Just 3 days after Rays bullpen catcher Jean Ramirez was found in a open field near his home in Fort Worth, it was revealed that the medical examiner determined the cause of death was suicide.
I have so much to say abt this situation & how it’s been reported.
I get it – Ramirez was a minor league player, who now had spent the last 3 yrs up w the big squad, not as a starter, but as a support coach. He wasn’t Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, or Fernando Tatìs Jr.
He was however a member of a team that’s been a force making it to the playoffs & recently a World Series – & for this post, most importantly, a team that’s had its recent MH struggles.
Rays relief pitcher, Ryan Sherriff had to take time away from the game for MH just this past 2021 season. Yet ANOTHER pitcher – a reliever at that, Ryan Thompson – on the SAME team, had an emotional breakdown after being in that World Series. He’s been very public abt it.
So here you have the death of a bullpen catcher to suicide…teammates w/in 1-2 yrs who’ve had to leave their sport for a stretch due to MH – guys who actually pitched TO Ramirez, while warming up, & yet you can’t find a story written in the last 3 days that links these threads together.
Drew Robinson’s story in baseball has become very public – surviving a self-inflicted gun shot to the head. Arnd the same time of his story being released, we heard abt Angels pitcher Ty Buttrey, quitting baseball. Four days later, reliever Chris Devenski left the Diamondbacks for personal reasons. Seven days after that, Phillies outfielder Adam Haseley left baseball.
There’s obviously been the very public case of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs losing his life to overdose.
How’s it – we have a suicide – for a figure in pro baseball, it’s finally a situation in sports where the cause of death is revealed w/in days of it happening, & yet NONE of the articles written link this outcome to – the baseball stories above, the pro sports stories of MH, generally…or society’s current battle w MH?
If we don’t tie together the trauma, addiction, suicide, overdose, MH stories that are ALL related, society won’t ever wake up.