June 18, 2002: Cardinals’ Darryl Kile beats Angels in his final career start

Darryl Kile was no stranger to quashing claims that his best days were behind him. After a 12-21 record in his first two major-league seasons, he made the All-Star team and pitched a no-hitter in 1993. After three straight years of earned-run averages above 4.00, he rebounded in ’97, landing a 19-7 record and a 2.57 ERA for the Houston Astros. After two years with the Colorado Rockies, where thin mountain air flattened his curveball, he notched his first 20-win campaign with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2000.

But troubles resurfaced in 2002. Kile took three weeks for his first win, then lost three in a row. He raised his record to 4-3, only to fall to .500 by allowing five runs in 4⅓ innings on June 12 in Seattle, his shortest outing in more than two years.

And there was more to it this time. Kile was 33, an age at which one rough season can turn even a hometown favorite into a journeyman. He was also in pain. His right shoulder still hurt him after offseason surgery. His attempts at playing through soreness – and avoiding the first disabled-list stint of his career – were getting to his head. Eventually, after days of Cardinals manager Tony La Russa trying to get him to speak his mind, the often-quiet workhorse entered the skipper’s office and confessed: “It’s been really hard for me to struggle like I’ve been struggling.”

La Russa looked at Kile and pulled out a list. It showed that the right-hander had made 13 starts so far that season. Of those, he had lasted six innings or more nine times. “Cut yourself some slack,” the manager said. “You’ve already gone through the hardest part.”

La Russa ended their heart-to-heart by assuring Kile, in case he had forgotten: “We can’t make it without you.”1

Kile’s next big chance came two nights later, on June 18. With St. Louis tied for first place in the National League Central Division, this was his shot at pitching his team into sole possession. In his way were the Walt Disney Company-owned Anaheim Angels, keen to prove their own worth after a poor 2001 season and unsuccessful sale attempts; but on his side was Busch Stadium’s Tuesday crowd of 39,386.2

Kile’s first inning was shaky. His curveballs missed the strike zone. He fell behind in the count more times than not. He almost walked center fielder Darin Erstad and did walk third baseman Troy Glaus. He escaped without a hit or run, but not before play-by-play announcer Joe Buck made an observation: “Just looking at Kile’s body language, it’s not as crisp and as directed and pointed as it usually is. … Typically, it’s Kile who has that glare about him on the mound, and right now, it’s missing.”

But fellow Cardinals gave Kile a lift. In the bottom of the first inning, right fielder J.D. Drew’s sacrifice fly scored the night’s first run. Two more runs came in the second, with a sacrifice fly by Fernando Viña and a run-scoring grounder by Drew. Home runs by former Angel Jim Edmonds and Édgar Rentería gave St. Louis a six-run lead. The Cardinals’ third-inning show knocked Anaheim starter Kevin Appier out of the game, sticking the Angel with his fourth straight ineffective outing and his shortest of the year.3

It was just the boost Kile needed. The Angels went hitless into the third. He did give up two-out singles to David Eckstein and Erstad in that inning, but a called strike to Glaus on the inside corner ended the jam. By the end of the fourth, Kile had struck out five Angels and surrendered only three hits – and still no runs.

The pieces were coming together. With a lineout by Anaheim’s Orlando Palmeiro in the fifth, Kile bested the length of his previous outing. And when Erstad’s pop fly landed in right fielder Drew’s glove to end the frame, Kile officially qualified for his fifth win of the year.

Kile could have left the game then, but he wanted more. He delivered, tossing back-to-back one-two-three innings. Soon enough, he was scoreless through seven. Only in the eighth did he give up a run, on a single by Erstad, but he stuck around long enough to throw 100 pitches. Not since his shoulder surgery had he gone so deep into a game.

The crowd responded in kind. By the time he gave La Russa the ball and walked off the mound, Kile had himself a five-run lead and a 7⅔-inning gem in the books. Thousands rose from their seats to applaud him.

