Bechler

Sometime after pitcher Steve Bechler collapsed at the Orioles' training camp Sunday, a bottle of a potentially dangerous dietary supplement reportedly was removed from his locker. The bottle - containing ephedra, a popular weight-loss and energy-boosting herb - was recovered, but the instinct to remove the uncomfortable evidence was telling. Major League Baseball, and particularly its powerful players' union, has for too long treated unregulated supplements as just a public relations problem.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - When 11 football players died in training at various levels of competition in 2001, the number was shocking enough to prompt officials from high school federations to the NFL to review their practice regimens and drug policies. Baseball was another story ... and not a particularly sad one until Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler died yesterday, apparently of heatstroke. The risk of heatstroke is exponentially higher in football training camps, which take place in the hottest part of the summer and generally employ a boot camp approach to getting players in top cardiovascular shape for the coming season.

CHICAGO - Thousands of people die every year from overdoses of drugs such as heroin and cocaine, which is an intolerable state of affairs. So here's an idea: Let's outlaw heroin and cocaine. Whoops. We already did that, didn't we? And people kept snorting, smoking or injecting them anyway, despite the risks. Prohibiting a substance is not a cure-all. That's worth remembering when politicians demand that the federal government and Major League Baseball ban ephedra, the herbal stimulant blamed for the death of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler.

It is always sad when someone as young as Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler dies, but the reaction to his death is surprising in that blame is being assigned to Major League Baseball, the Orioles, the Food and Drug Administration; in short, to anything and everyone except Mr. Bechler. Organizations do not need to try to forestall every bad judgment that could be made by their employees. Mr. Bechler knew, or should have known, the risks of taking ephedra; he also knew, or should have known, that he was over his proper weight before he went to training camp.

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.

STEVE BECHLER was 23 when he collapsed at the Orioles' spring training camp and died at a Fort Lauderdale hospital. The pitcher was about to become a father for the first time. His wife, who hopped a plane when a cell phone call informed her she needed to get to Florida fast, was at her husband's side Monday when he died. Who else was on Steve Bechler's side? Not Major League Baseball, which doesn't have mandated drug-testing for anything except illegal steroids - and even that new "policy" is a joke.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Steve Bechler's widow might have a hard time collecting a large premium from Major League Baseball's life insurance policy, but she will get a significant contribution from Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Jim Beattie, the club's executive vice president, said yesterday. Steve Bechler, a 23-year-old Orioles pitching prospect, died Monday after collapsing at Sunday's practice and suffering heatstroke. His widow, Kiley Bechler, 22, is expecting the couple's child in April.

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.

A history of heat-related illness by Steve Bechler - disclosed this week by his parents - made the Orioles pitching prospect a prime candidate for the heatstroke that killed him, according to a leading researcher. W. Larry Kenney said studies - many conducted by the Israeli military - show a pattern of heat illness in the same patient. Some experts theorize that people are genetically predisposed to be sensitive to heat, but others believe the first incident may impair a person's ability to withstand it, said Kenney, president-elect of the American College of Sports Medicine.

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.