It comes in snapshots now, no longer waves.
Often it's triggered by the precocious 4-year-old with the wicked sense of humor.
Sometimes it happens when Hailie Bechler makes a sarcastic quip that belies her pre-school status. Or when her mom gazes into those familiar, blue-green-gray eyes. Or when the little girl pulls her hair back to reveal a face that looks just like her daddy's.
That's when Kiley Bechler really senses the spirit of her deceased husband, former Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler, who died of heatstroke five years ago today.
In those five years, time has stood still. Rushed ahead. Played tricks.
"There are days that it seems like it happened yesterday, and days where it seems like it has been 30 years," Kiley Bechler said. "So much has happened in my life. It has changed so much. I feel like I have aged 30 years. But on other days, emotions-wise, it feels like a couple weeks ago."
On Feb. 16, 2003, Steve Bechler, 23, a right-hander hoping to make the Orioles' bullpen, collapsed while participating in spring training conditioning drills in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was rushed to the hospital and died the next day - possibly the darkest moment in franchise history.
A medical examiner later ruled that the death was caused, in part, by an over-the-counter diet supplement Bechler was taking to lose weight. His death eventually led to the ban of products containing ephedra, a stimulant once common in diet pills.
Kiley Bechler, then 22 and seven months pregnant with Hailie, was driving cross-country from the couple's Oregon home to South Florida when she learned that her husband had collapsed.
She quickly boarded a plane and spent most of the next 24 hours holding vigil at the hospital until Bechler was pronounced dead.
Not four months into her marriage, suddenly she was a widow. The impending birth of her daughter kept Kiley Bechler going during that trying time.
"I don't know what I would have done if Hailie hadn't given me the strength to carry on," she said. "Being pregnant is what saved me."
Kiley Bechler is now remarried. She's planning a move to Florida and is hoping to return to school to again pursue a nursing degree. Last year, her suit against the manufacturer of Xenadrine RFA-1 - as well as dozens of other plaintiffs' suits against the New Jersey-based company - was settled out of court. Terms were not released because of confidentiality agreements.
She's moving on with her life, but, for the sake of her daughter, her late husband's legacy remains alive.
"We talk about it at least weekly," Kiley Bechler said. "If [Hailie] has had a bad day or is really tired or emotional, it really comes up."
Eventually, the mom will tell the daughter everything. Answer every question to her fullest capabilities. For now, it's all in a language Hailie can understand.
"She knows when she was in mommy's tummy that her daddy died, that he got too hot, we tell her," she said. "That his heart stopped. He was taking bad medicine that made that happen."
Kiley Bechler has put together scrapbooks filled with pictures and stories about her late husband. Recently, she converted his old baseball videos to DVD, and she and her daughter watched them. They saw Steve Bech- ler, an always-joking extrovert, clowning around. And his daughter exclaimed, "Daddy's talking to me!"
In the family's game room, two of Steve Bechler's old jerseys are framed and mounted. And in Hailie's room there is a photo of Steve Bechler holding a mini No. 51 Orioles jersey for his daughter - taken only days before his death. The border is signed by the full coaching staff and roster of the 2003 Orioles.
Hailie tells her mother that the picture is of her "Daddy Steve."
The little girl, her mother says, is often shy around men, but last month they visited the Florida home of former Orioles pitcher John Stephens, who along with his wife, Andrea, are Hailie's godparents.
Stephens and Hailie immediately connected.
"She took to me great and I took to her great. We spent the whole day together down at the beach," said Stephens, who was Bechler's first roommate in pro baseball. "It was kind of neat that a part of Steve that he created, Hailie, part of him is still around."
Stephens, like many other young Orioles who were close to Bechler, was concerned that day when his big, boisterous, competitive buddy was taken to the hospital. But he had no clue how serious it was.
"It was so crazy. There was so much shock that it could happen," said Stephens, who retired from pro baseball in 2006 and runs a commercial waste removal business in Sarasota, Fla. "At first, we knew something was wrong and he had to go to the hospital. He'll be back but not ready for the spring [games]. We didn't know he wouldn't walk away from it."
Dr. William Goldiner, the Orioles' team physician, spent much of the next day and a half in the intensive care unit with Bechler and watched helplessly as the player's organ systems failed one by one. He said it was one of the two most upsetting cases in his 30-plus years as a physician. The other involved the death of a 10-year-old boy.
