Baseball's greatest players have achieved mammoth levels of fame and fortune, but they
aren't immune to tragedy and hardship. It may be the national pastime, but there are still some
skeletons underneath the dugout. Here are some tragic details about baseball's biggest legends.
By the time of Tony Gwynn's retirement in 2001, he'd spent his entire 20 years in the majors with
the San Diego Padres, earning him the nickname "Mr. Padre." He then continued to work in baseball
as a coach for his alma mater, San Diego State University. But when he passed away from cancer
at a relatively early age, it forced baseball to look at chewing tobacco with a new lens.
Gwynn was one of the greatest hitters in MLB history, making 15 All-Star teams and
racking up eight batting titles. Off the field, he avoided recreational and performance-enhancing
drugs while living a clean lifestyle. His two vices were junk food and smokeless tobacco.
He began using tobacco when he was just 17 years old. In the summer of 2010,
he was diagnosed with cancer in his right cheek. Following surgery to remove a malignant tumor
inside his parotid gland, he was left unable to smile or close his right eye. Unfortunately,
his cancer eventually returned, and continued surgery and treatment did further
damage to his face and health. In June 2014, he passed away at the age of 54. Since then,
the MLB has made a concerted effort to steadily phase chewing tobacco out of the game.
Mickey Mantle symbolized strength and Americana on the baseball diamond. But he also suffered
a variety of ailments throughout his life. Back in his high school football days, a kick in the
shin almost led to his leg being amputated. In his rookie MLB season, he suffered a severe knee
injury when his foot got caught in a drainpipe covering while he was chasing a fly ball.
Besides injuries, other health issues were also common in the Mantle family.
Mickey's father and two of his uncles died of Hodgkin's disease before their 40th birthdays,
leading a twentysomething Mickey to say,
"I hope to make it to 40."
Mantle lived his life to excess, as he was a prankster and an alcoholic,
though he prided himself on playing games sober. One time, he and his teammate Billy
Martin climbed to the ledge of their hotel room to spy on their teammates. When they
realized that they couldn't see into their teammates' rooms and they couldn't get down,
they had to climb all the way around the hotel while they were on the 22nd floor! By the time of
his death, Mantle was suffering from hepatitis C, a bad case of cirrhosis of the liver, and
inoperable liver cancer. Before dying at the age of 63, he issued a final warning to the public:
"Don't be like me."
As a player and manager for the New York Yankees, Billy Martin won five World Series.
He was known for his aggressive style of play that affectionately became known as "Billyball."
But his abrasiveness also led to his dismissal from every team that he managed. His troubles
began during his playing days. Following a highly publicized fight at the Copacabana nightclub,
the Yankees traded Martin, believing that he was a bad influence on his teammate Mickey Mantle.
After his playing career, Martin spent almost a decade working in the Minnesota Twins organization
before being promoted to manager in 1969. Even though the Twins made the playoffs, he only lasted
one year. He also got into a fight with Twins pitcher Dave Boswell that resulted in Boswell
getting stitches. This was the typical story when it came to Billy Martin. He won the 1977
World Series while managing the Yankees but was then forced to resign in the middle of the next
season for calling out his star player Reggie Jackson and team owner George Steinbrenner.
Martin ultimately died on Christmas Day 1989 in a single-car accident.
From 1961 to 1966, Dodgers legend Sandy Koufax had perhaps the most dominant run of pitching
in MLB history. But then he retired after the 1966 season at the age of 30,
revealing to the public the pain he'd endured while playing. He suffered from chronic arthritis
in his pitching arm that he feared would cripple him for life if he continued pitching.
His left elbow hurt so much that he would have to use his right hand to shave and comb his hair.
In order to stay on the mound, he had to rely on ice and heat treatments,
as well as anti-inflammatory pills that he hated. Knowing that 1966 would be his last year,
he told his manager in the final month of the season to not worry about him and to use him
as much as possible. He led the Dodgers to the World Series that year, though they lost
to the Baltimore Orioles. Koufax announced his retirement less than six weeks later.
"I've got a lot of years to live after baseball, and I would like to live them
with complete use of my body."
Roger Maris' 1961 season was both one of the greatest years in the sport's history
and a nightmare for Maris. That year, he broke Babe Ruth's single-season home run record. But
he was cast as the villain that season while his teammate Mickey Mantle was seen as the hero.
Mantle had been with the team for a decade and was seen as the leader of the Yankees. Maris was
only in his second year with the team, and the public saw him as trying to overshadow Mantle.
Maris' family was threatened, and the stress made him lose his hair.
On October 1, Maris broke Ruth's record with his 61st dinger of the season. The crowd cheered,
but Maris faced another obstacle. Ruth was still seen as untouchable, so Commissioner Ford Frick,
who'd been friends with Ruth, declared that the record was still Ruth's because Maris had played
more games. When Ruth hit 60 homers in 1927, the MLB played a 154-game regular season, but by 1961,
the regular season lasted 162 games. In 1980, Maris had this to say about the whole thing:
"Do you know what I have to show for sixty-one home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing."
