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Cory Lidle

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Cory Fulton Lidle (March 22, 1972 – October 11, 2006) was an American right-handed baseball pitcher who died in a single engine plane crash four days after his team, the New York Yankees, were eliminated from competition at the end of the 2006 season. Lidle died when the small aircraft he owned crashed into a residential building in New York City.[1]

The Yankees were the seventh team for which he played during nine seasons in Major League Baseball.[1]

Personal life

Lidle was born in Hollywood, California, to Doug and Rebecca Lidle.[2] Lidle was related to engineer and inventor Robert Fulton.[3] He had a younger sister named Lisa Lidle, and a younger brother named William (Billy) Lidle. His twin brother Kevin Lidle played minor league baseball primarily as a catcher.[4] They attended South Hills High School in West Covina, California, graduating in 1990, and were high school teammates of Jason Giambi. The Lidle family currently resides in the San Gabriel Valley (West Covina, Covina, and Glendora CA).

Lidle married Melanie Varela on January 7, 1997; the pair had one son, Christopher (born in 2000). Cory, Melanie, and Christopher resided in Glendora, California at the time of Lidle's death.

Baseball career

Lidle was signed in 1990 by the Minnesota Twins as an amateur free agent. After his release in 1993, he was signed by the Milwaukee Brewers. Lidle was then traded in 1996 to the New York Mets, and made his Major League debut for the Mets on May 8, 1997. Due to his participation as a replacement player during the 1994 Major League Baseball strike, he was not eligible to join the MLB Players Union. Lidle later appeared for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Jays, Cincinnati Reds, and Philadelphia Phillies. His best season was 2001 when he went 13-6 with a 3.59 ERA (10th in the American League) for Oakland, helping the Athletics win the wild card. His career zenith occurred in August 2002, when Lidle gave up one run during the whole month (setting Oakland's consecutive innings without an earned run record), won all five of his starts, and was one of the primary drivers in the A's historic run of 20 straight wins. It was on this Oakland team where he earned the nickname snacks, for his apparent love of consuming junk food in the bullpen. [5]

In 2007 Cory Lidle was inducted into the Binghamton Baseball Shrine. He played for the AA Binghamton Mets (New York Mets).

As a Yankee

On July 30 2006, Lidle was traded along with outfielder Bobby Abreu from the Philadelphia Phillies to the New York Yankees for minor league shortstop C.J. Henry, the Yankees' first round pick in the 2005 draft, along with left-handed reliever Matt Smith, minor league catcher Jesus Sanchez, and minor league right hander Carlos Monasterios. In his final game (Game 4 of the 2006 ALDS), Lidle pitched 1.1 innings, allowing 3 earned runs on 4 hits. The New York Yankees lost the game to the Detroit Tigers 8-3.

Controversies

After being traded by the Philadelphia Phillies in July 2006 at the trade deadline, Lidle criticized his former team: "On the days I'm pitching, it's almost a coin flip as to know if the guys behind me are going to be there to play 100 percent." He noted he was joining a Yankees team that expects to win all the time.

"That's why I'm most excited about it," Lidle said. "Sometimes I felt I got caught up kind of going into the clubhouse nonchalantly sometimes, because all of the other guys in the clubhouse didn't go there with one goal in mind."

After losing to the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 ALDS, he was criticized for telling a reporter "We got matched up with a team that, I think, was a little more ready to play than we were," which was taken by some as a jab at manager Joe Torre. In his defense, he called up talk radio show Mike and the Mad Dog and gave an extended defense of himself and the Yankees.[6] Following reports of Lidle's death, Chris Russo and Mike Francesa, hosts of the popular New York radio show, expressed remorse for their previous hostility to Lidle.

Death

Main article: 2006 New York City plane crash

On October 11 2006, a Cirrus SR20 plane (reportedly pending registration to Cory Lidle[7]) crashed into the Belaire Apartments complex on York Ave. at E. 72nd Street on New York City's Upper East Side, killing Cory Lidle and co-pilot/flight instructor, Tyler Stanger.[8] All Cirrus Design SR-20 planes have dual controls; therefore, it is currently unknown whether Lidle or Stanger was piloting the aircraft at the time of the crash.

