He moved from place to place and team to team, subsisting on junk food and sleeping on living-room air mattresses. Like many of his minor league teammates, he'd been supplementing his $500 weekly salary with side gigs, barely making ends meet. With naive ideas about the glamorous life of a professional baseball player, the 2012 third-round draft pick had squandered the $400,000 signing bonus he'd received from Cleveland three years earlier as a 17-year-old right-hander out of Mission Viejo High School in California. SIX YEARS AGO, in an apartment he was renting for the offseason in downtown Phoenix, minor league pitcher Kieran Lovegrove picked up his Smith & Wesson Shield 9mm pistol, pointed the barrel to the temple of his head and pulled the trigger. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or is in emotional distress, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK(8255) or at. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserĬan a union fix this? Minor leaguers say poverty-level pay, poor housing are driving a 'mental health crisis'Įditor's Note: This story includes a graphic description of a suicide attempt.