"Since then, even, other records have been broken.
They never did anything else [to] anybody's record except that one."
Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but he might now be more
famous for the disease that took his life. And during his playing days, he was overshadowed by
his two more famous teammates. He was one of the best offensive players in the MLB during his first
decade, but he was also on the same team as Babe Ruth. The polar-opposite pair were baseball's most
dangerous hitting duo. While Ruth was boisterous, Gehrig was quiet and unassuming. He also had a
blue-collar work ethic that led him to play in a then-record 2,130 consecutive games, earning him
the nickname "The Iron Horse." Then, a year after Ruth's departure, the Yankees brought up a rookie
outfielder from the West Coast who would then eclipse the now-solo Gehrig as well: Joe DiMaggio.
But unlike many aging stars paired with a rookie angling for attention,
Gehrig supported DiMaggio. The veteran didn't crave the spotlight, and he lacked confidence
despite his abilities. DiMaggio appreciated this and stood with the rest of the Yankees when Gehrig
was forced to end his streak and eventually retire in 1939 due to his diagnosis of ALS, the
condition popularly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Gehrig died two years later at the age of 37.
"I might've been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."
In many ways, MLB's players' union might be the strongest labor union in the country.
One of the biggest obstacles that the union ever faced had to do with the reserve clause,
which bound players to their franchises, with very little available in terms of free agency.
This was finally challenged at the beginning of the 1970s by outfielder Curt Flood.
During his career, Flood was a three-time All-Star who won seven Gold Gloves as one of the best
defensive players in the game. He was part of two championship teams with the St. Louis Cardinals,
in 1964 and 1967. After the 1969 season, he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies following
a 12-year-run with the Cardinals. But Flood, with the support of union head Marvin Miller,
refused to accept the trade as he sued the commissioner
and the MLB. Players privately supported Flood as his case went all the way to the Supreme Court,
which ruled 5 to 3 in favor of the league. Flood was traded to the Washington Senators in 1971,
and he left in the middle of that season. In 1975, an arbitrator's decision ended
the reserve clause, thereby finally allowing players freedom and mobility.
"This is America, and I'm a human being and not a piece of
property. I'm not a consignment of goods."
During Ray Chapman's nine professional seasons, all with the Cleveland Indians, he was on his
way to a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But then on one tragic August day in 1920,
he became the only player in the game's history to die from a thrown pitch. During that season,
the New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox, and Cleveland were all battling for the American
League Pennant. By mid-August, they were all within two games of each other when Cleveland
and New York squared off. In the fifth inning, Yankees pitcher Carl Mays, known for his spitball,
faced Chapman and hit him in the head. The umpire immediately called for physicians.
Chapman was able to get to his feet, but after he'd been helped off the field to the clubhouse,
he lost consciousness. Cleveland won the game, but by the next morning, Chapman was pronounced dead.
Despite calls to have Mays banned from the sport, he received no punishment.
He was apologetic, saying, quote, "I would give anything if I could undo what has happened."
Cleveland would go on to win the pennant and the championship. To prevent another incident like
Chapman's death, the MLB banned the spitball and mandated that umpires replace dirty balls.
Babe Ruth's dominance in professional baseball is unmatched. However, his personal life contrasted
mightily with his glory days on the diamond. Before becoming "The Babe," George Herman Ruth
had a troubled youth. He was left largely unsupervised as a child while growing up in
a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Baltimore. He vandalized fruit carts, threw food at cars,
drank and smoked, and got into fights with other neighborhood kids. Eventually,
his parents sent him to a reform school in the city. It was there where he first
started to play baseball. In 1914, he signed a contract with the Baltimore Orioles for $600.
By the time Ruth retired from baseball two decades later, he'd done nearly everything
he wanted to do. The last item on his list was becoming a manager. But alas,
because of his tense relationship with executives in the game, he was never given the opportunity.
The rejection depressed him, and as his granddaughter recounted on ESPN's Sportscentury,
it got so bad that he actually had to be talked down from his upstairs window by his wife.
He ultimately died of cancer at the age of 53.
From the smooth swing to the backward hat, it's not hard to see how Ken Griffey Jr.
became the face of baseball in the 90s. The son of an All-Star and the first overall pick
in the 1987 MLB Draft, he was clearly destined for greatness. But his career,
and his life, almost ended long before he ever stepped onto a major league field.
By the age of 17, Griffey was already a professional ballplayer,
but he was struggling away from home. In addition to the stress of being a professional athlete, he
faced racial prejudice that he hadn't experienced growing up. As he told The Seattle Times in 1992,
"It seemed like everyone was yelling at me in baseball,
then I came home and everyone was yelling at me there."
In January 1988, it had gotten so bad for Griffey that he swallowed 277 aspirin pills.
He was then rushed to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. When
his father Ken Griffey Sr. arrived, they got into an argument. Junior ripped his
IV out of his arm in frustration, which ended the argument. As Senior recalled,
"It made me realize kids have their own set of problems and pressures."
The following year, Griffey Jr. played the first season of what would become a Hall of Fame MLB career.