Kile’s teammates handled the rest. Reliever Gene Stechschulte got Tim Salmon to pop out to second base, ending the top half of the eighth. A double by Viña in the bottom half scored Miguel Cairo, providing the Cardinals with an insurance run. And aside from a sacrifice fly that gave Anaheim a second run, closer Jason Isringhausen sealed the night. The Cardinals had themselves a 7-2 victory at the expense of Appier, whose fifth straight loss left Anaheim two games back in the American League West.

Kile told reporters after the game, “Once you take the ball, you’ve got a job to do.”4 By all accounts, he had done his. His win that night, paired with the Cincinnati Reds’ 8-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners, gave St. Louis sole billing atop the NL Central Division.

Yet a different kind of loss cut the joy short. Complications from lung cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and other ailments had proven too much for longtime Cardinals announcer Jack Buck to beat. Earlier that evening, nurses at nearby Barnes-Jewish Hospital had pulled a television toward Buck’s ear so he could hear the game – and son Joe on play-by-play.5 Shortly after his team’s three hours with the Angels, the 77-year-old took his final breath.

The Cardinals saluted Buck with a pregame tribute the following afternoon. Groundskeepers mowed the initials “J-F-B” into the center-field grass. A moment of silence and a performance of taps honored the World War II veteran.6 As part of a service that Thursday, Buck’s casket sat near Busch Stadium’s home plate for more than four hours.7 “There was only one guy in St. Louis as popular as Jack Buck, and that’s God,” Cardinals reliever Steve Kline said that week. “And in St. Louis, that might be a tie.”8

It didn’t take much to remind Darryl Kile of mortality. His father had died of a stroke in 1993 at age 44. He occasionally told friends that Kile men don’t live long, that his years were not for wasting.9 “I’ll never forget my father,” he once told a newspaper reporter, “but I’m sure he’d want me to keep on working and try to do the best I can do.”10

Kile was in Chicago that Friday night. He ate dinner with his brother at Harry Caray’s restaurant and returned to his Michigan Avenue hotel room at around 10:30. He called his wife, Flynn. They discussed renewing their vows, furnishing the second home they had just bought near San Diego, and living there in the offseason with their five-year-old twins and 10-month-old son. At midnight or so, fellow Cardinals pitcher Matt Morris invited Kile to the hotel bar. He told Morris he was tired. There was a game against the Cubs scheduled for the next afternoon, and he had built his career on showing up to practice early. So he put on his black eye mask and fell asleep.11

He never woke up. Teammates sensed trouble after Kile missed warm-ups.12 The club called hotel security officers, who found Kile’s body in bed. He had died with one arm over his pillow and the other against his abdomen. His eye mask was still on.13 With no evidence of forced entry, foul play, or drug abuse, a coroner later found the culprit: a coronary blockage.14 St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz wrote the next day, “It is the only way death could have sneaked up on him to take him away in the night, when he was sleeping and unknowing, and unable to fight back with the same type of grit and tenacity that intimidated hitters and inspired teammates.”15

It was one more blow for an already-grieving St. Louis. The game at Wrigley Field was canceled. Kile was remembered as a brotherly figure to former Astros mate Doug Drabek, an advocate for struggling pitcher Rick Ankiel, and a clubhouse leader who was hard on himself but kind to others.16 While Jack Buck’s death had inspired long montages highlighting decades of beloved calls and deeds – “That’s a winner!”; “Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!”; “We will see you … tomorrow night!” – Kile’s sparked wonder over what else could have been.

But the 2002 Cardinals made good on what Kile had left behind. Wearing one black patch for him and another for Buck, they spent the rest of the season in sole possession of first place, never letting go of the rank the late pitcher had helped them reach in his final game. The team eventually lost that year’s NL Championship Series to the San Francisco Giants,17 but St. Louis sportswriter Rob Rains took note of its regular-season victories: “After Kile’s death, they won 57 games – matching his uniform number. A coincidence? Maybe, but maybe not.”18

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted a recording of Fox Sports Midwest’s telecast of the game, as available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFG3xLSp2c0&t=8697s.

