball no more.

As Broward County (Fla.) medical examiner Joshua Perper set out his conclusions in the death of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler at a news conference Thursday, one person distinguished himself from the rest of the media pack. A New York Police Department press pass hung around Bryan Glazer's neck, and he wore a CNN pin on the lapel of his suit. But his questions were far more aggressive than those posed by the reporters sent by magazines, newspapers and television stations. And Glazer, a former Florida local reporter, was paid by a very different kind of employer: the manufacturer of the dietary supplement implicated by Perper in Bechler's death.