An early pall was cast over the Baltimore Orioles Spring Training camp in Florida yesterday at the news of the death of Steve Bechler, a 23-year old pitcher who was expected to begin the season with the team's Triple A affiliate in Ottawa. Bechler died of heatstroke yesterday after collapsing during a workout on Sunday afternoon, and he leaves behind a wife who is seven months pregnant.
As the Washington Post's Dave Shenin described it:
Orioles pitchers and catchers were nearly finished with Sunday's workout on a practice field at the team's spring training complex when Manager Mike Hargrove first noticed Bechler struggling to complete conditioning runs -- the final segment of the workout. The National Weather Service reported a temperature of 81 degrees with 74 percent humidity in Fort Lauderdale at noon on Sunday."Our workouts are designed early on to ease people into things," said Hargrove, who was manager of the Cleveland Indians in 1993, when pitchers Steve Olin and Tim Crews were killed in boating accident during spring training. "It's not like we're going to drive you into the ground the first week [of camp]. It's to ease people in. It's an active workout, an energetic workout, and you're expected to put effort into it. . . . [But] for something like this to happen out of these workouts is shocking."
Water and sports drinks are available to players during workouts, and players routinely drink between drills, which generally last 12 minutes each. Bechler's final drill involved running for 12 minutes from one foul pole to the center field fence and back with the team's other pitchers.
"They're encouraged to drink," Goldiner said. "We actually worry, medically, more for the fans in the stands than for the athletes on field, as far as the consequences of heat."
But what Bechler's death will jump-start is an honest debate about how Major League Baseball is going to deal with Ephedrine -- a substance that is available legally over the counter in a number of drugs, but has still been banned by a number of other sports leagues. In yesterday's Washington Times, Duff Durkin was the very first to report that a bottle of a supplement containing Ephedrine was found in Bechler's locker -- something he learned from a source on the team. The Times' all-purpose off-field sports reporter Eric Fisher has a pretty complete story on Ephedrine that can catch anyone up on the issues involved:
Ephedrine, derived from the botanical herb ephedra, is not banned in Major League Baseball, as it is in the NFL, International and U.S. Olympic Committees, and the NCAA. The drug, while safe in low doses, has been linked to heart arrhythmia, elevated blood pressure, seizures and strokes, as well as interfering with the body's ability to combat and regulate heat.Medical research estimates that 15 football players between 1995 and 2001 died from heatstroke in which ephedrine or creatine is thought to have played a role. The number is more than twice the six recorded between 1985 and 1994.
Such results are far from the substance's intended design of reducing fatigue and weight and boosting the body's ability to burn calories.
Before Bechler died, a number of sources inside the Orioles organization confirmed that the pitcher, who was listed at 6'2" and 239 pounds, reported to camp out of shape. Despite this, a normally healthy 23-year old man doesn't drop dead in the middle of a 12-minute conditioning run when the temperature is only 79 degrees. For the most part, deaths like this have occurred during grueling football training camps where players work out in full pads in the August heat.
For a time last Summer, I wrote about steroids and banned substances so much, I just got sick of it. If anything, one thing I did say was that the baseball players association should have been ashamed for the provisions for testing that they inserted into the last labor agreement -- one that clearly put the long-term health of players at risk. Again, it today's Times, baseball beat writer Thom Loverro sums it up well:
Let's see if the Players Association, which had to be shamed into agreeing to limited steroid testing, will step up now to protect its members instead of using Steve Bechler as a bargaining chip down the road somewhere.
UPDATE: The argument over this is getting animated over at Sportsfilter.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The Broward County Medical Examiner has announced that Ephedrine contributed to Bechler's death.
FINAL UPDATE: In Wednesday's paper, the Post's Amy Shipley has her own piece on the growth of Ephedrine use throughout the Majors.
