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Former
major league catcher Darrell Porter dead at 50
.c The Associated
Press
08/06/02 04:08
EDT
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Former major league All-Star
catcher Darrell Porter, who was the MVP of the 1982 World Series with the
St. Louis Cardinals, was found dead Monday in a park in suburban Kansas
City. He was 50.
Sugar Creek police said a motorist reported seeing a man
lying next to a car in La Benite Park late Monday afternoon, The Kansas
City Star reported in Tuesday's editions. When police arrived, they found
Porter's body.
The cause of death was not known, but police said there was
no evidence of foul play. The Jackson County medical examiner will perform
an autopsy.
Porter lived in Lee's Summit, another Kansas City suburb,
according to driver's license records.
``We heard he went out to get a newspaper and went to the
park to read it,'' Art Stewart, senior adviser to Kansas City Royals
general manager Allard Baird, told The Kansas City Star. ``That's the only
thing we knew. It's very, very upsetting.''
Porter hit .247 with 188 home runs and 826 RBIs in 17 major
league seasons with Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis and Texas. His best
season came in 1979, when he set career highs by hitting .291 with 20
homers and 112 RBIs for the Royals.
Porter started his major league career with the Brewers in
1971, and was traded to the Royals after the 1976 season. He was an
All-Star twice in his four years with Kansas City.
During spring training in 1980, Porter checked into a
drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation center. He returned to the team but his
production dropped, with his average falling to .249, but was still a key
factor in helping the Royals reach their first World Series - which they
lost to Philadelphia in six games.
Porter chronicled his struggle with addiction and recovery
from it in a 1984 book, ``Snap Me Perfect! The Darrell Porter
Story.''
He filed for free agency after the season and signed with
St. Louis to play for Whitey Herzog, his manager in Kansas
City.
Porter struggled in his first two seasons at St. Louis but
was the NLCS and World Series MVP in 1982 when the Cardinals beat the
Brewers in seven games.
He played in his third World Series when the Cardinals lost
to the Royals in 1985. Porter then spent two seasons with the Rangers
before retiring in 1987.
Porter had recently shown interest in getting into baseball
broadcasting. He was at the Royals' spring training camp this year and
spent time in the broadcast booth during the team's last homestand to get
some tips from the Royals' radio team of Denny Matthews and Ryan
LeFebvre.
Survivors and funeral arrangements were not immediately
known. |
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