Ken Caminiti has died, at age 41, of a heart attack. Caminiti’s death may well be a wake-up call to the major leagues about the hazards of steroids, which he admitted using during his career. Or not; he had apparently been battling a cocaine addiction recently, and cocaine, of course, is not exactly good for your heart either. In any event, a terrible tragedy for a guy who loved the game and gave it everything he had.
I first saw Caminiti when he debuted with the Astros; he drew comparisons to George Brett after a hot first week or two, then didn’t hit like that again until the steroids. A lot of people will remember Caminiti as a heavily-muscled slugger, but the memory I’ll always have is of him in his Houston days, endlessly diving over railings and into dugouts to catch errant foul popups.
3 thoughts on “Caminiti Dies”
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What a shame…I wish I would have had the talent to get that far in baseball.
Hopefully this will wake up the atheletes to the harm steriods do to the internal organs. I hope but doubt it. The “it would never happen to me” attitude is too common among star atheletes.
What a shame. I always loved Cammy. He made spectacular plays look routine.
A shame indeed. Caminiti was one of my favorite players. As a tribute, I’ll have to dig out the old Padres blue alternate Caminiti jersey I bought during his MVP season.
He made some of the best third-base highlight plays we’ll ever see. Dives into dugouts and stands, throwing guys out at first from the seat of his pants… I’ll always remember the story of the Snickers bar and IV during the games in Mexico versus the Mets. The guy was a warrior, the biggest shame is that he was so competitive as to destroy his own body and life in the process.
I’ll miss you Cammy.