"I'm sure it will stick with me forever," Goldiner said.
Bechler's death, however, also effected change on a national scale. The swift decision by Broward County medical examiner Dr. Joshua Perper to finger the ephedra-based diet drug as a contributing factor in Bechler's death, and the publicity that ensued, led to the eventual federal ban in 2004 that was upheld by federal courts in 2006.
"If there is a good thing about the whole thing, it's the fact that the medical examiner came out very strongly, courageously, immediately implicating ephedra as the cause of this kid's death," Goldiner said.
Kiley Bechler, who coaches girls basketball and softball in Oregon, said she recently was reading through high school athletics guidelines that detail banned substances. Ephedra was on the list, and Steve Bechler's name was referenced.
In one sense, that is a source of pride.
But, ultimately, she would rather concentrate on Bechler's life, not his death. That isn't always easy. Her freshest memory is Bechler's final moments in a hospital bed.
"The worst possible memory is the one I'm left with," she said. "I have a billion memories of us together, six years together, and that's the one that sticks in my head. And it makes me sick."
There were other memorable moments from that day, of course. The nurses who rallied around her. And the outpouring she received from around the country, most from people whom she had never met.
She'll one day tell her daughter all about those things. And all about the funny and crazy stunts Hailie's dad once pulled. That's also where his old baseball buddies like Stephens will come in.
"I'll tell her whatever she wants to hear. There were so many good times with him on and off the field," Stephens said. "There were just so many stories about him, so many funny stories. He was just a great guy."
There is one thing that Kiley Bechler won't be sharing with Hailie for at least a decade. Something that bridges her dad's life and death.
Bechler's ashes were scattered over the Camden Yards mound in 2003, but before he was cremated the funeral director placed Bechler's thumb into a mold of white gold and created a pendant with the print. A necklace and the dates of Bechler's birth and death were added, and it was given to Kiley Bech- ler.
She has never worn it, though. No one has.
At least not until Hailie Bechler, the girl who looks and acts like the daddy she never met, turns 16.
dan.connolly@baltsun.com
Often it's triggered by the precocious 4-year-old with the wicked sense of humor.
Sometimes it happens when Hailie Bechler makes a sarcastic quip that belies her pre-school status. Or when her mom gazes into those familiar, blue-green-gray eyes. Or when the little girl pulls her hair back to reveal a face that looks just like her daddy's.
That's when Kiley Bechler really senses the spirit of her deceased husband, former Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler, who died of heatstroke five years ago today.
In those five years, time has stood still. Rushed ahead. Played tricks.
"There are days that it seems like it happened yesterday, and days where it seems like it has been 30 years," Kiley Bechler said. "So much has happened in my life. It has changed so much. I feel like I have aged 30 years. But on other days, emotions-wise, it feels like a couple weeks ago."
On Feb. 16, 2003, Steve Bechler, 23, a right-hander hoping to make the Orioles' bullpen, collapsed while participating in spring training conditioning drills in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was rushed to the hospital and died the next day - possibly the darkest moment in franchise history.
A medical examiner later ruled that the death was caused, in part, by an over-the-counter diet supplement Bechler was taking to lose weight. His death eventually led to the ban of products containing ephedra, a stimulant once common in diet pills.
Kiley Bechler, then 22 and seven months pregnant with Hailie, was driving cross-country from the couple's Oregon home to South Florida when she learned that her husband had collapsed.
She quickly boarded a plane and spent most of the next 24 hours holding vigil at the hospital until Bechler was pronounced dead.
Not four months into her marriage, suddenly she was a widow. The impending birth of her daughter kept Kiley Bechler going during that trying time.
"I don't know what I would have done if Hailie hadn't given me the strength to carry on," she said. "Being pregnant is what saved me."
Kiley Bechler is now remarried. She's planning a move to Florida and is hoping to return to school to again pursue a nursing degree. Last year, her suit against the manufacturer of Xenadrine RFA-1 - as well as dozens of other plaintiffs' suits against the New Jersey-based company - was settled out of court. Terms were not released because of confidentiality agreements.
She's moving on with her life, but, for the sake of her daughter, her late husband's legacy remains alive.
