Mike Flanagan: You Wouild Be Proud of Your O's

Mike Flanagan's death last year was hard to accept for a lot of folks in NH, including me. For years I would compete against Mike in our school leagues, then we would play as teammates in our summer leagues. It was especially hard to accept the official cause of death as suicide due to a self-inflicted gun shot to the head. This whole situation never sat right with me, so I did as much research as I could this week to look for answers. I found a couple of possible stressers. First, Mike was let go from his duties as GM of the Orioles in 2008. He rejoined the O's as a TV broadcaster in 2010. During his span of unemployment Mike utilized his personal savings & his player pension as money for his everyday needs. The shrinking of his savings & pension monies was a concern to him, although there was never a bankruptcy or foreclosure mentioned in any records. Second, Mike thought that the Baltimore community & O's fans blamed him personally for not restoring the Orioles to the greatness of the 1970's & 1980's - when he was a player. I guess when you have a life of success as a player it can be frustrating to make moves that don't work out as a GM. And, even though Mike's mood had been much better of late per friend & teammate Scott McGregor, his front office failure & firing in 2008 was too much stress for him to handle. I still feel that we will never know the whole story - why suicide, why not reach out to your family & friends, why not look at all your accomplishments, why, why. But Mike must be smiling somewhere with the results of the 2014 Baltimore Orioles who are running away with the AL East title. If they win the World Series, I wonder if Mike would have made a different decision.