Nationals manager Davey Johnson will always be a Baltimore Oriole at heart. He played eight years for that organization during its glory days under manager Earl Weaver in the 1960s and early 1970s. He managed it to back-to-back playoff berths in 1996 and 1997. So the loss of Mike Flanagan, a longtime Orioles player, coach, executive and broadcaster, to a self-inflicted gunshot on Wednesday left Johnson heartbroken.
“He was a good friend and I think the world of him,” Johnson said. “I just wished I’d known he was having a struggle. I’d sure like to have talked to him. It’s just a terrible loss. Everybody that knew Flanny loved him.”
Johnson’s career in Baltimore ended in 1972 and Flanagan joined the organization the year after as a minor-leaguer. But Flanagan served as the team’s color commentator during the two years Johnson managed Baltimore so the two knew each other well. And, of course, there was the bond between all Orioles who played under the brilliant, bombastic Weaver.
Even with the awards and championships, Flanagan had one last memorable moment late in his career. Back with the Orioles after a 2 1/2-year stint with the Toronto Blue Jays, Flanagan got to pitch the final inning in the last game at Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium, the understated ballpark where the Orioles and NFL’s Baltimore Colts delivered so many titles over 37 years. A roaring sellout crowd on Oct. 6, 1991 demanded Flanagan pitch the ninth inning even though a 7-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers was imminent. He struck out the two batters he faced.
I was just a kid watching on television that day in my suburban Maryland home. But to this day I have never seen a more emotional closing ceremony in sports. Maybe the Yankees and Red Sox and Dodgers can all match or exceed the Orioles for great players. But Baltimore moved from St. Louis in 1954 and no team in baseball had a better run from 1961 to 1985 with 24 winning seasons, three Word Series championships, six American League pennants and seven A.L. East titles. And all of those players were still around in 1991. Their best moments hadn’t happened 50 years before, their exploits were in living memory of most of that crowd.
So after the game, as one by one close to 80 former Orioles, including the all-time greats – Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson, Weaver, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, Paul Blair, Cal Ripken and a host of others – drifted out to their old positions with the Field of Dreams theme playing, fans and former players were openly weeping. Flanagan, a grizzled 39-year-old veteran by then, was in no better state. He doffed his cap to the crowd, basked in the cheers and took his place on the mound among an incredible collection of pitching talent: Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson, among many others. It is likely the enduring image of Flanagan, a pitcher Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski today called one of the all-time great “crafty left-handers”.
It’s hard to reconcile that moving tribute to a team and a way of baseball – the Orioles Way, they called it – with his ultimate end. Flanagan’s death was ruled a suicide by the Maryland medical examiner on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. No final note was left, but a police investigation revealed financial issues may have been a contributing factor. Flanagan, 59, was found on his Baltimore County property Wednesday afternoon. He won the 1979 American League Cy Young Award and helped the Orioles to an American League pennant that year and a World Series title in 1983.
“I think he’ll be remembered as a great pitcher and a great teacher,” Johnson said, “His influence to everybody around him was always positive. He was always upbeat. He was a good example for all the youngsters coming up and [veteran] teammates alike.”
For Orioles fans too young to remember, Flanagan has been described as wickedly funny, a classic New Englander whose dry delivery masked a gallows humor. Check out some of the tributes pouring in today from the talented beat writers and columnists who covered Flanagan and the Orioles during his years with the organization. Richard Justice, now of the Houston Chronicle, who was the Orioles beat writer for the Washington Post; Tim Kurkjian, a longtime fixture on ESPN, but a Montgomery County native who covered the team for the Baltimore Sun; Ken Rosenthal, a beat writer and later columnist for the Sun; Fellow New Englander Peter Gammons on MLB.com weighed in; Buster Olney, another ESPNer who spent two years working for the Sun when Johnson was manager and Flanagan had joined the television broadcast team for Home Team Sports. Their combined words serve as an all-encompassing eulogy for a man who, no matter the manner of his death, deserves one. He meant that much to the Orioles. He meant that much to Baltimore. Watching Palmer and Rick Dempsey, Flanagan’s former catcher, on MASN’s postgame show Wednesday night was both moving and gut-wrenching. You hope his family and friends can find some peace in the coming months and years, as difficult as that will be.
Johnson has endured his own ups and downs in recent years. A ruptured appendix a few years ago almost killed him and he had a heart procedure earlier this year. He also lost a daughter, Andrea, at age 32, in 2005 and a stepson, Jake, 34, in May.
“I’ve lost a lot of people very close to me,” Johnson said. “I wish I’d had a chance to talk to [Flanagan] and cheer him up like he’s done for me in the past.”
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