The plane took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and was seen twice circling the Statue of Liberty before it flew up the East River. It was reported to have lost radar contact around the 59th Street bridge and crashed just north of 72nd Street after attempting to make a u-turn.[9] NTSB preliminary reports indicate that a 13 knot crosswind may have been a factor in the crash, requiring him to make a tighter than normal turn to safely avoid obstacles.[10]

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner described Lidle's death as a "terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the entire Yankees organization" and offered his condolences to Lidle's wife and 6-year-old son.[11] On October 12, 2006, at the 2006 NLCS game in New York City between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals which had been postponed from the previous night as a result of the accident occurring in the same city as the game, the teams and spectators observed a moment of silence to honor the memory of Lidle.[12]

In addition to the deaths of the two on board the plane, twenty-one people were injured as a result of the accident, about half of them New York City firefighters.

Lidle had talked to teammates earlier and told them he would be flying home to California, but would take a sightseeing trip around Manhattan before he left.

Lidle had learned to fly in an intensive bout of study with Stanger between the 2005 and 2006 seasons, after he had observed how easy this would make travel in the Southwestern United States.

Although Lidle was covered by the players' association's benefit plan, there is an exclusion for "any incident related to travel in an aircraft... while acting in any capacity other than as a passenger". The accidental death benefit is reportedly 1 million dollars.[13]

His death at the age of only 34 makes him the third Yankees player to die in a crash of a plane owned by the player, including catcher Thurman Munson on August 2 1979 and pitcher Jim Hardin on March 9, 1991. In an interview shortly before his death, he responded to concerns about player-pilots, like Munson, by insisting that his plane was safe, being equipped with a parachute for the entire plane. The SR20 includes the Cirrus Aircraft Parachute System, which is designed to help save the crew in case of an in-flight technical failure causing loss of power but offers only minimal protection against Controlled flight into terrain. It is reported that the parachute was not deployed.

In February 2007, it was announced that the Yankees would wear black armbands throughout the 2007 season in honor of Lidle.[14]

On April 2, 2007, Cory's widow Melanie, and his son Christopher both threw out the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium.

On May 1, 2007, it was determined that a "pilot error" caused the plane crash that killed Lidle and his flight instructor Tyler Stanger. NTSB concurred that Lidle's rate of turn was too late when making a U-turn causing his plane to hit the side of the NYC apartment building instead of flying by it.

On June 15, 2007, Melanie Lidle attended the graduation ceremony in Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California. The community college's aviation team flew across the graduation field during the ceremony to pay respect to both Lidle and Stanger.

One of the baseball fields at West Covina's Cortez Park was renamed "Cory Lidle Field" after his death.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Yankees' Lidle killed in plane crash
  2. ^ "Lidle's Dad Learned of Plane Crash on TV", WPVI-TV, accessed October 11, 2006
  3. ^ Cory Lidle. MLB.com, accessed October 11, 2006
  4. ^ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/11/lkl.01.html
  5. ^ mlb.com "Chavez clutch in A's 17th straight", August 31, 2002, by Mychael Urban
  6. ^ http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15739623.htm
  7. ^ FAA Registry
  8. ^ FAA: Plane Registered To Yankees' Pitcher Lidle, WCBS-TV, accessed October 11 2006
  9. ^ http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/11/plane.crash/index.html
  10. ^ http://ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2006/061103.htm
  11. ^ Investigators go over Lidle crash scene, Hajela, Deepti, Associated Press. October 12 2006]]
  12. ^ ALCS Game 3 on Friday afternoon; NLCS Game 2 at night, Associated Press. October 12 2006.
  13. ^ "Lidle's Benefits in Jeopardy If He Was Piloting Plane". Associated Press, MSNBC.com. 2006-10-12.
  14. ^ "Yankees to honor Lidle with armband". The Sports Network. 2007-02-15.
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