"We talk about it at least weekly," Kiley Bechler said. "If [Hailie] has had a bad day or is really tired or emotional, it really comes up."
Eventually, the mom will tell the daughter everything. Answer every question to her fullest capabilities. For now, it's all in a language Hailie can understand.
"She knows when she was in mommy's tummy that her daddy died, that he got too hot, we tell her," she said. "That his heart stopped. He was taking bad medicine that made that happen."
Kiley Bechler has put together scrapbooks filled with pictures and stories about her late husband. Recently, she converted his old baseball videos to DVD, and she and her daughter watched them. They saw Steve Bech- ler, an always-joking extrovert, clowning around. And his daughter exclaimed, "Daddy's talking to me!"
In the family's game room, two of Steve Bechler's old jerseys are framed and mounted. And in Hailie's room there is a photo of Steve Bechler holding a mini No. 51 Orioles jersey for his daughter - taken only days before his death. The border is signed by the full coaching staff and roster of the 2003 Orioles.
Hailie tells her mother that the picture is of her "Daddy Steve."
The little girl, her mother says, is often shy around men, but last month they visited the Florida home of former Orioles pitcher John Stephens, who along with his wife, Andrea, are Hailie's godparents.
Stephens and Hailie immediately connected.
"She took to me great and I took to her great. We spent the whole day together down at the beach," said Stephens, who was Bechler's first roommate in pro baseball. "It was kind of neat that a part of Steve that he created, Hailie, part of him is still around."
Stephens, like many other young Orioles who were close to Bechler, was concerned that day when his big, boisterous, competitive buddy was taken to the hospital. But he had no clue how serious it was.
"It was so crazy. There was so much shock that it could happen," said Stephens, who retired from pro baseball in 2006 and runs a commercial waste removal business in Sarasota, Fla. "At first, we knew something was wrong and he had to go to the hospital. He'll be back but not ready for the spring [games]. We didn't know he wouldn't walk away from it."
Dr. William Goldiner, the Orioles' team physician, spent much of the next day and a half in the intensive care unit with Bechler and watched helplessly as the player's organ systems failed one by one. He said it was one of the two most upsetting cases in his 30-plus years as a physician. The other involved the death of a 10-year-old boy.
"I'm sure it will stick with me forever," Goldiner said.
Bechler's death, however, also effected change on a national scale. The swift decision by Broward County medical examiner Dr. Joshua Perper to finger the ephedra-based diet drug as a contributing factor in Bechler's death, and the publicity that ensued, led to the eventual federal ban in 2004 that was upheld by federal courts in 2006.
"If there is a good thing about the whole thing, it's the fact that the medical examiner came out very strongly, courageously, immediately implicating ephedra as the cause of this kid's death," Goldiner said.
Kiley Bechler, who coaches girls basketball and softball in Oregon, said she recently was reading through high school athletics guidelines that detail banned substances. Ephedra was on the list, and Steve Bechler's name was referenced.
In one sense, that is a source of pride.
But, ultimately, she would rather concentrate on Bechler's life, not his death. That isn't always easy. Her freshest memory is Bechler's final moments in a hospital bed.
"The worst possible memory is the one I'm left with," she said. "I have a billion memories of us together, six years together, and that's the one that sticks in my head. And it makes me sick."
There were other memorable moments from that day, of course. The nurses who rallied around her. And the outpouring she received from around the country, most from people whom she had never met.
She'll one day tell her daughter all about those things. And all about the funny and crazy stunts Hailie's dad once pulled. That's also where his old baseball buddies like Stephens will come in.
"I'll tell her whatever she wants to hear. There were so many good times with him on and off the field," Stephens said. "There were just so many stories about him, so many funny stories. He was just a great guy."
There is one thing that Kiley Bechler won't be sharing with Hailie for at least a decade. Something that bridges her dad's life and death.
Bechler's ashes were scattered over the Camden Yards mound in 2003, but before he was cremated the funeral director placed Bechler's thumb into a mold of white gold and created a pendant with the print. A necklace and the dates of Bechler's birth and death were added, and it was given to Kiley Bech- ler.
She has never worn it, though. No one has.
At least not until Hailie Bechler, the girl who looks and acts like the daddy she never met, turns 16.
dan.connolly@baltsun.com