Minor League Tragedy of 1997

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I was researching a list of http://www.mbtn.net/?p=3264All-Time Mets to Wear 34 when I sorta indifferently selected Blas Minor as #10.



I didn't recall the circumstances of Minor's departure, but he was one of those journeymen middle relievers with OK stuff who'd gotten off to an inconsistent start and discarded earlyish in the year.



He was traded for a Seattle minor leaguer called Randy Vickers, who later played a role in a tragic event I'd also forgotten about. Vickers was a passenger in a vehicle that teammate Tim Bishop was driving when it got a flat tire and Bishop was struck by a car (actually two cars, yikes) and killed while changing. It came out later Bishop had been drinking on the team bus prior to the wreck, and the Mets whacked the entire management at Cap City staff afterward. Does anyone remember this? Some of us might have discussed this in the earliest days of the MOFO. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/23/sports/a-death-in-the-minors-leads-mets-to-dismiss-3.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/23/sports/a-death-in-the-minors-leads-mets-to-dismiss-3.html