As the baseball world mourned the death of former Major League manager and all-star Jim Fregosi, Deadspin.com offered one of the more unusual eulogies affiliated with the 71-year-old.
Fregosi died Friday morning after being taken off life support a day earlier. He was on a cruise headed from Grand Cayman to Mexico last weekend when he suffered two strokes.
The ship returned to Grand Cayman and doctors had to stabilize him before they could transport him to Miami on Tuesday.
He was a six-time all-star during an 18-year baseball career, led the California Angels to their first division title in 1979 and led the Philadelphia Phillies to the 1993 World Series as a manager. The Angels retired his number in 1988.
Deadspin, however, reposted an excerpt from an Esquire magazine feature on Fregosi that recalled his last year as a manager with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2000. The Esquire writer, Chris Jones, was a Blue Jays beat writer at the time.
Jones reported that Fregosi's management style was based on deflection, always coming up with an outrageous quote or action that would take the focus off a bad game or a slumping player.
Jones talked about one "terrible" game in particular in which he was conducting an interview session while smoking and sitting behind his desk in his office with only a towel around his waist.
In the account, Jones asked about a pitcher's ineffectiveness when Fregosi became enraged and approached Jones, who was sitting on a couch across from Fregosi's desk.
"He was hollering at me for my general idiocy, smoke pouring out of every hole in his body," Deadspin quoted the Esquire article from Jones. "He began taking short steps toward me, where I remained trapped on the couch. He was throwing his arms around and now he was screaming at the top of his lungs. And then his towel fell off, and Fregosi's (penis) was swinging maybe two feet in front of my face. It was the closest I'd been to another man's junk. It was not a happy moment for me.
And it went on, interminable, on and on and on, as Fregosi continued to scorch me, his crotch inching closer and closer to my face. He never made contact, but it was like being threatened with facial assault by a short, fat garden hose. My only comfort, and it was a cold one, was that he'd just come out of the shower."
Deadspin brought its article back from that weird testimonial by saying, "After his stroke, Fregosi was airlifted to a Miami hospital, where he died surrounded by his wife and five children. 'Went in peace with no pain,' his son said."
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