The author also used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for the box score and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN200206180.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2002/B06180SLN2002.htm

Photo credit: Darryl Kile, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 All details from Kile’s conversation with La Russa come from H.G. Bissinger, Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 210-11.

2 The Angels finished the 2001 season with a 75-87 record. Disney’s attempts to sell the club hit a snag that autumn, after businessman John Henry chose to pursue the Boston Red Sox instead. Two investment groups, including one led by former Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, also backed out of negotiations, reportedly because of Disney’s asking price. Bill Shaikin, “Angels Still in Disney’s World,” Los Angeles Times, November 24, 2001: D1.

3 Jason Reid, “Appier’s Worries, Losses Mount,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2002: D1.

4 Teddy Greenstein and Shia Kapos, “Cardinals Pitcher Kile Found Dead in Hotel Room,” Chicago Tribune, June 22, 2002: 1.

5 Joe Buck with Michael Rosenberg, Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, and the Things I’m Not Allowed to Say on TV (New York: Dutton, 2016), 167-68.

6 Details on the Cardinals’ June 19 tribute to Buck come from an ESPN pregame telecast. A recording of it has been uploaded as “2002-06-19 Jack Buck Memorial Service,” YouTube video (Classic Sports), 37:14, https://youtu.be/a6lS2i0W3TQ?si=VMWVZjcLRAqsVCHZ. Accessed September 2024.

7 “Family and Friends Remember Jack Buck,” Washington Post, June 22, 2002: D02.

8 Joe Strauss, “To Current Cards, Jack Buck Was More Than a Voice,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 20, 2002: D21.

9 La Russa later said, “I know [Kile] used to say to his teammates he didn’t think he’d live a long life because of his family history. It’s very tragic.” Associated Press, “Autopsy: Blocked Arteries Killed Kile,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), July 17, 2002: A63.

10 Neil Hohlfield, “Kile Turns His Spring Around,” Houston Chronicle, March 21, 1993: 8.

11 All details regarding how Kile spent his Friday night come from C. Trent Rosecrans, “‘There’s No Checklist, No Book’: How One GM Dealt with the In-Season Death of a Player,” The Athletic, July 2, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1059325/2019/07/02/theres-no-checklist-no-book-how-one-gm-dealt-with-the-in-season-death-of-a-player/; Bissinger, Three Nights in August, 212-13.

12 Jeremy Kohler and Deborah L. Shelton, “Kile Likely Died of Clogged Artery,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 24, 2002: A1.

13 “Kile Likely Died of Clogged Artery”; Bissinger, Three Nights in August, 212.

14 Associated Press, “Autopsy: Blocked Arteries Killed Kile,” Newsday, July 17, 2002: A63; Kohler and Shelton, “Kile Likely Died of Clogged Artery.”

15 Bernie Miklasz, “Kile, Cardinal Nation Suffer Cruel Fate in a Most Tragic Week,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 23, 2002: D1.

16 Days after Kile’s death, Drabek said, “I was an only child, so growing up, I figured I’d never have a brother and sister. How so wrong I was.” Associated Press, “Former and Current Teammates Attend Memorial Service,” ESPN.com, June 26, 2002, https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/2002/0626/1399266.html. Ankiel told Bally Sports Midwest in 2017 that Kile “took me under his wing and really showed me what it was to be a pro, what it meant to be a Cardinal.” Joey Schneider, “Remembering Darryl Kile: Wednesday Marks 20 Years Since Tragic Death,” KTVI Fox 2 online, June 22, 2022, https://fox2now.com/sports/st-louis-cardinals/remembering-darryl-kile-wednesday-marks-20-years-since-tragic-death/.

17 The Giants then lost the World Series to the Angels in seven games. Through the 2024 season, it was the Angels’ only World Series championship.

18 The “57 wins” remark does not include the four playoff games the Cardinals won in 2002. Rob Rains, A Special Season: Players’ Reflections on an Inspiring Year (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, 2003), 8.