A few weeks ago, Mike Flanagan grabbed an old file folder stuffed with color pictures and newspaper articles and leafed through it, studying everything once again.

It's something the Orioles' executive vice president does on occasion, reliving painful memories stoked by a work file that is never too far away.

"It's kept in a drawer by itself," Flanagan said.

In a professional baseball career that has spanned 35 years and includes a World Series championship ring, a Cy Young Award and stints as a pitching coach, broadcaster and club executive, nothing has affected Flanagan the way the contents of that folder have.

One word is written in bold black letters on the left tab: "Bechler." Inside are details of the tragic tale of Steve Bechler, the former Orioles rookie right-hander who collapsed during conditioning drills in spring training 2003 and died a day later - five years ago today - from heatstroke.

No one assumed a larger or more important role that day than Flanagan, who was in just his third month in the Orioles' front office. He was supposed to be evaluating his new club; instead, he stayed in a hospital and watched a young, vibrant athlete die.

"I think it had a tremendous effect. You are just not used to seeing someone that age passing away," Flanagan said. "That really affects you. That really hit a nerve."

A month earlier, Flanagan ran a voluntary throwing program in Baltimore and Bechler was one of the pitchers who attended. They worked together one-on-one.

"I certainly knew him as a player," Flanagan said. "I didn't know about his personal life, but I knew him and he knew me."

Weeks later, Flanagan became forever intertwined with Bechler's family.

When the player was taken to the hospital Feb. 16, Flanagan followed. For hours, he sat in the intensive care unit waiting room with other Orioles personnel. Eventually, Kiley Bechler, the pitcher's 22-year-old wife who was seven months pregnant, flew in and joined them.

Through the night, Kiley Bechler and Flanagan talked, about everything and anything. At times, Flanagan called his wife, Alex, and put her on the phone so Kiley could speak with a woman, a wife, a mother.

"He really was compassionate and really helped her through the whole ordeal. You can imagine it was an absolutely ugly situation," said Dr. William Goldiner, the Orioles' team physician who also was with Bechler at his death. "He was with her the whole way. It was just incredible compassion."

Within hours, Flanagan went from stranger to confidant for Kiley Bech- ler, whose family hadn't yet arrived from the West Coast. When she was at her husband's bedside on the 17th, holding his hand and gently stroking the dying man's forehead, Flanagan was next to her.

And when doctors pronounced him dead, it was Flanagan who held Kiley Bechler during the most private of moments.

"Honestly, without him being there, it would have been much harder," Kiley Bechler said last week. "He was the one who had his arms around me when it finally was called. It was nice to have someone to lean against because I probably would have hit the floor if he hadn't been holding me up."

Technically, Flanagan was filling a necessary role for the organization, but Kiley Bechler interpreted his presence as much more than that.

"I think he is a genuine person and I think he was genuinely heartbroken as well," she said.

Indeed, Flanagan viewed the death as a personal loss. As he watched Kiley Bechler throughout the tragedy, he thought about his own daughters. When he watched her pick up her husband's right index finger and point to a pitching callus only she knew existed, Flanagan contemplated that intense familiarity shared between husband and wife.

All of it hit home. So after the formalities, the memorial services and the goodbyes were completed, Flanagan needed to do something more.

He and his wife researched the dangers of ephedra, the stimulant that was in the over-the-counter diet pills that, in part, led to Bechler's heatstroke and death. Flanagan vowed to get rid of it.

Later in 2003, the state of New York voted to ban most ephedra-based products, and Flanagan took a prominent role. He wrote letters, spoke publicly and stood by then-New York Gov. George Pataki when the ban was signed into law.

Flanagan said he was prepared to meet with every state legislature, but that wasn't necessary. The Food and Drug Administration banned ephedra-based dietary products in 2004, a decision that was overturned once but ultimately upheld by a federal appeals court in 2006.

"I felt so strongly about it after what had transpired with Steve Bechler. It pretty much haunted me for a long time," Flanagan said. "And the more I researched it, I felt like I wanted to take some action. And it was satisfying."

So a positive resulted from the tragedy. Yet for Flanagan, the experience will foremost be about the loss of a 23-year-old athlete and the strength of his young widow.

For him, five years or 50 years won't erase those memories.

"I don't think I ever will - or will ever want to - go through something like that again," he said.

dan.connolly@baltsun.com