Orioles Announcer Flanagan Reportedly Commits Suicide

By Cam Martin 

Former Cy Young Award winner Mike Flanagan, a longtime pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles who later ascended to a top executive position with the club and in recent years served as a television commentator, reportedly committed suicide Wednesday afternoon, “despondent over what he considered a false perception from a community he loved of his role in the team’s prolonged failure,” according to WBAL-TV sports director Gerry Sandusky.

Good lord, that’s heartbreaking.

Flanagan’s body was reportedly found outside his home in Monkton, Md. The cause of death has not yet been announced. A member of the Orioles Hall of Fame, Flanagan won 167 games over an 18-year career, including 23 games in his 1979 Cy Young campaign.

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From 2002-08 he shared or held the top baseball executive position in the Orioles organization. During that time Flanagan, according to those closest to him, struggled with not being able to do the job the way he wanted to do it, Sandusky said.

Orioles Managing Partner Peter Angelos issued the following statement last night.: “It is with deep sadness that I learned of the death of my friend Mike Flanagan earlier this evening. In over a quarter century with the organization, Flanny became an integral part of the Orioles family, for his accomplishments both on and off the field. His loss will be felt deeply and profoundly by all of us with the ballclub and by Orioles fans everywhere who admired him. On behalf of the club, I extend my condolences to his wife, Alex; and daughters Kerry, Kathryn and Kendall.”

RIP, Mike.

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