Flora’s Hard Luck Continues : Baseball: Second baseman hurts wrist while trying to prove to Angels he has major league talent.

Kevin Flora walked into the clubhouse Thursday morning, slumped back against his locker, and groaned aloud.

Please, Lord, not now.

Come on, haven’t I suffered enough?

Why, always me?

Flora shut his eyes and grimaced. Fate has dealt him yet another cruel hand.

Flora, in the midst of trying to prove to the Angels and the rest of baseball that he can still be a major league player, was diagnosed Wednesday night with torn ligaments and torn cartilage in his left wrist. He will be in a cast four weeks. If it is not healed by December, surgery will be required.

Flora, who was leading the Arizona Fall League with a .475 on-base percentage, and was batting .333, won’t be playing baseball again until next spring.

Hello, nightmare.

It’s Kevin again.

“What else can go wrong for the guy?” said Angel pitcher Mark Holzemer, who’s sharing a house with Flora. “After everything he’s gone through, and now this.

“Oh, God, why Kevin?”

Holzemer, perhaps Flora’s best friend in baseball, understands as much as anyone the pain and torment Flora has endured the last 1 1/2 years. They were together that night, April 22, 1993, when the phone call came into the clubhouse.

The call informed Flora that his wife, MaryAnn, was killed in a one-car accident outside Van Horn, Tex.

“I lost all desire in life that day,” Flora said, “and it’s taken a long time for me to recover. I thought, at first, baseball would help me. But it got to a point where I didn’t even want anything to do with the game.

“To tell you the truth, the way I felt this summer, I didn’t think I’d ever be putting on another baseball uniform in my life.

“Certainly, I never would have imagined this.”

Flora, who missed almost the rest of the 1993 season after his wife’s death, was supposed to play in the Arizona Fall League last winter. He accepted the invitation, but later dropped out, saying he needed more time. The healing process was not complete.

Flora took the winter off, came to spring training, and declared himself ready to become the Angels’ starting second baseman. The Angels, believing Flora was ready, announced the job would be his to lose.

The Angels had every reason to believe it would turn out all right . . . until the first spring-training game against the Colorado Rockies.

Flora suited up, grabbed his glove, stood for the national anthem, started thinking about MaryAnn, and began to sob. He could not play.

“In my mind,” Flora said, “I thought I was ready to play. I thought I could handle it. Instead, all I was doing was suppressing those feelings all spring.”

The Angels stuck with Flora until the final week of spring training when they decided he was not ready for the big leagues. The Angels sent him back to triple-A Vancouver, signed Rex Hudler, traded for Harold Reynolds, and predicted Flora would be back within a month.

Flora never returned.

He played only six games for Vancouver when, again, he became emotionally distraught. Flora left the club and took a leave of absence, traveling back and forth between California and MaryAnn’s hometown of Midland, Tex.

“It got to a point where I just couldn’t do it,” Flora said. “I didn’t want to play baseball anymore. I was going to go to college, learn to be a teacher, and pretend that I never played the game.”

After counseling and advice from family and friends, Flora decided in July to give baseball a final try.

Despite playing only 107 games the last three seasons, Flora swung the bat in the Arizona Fall League as if he never missed a day. He his team-leading batting average, ranked him fifth in the league, and he again showed why he’s one of the fastest runners in the Angel organization.

The only glaring problem was Flora’s defense, prompting the Angels to ask Flora if he would consider playing in Puerto Rico the rest of the winter as an outfielder. Flora, who struggled making the throw from second base to first base, agreed to the switch. The only condition, Flora said, was that he would remain in the Arizona Fall League.

“That’s what makes this so frustrating,” Flora said, waving his cast. “I was hitting the ball well, loving the game again, and now this.”

Flora, who demonstrated enough talent in the fall league for Bavasi to reject two trade proposals this week, probably will enter the 1995 spring training as a utilityman candidate. He can play all of the infield positions, along with left and center field. His winter season may be over, but the impression he made will last until spring.