The Death Of A Ballplayer Not Always Surprising

Chris Brown died in the manner that he spent the majority of his major league baseball career: enigmatically.

Brown, 45, died Tuesday from complications of burns he apparently sustained in a fire that engulfed his home, in the Houston area in late November.

But investigators, who are leaning toward arson as the cause of the fire, will forever wonder how Brown managed to get to Memorial Hermann Hospital, some nine miles from his home, burned as he was.

It's a fitting end to his life, because those of us who followed and covered the Tigers -- Brown played third base here for 17 games in 1989 -- will forever wonder why his once-promising career came to such an abrupt end.

Brown made the All-Rookie team with the Giants in 1985, with a BA of .271 and 16 homers in 432 AB. The next season, his BA climbed to over .300. Then he had shoulder surgery and the numbers started to decline.

By the time the Tigers acquired him following the 1988 season, from the Padres, Brown was appearing to be wasting his potential. Yet Sparky Anderson took a flyer on him anyway, hoping the Chris Brown in Detroit could somehow channel the Chris Brown who played in San Francisco.

He couldn't. Not even close.

But what made Brown's brief Detroit career so maddening and puzzling was that it appeared that Brown chose not to be a better player. He managed but a .193 BA in 57 uninspired at bats. He was released in May, and never returned to the big leagues. Brown was one worm that Sparky couldn't turn.

Upon his departure from the Motor City -- and baseball, as it turned out -- Brown was laughed at, derided, and scorned by a blue collar fan base who has little to no tolerance for lazy athletes. Brown was a complete bust of an experiment in Detroit. Yet he could have been so much better, had he put forth the effort.

Brown lived almost a month after the fire, but authorities were never able to really interview him about what happened, because his condition deteriorated too rapidly. So they wonder.

Some athletes and celebrities meet their demise in ways that only they could. Billy Martin's death on Christmas night, 1989, in a car wreck comes to mind. Others perish in tragic, unpreventable circumstances. The "good die young" syndrome.

Chris Brown has died, and in the manner that shouldn't be terribly shocking: under a shroud of mystery, and with no apparent answers. Just like the death of his playing career.