Rod Beck Dead At The Age of 38 :(

but they will

was rumored early this morning, and it was discussed in the open thread.

Sad that it turned out to be true.

RIP, Shooter.  

Absolute shame....he was really, one of us. A regular guy that just happened to play MLB. A Throwback.

the Pads last year at Qualcomm (they needed somebody to close, Hoffmann was hurt) so the Pads did many retro nights -- Shooter looked great running out to the mound in that plain '69 Padres uniform. (It was before the uniform went nuts with the mustard and brown) He looked as if he came right from that era, when players didn't make squat.

He didn't perform very well in SD, and his time was up. But he was greateful to be back.

Apparently, he had returned to rehab? At least that's what Bruce Bochy was quoted as saying over at ESPN.com, via the AP.

You helped make 1998 an exciting year.

Al....

Please expand the 100 greatest Cubs list by 1.

I contend if Mitch Williams, Rick Wilkens and Jerry Morales made the list, Rod Beck was certainly as important as the aforementioned 3 players and certainly very valuable in the 1998 playoff run.  

Anybody agree?

when it comes to the Padres, and sometimes, I hate the damn team, but I was so behind Shooter in 2004 when he was picked up by the Pads.

He did come up with a few good saves, but he walked a tightrope in every one....I guess my support was my little way of thanking him for 1998, I guess. It was sad when he was cut.

n/t

The 1998 season is what made me into a Cubs fan, and he was my favorite Cub. Every time Beck came into the game it was an adventure, and yet miraculously he'd always get the save. He epitomized that team - an unlikely baseball player on an even less likely playoff team.

I was at his final game, appropriately enough at Wrigley field. He came out to disappointingly little fanfare (I really thought Cubs fans would give him an ovation), gave up 2 warning track sac flies and was DFA'd the next day.

I got to meet Beck this winter, at the Cubs convention. He was incredibly nice and polite, just exuded that same happy love of the game and the fans that made him famous.

I have no doubt that right now there's a shitty RV sitting in a heaven's parking lot, the door and cooler open for anyone who wants to hang.

Rest in peace shooter.

The 1998 season was memorable in a lot of ways, but the one-game playoff at Wrigley is something I will never forget.  I was doing a college internship in Florida at the time, and was watching the game on ESPN during a party my roommates and I were having, but which I was completely ignoring since I was 100 percent focused on the game.  I remember my friends--none of whom were from the Chicago area and had any clue as to how much the Cubs meant to me--looking on with sort of a bemused, detatched bewilderment that I could completely ignore the party at hand for a baseball game.  Eventually, I became the evening's free entertainment, as watching me watch the game was apparently more entertaining than anything else going on in the apartment.  After Joe Carter popped up to Mark Grace, I remember leaping for joy and sending my fellow party-goers into a fit of laughter.  And for the rest of the night, I was the life of that party!  

Thank you, Rod Beck, for that wonderful memory.  I'll always remember "The Shooter".  A rubber arm, a full repitoire of slow junk, ice water in his veins and a whole lot of heart.  He may have been a Giant for most of his career, but in my book, he will always be a Cub.  RIP, Shooter.