A Tribute to Darryl Kile

It’s strange how you remember certain events in your life.  I don’t mean the obvious ones (wedding, birth of a child, major world event, etc.).  I mean smaller, random moments that have an unexpected affect on you.  Darryl Kile’s untimely death 10 years ago today was one of those times for me.
 

I remember exactly where I was when I heard about Darryl Kile’s death.  It was a Saturday afternoon, and my wife and I were at a car dealership looking at an SUV.  We had found out the previous Mother’s Day that she was expecting our 2^nd child, so we were going to need a bigger vehicle.  As is normal for me, I was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals cap.  After a few minutes of looking around and speaking with a salesman, he noticed my cap and said: “Hey, sorry to hear about your team’s pitcher.”

I had not heard anything about Kile yet.  Cardinal fans were still coping with the death of legendary announcer Jack Buck just four days earlier – ironically, a game Kile started. I looked at the sales guy blankly and said “What are you talking about?”

“It was on the radio,” he said. “I think it was that guy who used to pitch for the Rockies….” he trailed off, trying to recall the pitcher’s name.

 “Darryl Kile?” I asked, feeling a knot in my stomach.

 “Yeah, that’s the guy.”

 I no longer felt like car shopping.  We left the dealership and I immediately tuned the car radio to a sports-talk station, which confirmed that 33-year-old Darryl Kile had been found dead in his hotel room that morning. He left behind a wife, 5-year-old twins and a 10-month-old son, as well as friends all across the game of baseball.

“So sad,” said my wife.  The rest of our drive home was silent.

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I remember seeing Darryl Kile pitch for the Astros back in 1991 and being convinced he was a stud in the making.  In his first start in the majors, he pitched six no-hit innings before being pulled from the game. Good fastball, ridiculous 12-to-6 curve, bulldog mentality on the mound (same thoughts I had a few years about about Adam Wainwright). In 1993, he made the All-Star team and permanently etched his name in the record books with a no-hitter against the Mets in September.  He was on the way to being an ace.  His last year in Houston, he went 19-7 with a 2.57 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 205 strikeouts in 255 innings pitched.

Then he left Houston to sign with the Colorado Rockies.

He said he enjoyed pitching in adverse conditions and wasn’t intimidated by Coors Field.  There was no humidor at Coors Canaveral in those days. Kile’s devastating curveball didn’t curve at altitude.  The fastball didn’t move the same way it did at sea level.  The result in 1998 was a stunning reversal from the previous season: Kile led the NL with 17 losses, his ERA ballooned to 5.20, and he allowed an average of 10 hits per nine innings. The next season was worse. It was painful to watch.

Through all that, though, Kile never complained.  He made 67 starts in his two years with the Rockies, pitching 421 innings. As the beatings continued and the losses piled up, Kile made no excuses.  He didn’t blame the thin air, the huge outfield, the punchless road hitting, none of it.  He put the blame on himself for not doing his job well enough.  I admired his poise.  The results were ghastly, but Darryl Kile was a stand-up guy his two years with the Rockies. Unlike Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle a few years later, he never quit on his team. 

By the time the Rockies traded him to St. Louis after the 1999 season, I felt relief for him, as well as excitement as a Cardinals fan.  He was going to the right team to resurrect his career.

And did he ever.

His first season in St. Louis, Kile won 20 games, made the All-Star team and finished fifth in Cy Young voting.  That deadly curve started dropping off the table again.  His strikeout-to-walk ratio was the best of his career.  He and close friend Matt Morris were one of the best 1-2 punches in either league.  They reached the NLCS before losing to the Mets.  In 2001, they were just as good. Kile pitched the last part of that season with an injured shoulder that required surgery after they were ousted in the NLDS by the eventual World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks.  He was ready to go by the following spring training.

Kile often was seen working with Morris and prized young lefty Rick Ankiel.  He got along with catcher Mike Matheny so well he once told Tony LaRussa “if Matheny isn’t catching, I’m not pitching.”  LaRussa didn’t quibble.

On June 18, 2002, Kile pitched the Cardinals into first place in the NL Central with 7 2/3 brilliant innings against the Anaheim Angels.  Four days later, they were at Wrigley Field to face the hated Small Bears.  With Kile’s competitive nature, he surely must have been looking forward to that type of rivalry game. But when he was absent during pregame warm-ups, teammates grew worried.  Matheny requested that someone check Kile’s hotel room.

 

Joe Girardi’s choked-up announcement that there had been “a tragedy in the Cardinals family” chills me even now.

*      *      *      *

People rarely speak ill of the deceased, but I remember being amazed at the number of stories about Darryl Kile – not only the player and teammate, but the husband, father, and friend.  Todd Jones wrote a touching letter to Kile’s children in The Sporting News.  He was so well regarded that his former teams, the Rockies and Astros, both chartered airplanes so his former teammates could pay their respects.  All three teams placed memorials in their ballparks as a tribute to the man.  The Rockies’ tribute was particularly impressive, considering how horribly his stint with the team had gone.  It spoke volumes to me about how well-liked and respected he really was.

Kile’s jersey hung in the dugout for each game the rest of the season, but the Cardinals avoided any public “Win it for Darryl” proclamations.  The situation could have turned into a made-for-Disney rallying cry; instead, the Cardinals narrowed their focus to the baseball field.  They added Scott Rolen to the lineup and dominated the NL Central, winning it by 13 games.  The night they clinched the division, Albert Pujols carried Kile’s jersey out to the field where the team celebrated. St. Louis finished with a 97-65 record. I don’t recall who noted it first, but the Cardinals had won 57 games after that awful June day.  Darryl Kile’s uniform number was 57.

They celebrated again after knocking the Diamondbacks out of the playoffs.  However, there would be no Disney-like finish to the season.  After blowing the 1-0 lead to the San Francisco Giants in Game 5 of the NLCS, the stunned looks on the Cardinals’ faces said it all.  It wasn’t supposed to end with a crushing, two-out rally in the bottom of the 9^th.  Yet, it did.  Just like that, the season was over. LaRussa called it the biggest disappointment of his career.  The Cardinals were left to face the chill rains of the fall without their friend and teammate.

*      *      *      *

Ten years later, Darryl Kile’s death still saddens me. It’s not just that he played for my two favorite teams (Cards and Rockies); no, it’s more that he was one year older than me and had kids about the same age. Just thinking about not being able to play catch with my daughters, take them on a roller coaster, or just hug them makes my heart ache.  A good man was taken from his family too soon. 

 

That’s not to say the whole story is sad.  Besides the 57 regular-season wins, there are some other interesting facts and figures from that season, some of which dovetail into 2012.

§  The team that Kile beat in his last start is the team that beat the Giants in the World Series.

§  Albert Pujols now plays for those Angels.

§  Number 57 hasn’t been retired, but no player has worn it since 2002

§  The Cardinals and Astros both established the Darryl Kile Good Guy award, for players who best exemplify Kile's traits of "a good teammate, a great friend, a fine father and a humble man."

§  The first recipient of that award was Mike Matheny

§  Mike Matheny is now the Cardinals’ manager

Although it’s comforting to that believe the 57 wins were a sign from above, I tend to believe it was just a coincidence.  But it was (and still is) a really cool coincidence.

The daughter whom I watched sleep that June day is now 11.  Earlier this year, we were at a Rockies game when she asked me about the DK57 sign in the Rockies bullpen.  After I explained, she asked me if Darryl Kile was one of my favorite players.

 

“Yes, honey,” I said. “Yes, he was.”