May 08 2008 08:34 AM
I don't remember Tim Bishop. Seems a convoluted story, but Buster at least gets a lot of facts here for posterity.
A Death In the Minors Leads Mets To Dismiss 3
By BUSTER OLNEY
Published: June 23, 1997
On April 19, the Mets organization was stunned to learn that Tim Bishop, a 20-year-old outfielder on its Class A team in Columbia, S.C., had been killed late the previous night in a car accident. Now, two months later, the Mets have dismissed the manager and two coaches of the Columbia team because, according to a high-ranking official in the Mets' front office, the three men did not appropriately address whether players had been drinking on the team bus before the accident occurred.
Last Wednesday, the Mets asked for, and received, the resignations of the manager of the Capital City Bombers, Doug Mansolino; the pitching coach, Dave Jorn, and another coach, Tim Leiper. Steve Phillips, the Mets' assistant general manager, who had traveled to Columbia to ask for the resignations, would not offer specific reasons for the dismissals, calling them ''a confidential, internal matter.''
However, a highly ranked club official confirmed that the Mets did not feel the coaching staff had thoroughly investigated the drinking issue. Rather, the Mets official said, the Columbia manager and coaches readily accepted the players' insistence that alcohol had not been consumed on the bus.
For the Mets, who were concerned by a county coroner's autopsy report that showed the victim's blood-alcohol level was fairly high, this was not good enough. And now, the three men are gone from the organization.
The 40-year-old Mansolino, who was in his first year as a manager in the Mets' farm system and had been a major league coach for the Chicago White Sox, could not be reached for comment. Neither could the 30-year-old Leiper, who was starting his second season as a Mets minor league coach. The 42-year-old Jorn, who was in his second tour of duty as the Capital City pitching coach, was reached at his home in Illinois but declined to comment.
''That's something between myself and the organization,'' he said. ''I'm not going to comment on anything.''
The accident that ultimately led to the dismissals killed Bishop, who had turned down a football scholarship from Indiana University to sign with the Mets as a 57th-round draft pick in 1994.
Last year, Bishop hit .325 for the Class A team in Kingsport, Tenn., and was an Appalachian League All-Star. He had subsequently moved up the ladder to Columbia, and on April 18 he and his teammates were scheduled to play a South Atlantic League game against the Hagerstown Suns, a Toronto Blue Jays farm team, in Hagerstown, Md.
However, the game was called off because of poor weather, and about noon the Capital City players were on the team bus for a nine-hour drive back to South Carolina.
After stopping for a meal along the way, the team arrived at its home ball park in Columbia about 10:30 P.M. After the players stored equipment in the clubhouse, they departed for their homes.
According to accounts provided by the Mets and the police after the accident, Bishop and his teammate Randy Vickers left the ball park in Bishop's car, with Bishop driving.
Shortly before 11 P.M., a front tire blew out on the car at the Colonial Life Boulevard interchange on Interstate 126 and the vehicle spun around and stopped in a highway passing lane.
Bishop and Vickers got out of the vehicle, but Bishop returned to the car to put on its hazard lights. But as he attempted to do so, the vehicle was struck by another car. The impact sent Bishop over the median onto the opposite side of the highway, where he was struck and killed by another vehicle. Bishop was declared dead at the scene from head trauma and the police filed no charges against the drivers of the other vehicles.
Frank Barron, the Richland County coroner, said Bishop's blood-alcohol level tested at 0.096 percent, 0.004 percent below the South Carolina limit for legal intoxication. Barron said Bishop's urine-alcohol level was higher than that, indicating that his blood-alcohol level was descending at the time of his death. Bishop, the coroner said, was ''certainly'' drinking before he died.
Vickers, whose alcohol level was not tested after the accident, maintained that Bishop had not been drinking. In an article published in The State, a newspaper in Columbia, Vickers said that he had spent the entire day with Bishop and that the only beverage he had seen Bishop consume was a soft drink.
In the article, Vickers noted that team policy bans drinking on the team bus. Phillips said yesterday that the Mets have a policy against drinking on team buses at all minor league levels and that Class AAA, the highest level and the one in which minor leaguers are usually above the legal drinking age of 21, ''is the only level where there's beer in the clubhouse.''
Two days after Bishop died, Capital City retired his uniform number and held a moment of silence during a doubleheader in Columbia. One of the players who took part in the observance was Bishop's teammate Ryan Jaroncyk, the Mets' No. 1 draft pick in 1995. And just a month later, Jaroncyk surprised the Capital City team and the Mets by quitting baseball, saying he never liked the sport that much.
Bishop was buried in his hometown, Valparaiso, Ind., on April 23. A month later, his parents and his two sisters attended a Capital City game in Columbia.
In a prepared statement during the visit, Bishop's mother, Mary Lou, said:
''This is our first trip down here and it's been a bittersweet trip. This has been a tragic loss for our family. Good luck for the rest of the season and when you look to left field, our angel, Tim Bishop, is out there and behind all you Bombers. God bless you all.''
Yesterday, Phillips said the family had been told that the manager and two coaches had been dismissed.
The new manager in Columbia is John Stephenson, a former Met catcher who had been the team's roving catching instructor in the minors. The new pitching coach is Buzz Capra, a former Met reliever. The other new coach is Juan Lopez, who had been with the Mets' Class A Pittsfield, Mass., team. And the Capital City Bombers are now 1-3 in the second half of the season, after a first half that is painful for the entire Mets organization to recall.
