No Easy Answers for Tragic Act

It wasn’t the memory of a single pitch that killed Donnie Moore, as his agent claimed. Nor was it the newspaper coverage that followed that doomed forkball, as his former teammate incredibly suggested. Moore’s life--and apparent suicide--was more complicated than that.

There were injuries, some misunderstood, all of them painful. There was a recent failed comeback and the realization that his playing career, the only career he knew, might be finished at age 35. There were whispers of marital discord.

All anyone knows for sure is that the troubled Moore was weary of life. Or scared of it. A single pull of the trigger proved that much.

Dr. Tony Bober, a Newport Beach psychotherapist, is familiar with the plight of professional athletes as they make the difficult and usually forced transition from celebrity to citizen status. His extensive study and subsequent report detailing the problems encountered by National Football League players immediately after retirement is required reading for union and league officials.

Bober never met Moore; he didn’t have to after learning of the circumstances of Tuesday’s tragedy. The danger signs were evident, the formulas for disaster were securely in place. Moore, surmises Bober, wasn’t crushed by the weight of one misfortune but by a dozen of them. Sadly, Bober had seen it happen before.

“The first thing that clicked in my head was that it was a replay of the Jim Tyrer story several years ago,” he said.

Tyrer, you might remember, was a former Kansas City Chief standout who committed suicide after failing to cope with the post-NFL experience. In a sense, said Bober, Moore’s plight was no different.

“I would expect, as a general rule, the closer you are to a critical point in your life, the more of a major impact it’s going to have,” he said. “The study (which examined the first six months of transition) confirmed that.”

Perhaps David Pinter, who was Moore’s agent, and Brian Downing, Moore’s former Angel teammate, should glance at a copy of the report. Pinter might be surprised to learn that a man’s life is determined by more than a pitch that may have cost the Angels a place in the 1986 World Series. And Downing, whom we thought knew better, might be shocked to know that Moore’s decisions weren’t dictated by the words of sportswriters.

Pinter maintains that Moore’s infamous ninth-inning home run pitch to Boston’s Dave Henderson forever haunted his client. He said he sought psychiatric assistance for the sensitive Moore, but that Moore resisted. In the end, Pinter says, “That home run killed him.”

It’s possible, though unlikely, Bober said, that Moore could have been so profoundly affected by a forkball that landed on the wrong side of the fence.

“It would take more than one pitch,” Bober said. “I think it makes for good copy and is kind of a quickie answer, but it doesn’t tell the complete picture of what was happening to him as a person.”

About this notion of good copy, at least as professed by the noted journalism scholar, Downing: It was Downing who, when asked for a comment concerning Moore’s death, said, “Out of deference to the man, I don’t think I should talk to the people who are partly responsible for what happened to him.”

Sportswriters are many things--insensitive and careless on occasion--but we aren’t accomplices to attempted murder and suicide. For Downing to suggest otherwise is sheer lunacy.

In this instance, Downing, an avid weightlifter, brings new meaning to the term, “clean and jerk.”

Using Downing’s ill-conceived logic, the blame for Moore’s death also would be shared by Angel Owner Gene Autry, who once questioned the wisdom of his sizable financial investment in the oft-injured reliever.

In 1987, Angel Vice President Mike Port asked, “What do we pay (Moore) a million dollars for?” That same year Moore found himself booed unmercifully by Angel faithful. And what of those Angel players who had a part in that fateful Game 5 against the Red Sox? Does Downing point an accusing finger in their direction, too?

“I think he’d be standing here patting me on the back right now for saying this,” Downing told reporters Tuesday.

Pat or swat? Moore was smarter than that, certainly more complex (and distraught) than Downing or anyone else knew. He had a swagger about him and a gruff disposition that was sometimes betrayed by playful eyes.

Now he is gone and nobody--not Pinter, not Downing, not even Bober--will ever know why.