Brody Stevens, a comedian and actor who played baseball for Arizona State University during a college career, has died. Stevens was 48.

A representative with his management confirmed the sudden death with USA TODAY on Friday through a statement.

“Brody was an inspiring voice who was a friend to many in the comedy community," the statement read. "He pushed creative boundaries and his passion for his work and his love of baseball were contagious. He was beloved by many and will be greatly missed. We respectfully ask for privacy at this time.”

In a 2015 interview with The Arizona Republic, Stevens — performing as Steven Brody Stevens — talked about growing up in California's San Fernando Valley and his Arizona connections. That included, he said, having an Arizona native for a father and a grandmother who dated the brother of Barry Goldwater.

"I do feel nostalgic about being back," he said. "I feel like I have roots here. I’m a desert guy!"

He moved to Phoenix to attend ASU and pitch for the Sun Devils.

"Baseball was really what I did while out here," he said during the interview. "I hadn’t even thought about comedy at that point. It wasn’t on my radar. I was into being the best baseball player I could be, being the best student, and I wasn’t really focused on comedy. I really enjoyed the time, though. I would drive out to Scottsdale to go to the mall there and relax, I’d go out to Mesa and Camelback — it was a great place for me at that time in my life."

He graduated from ASU with a 2.52 GPA, he told comedian Marc Maron on a 2011 podcast.

Stevens was a comedian and actor for more than two decades, and worked as a regular at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. His film credits include “The Hangover,” “The Hangover Part II” and “Due Date.” He also regularly warmed up the crowd for "Chelsea Lately" and had his own Comedy Central series, "Brody Stevens: Enjoy It!"

Part of his humor on "Enjoy It!" dealt with a very public breakdown in 2011 that played out on Twitter and resulted in the comedian spending 17 days at a UCLA psychiatric ward. He talked about the incident with The Republic.

"You have to have some kind of edge, anger or frustration," he said. "Problems in your life are good. All those things are good, especially for comedy, for stand-up, for podcasting. Then, you want to get to a point where you don’t have those problems and you can just create the art, and hopefully that’s down the road."

TMZ reported that the death was an apparent suicide. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office confirmed a male in his 40s had been found unresponsive at 12:52 p.m. and was pronounced dead on the scene. The death had been reported to the coroner's office as a suicide, but "we have not made that determination" pending further examination, according to Sarah Ardalani, public information officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.

Comedians were rocked by the news and responded on social media. Nick Kroll wrote that Stevens "was so funny and weird and vulnerable and wild and kind. Every time he was onstage it was an adventure."

Tiffany Haddish posted on her Twitter account that she understood his pain. Kumail Nanjiani wrote a thread that talked about their friendship.

Sarah Silverman posted that "The comedy clubs will have “Make God Laugh” on their marquees 2nite."

Patton Oswalt wrote that "I never get to see Brody Stevens again I can’t stand this" in a poignant tweet.

Bryan Alexander of USA Today contributed to this article. Reach the reporter at randy.cordova@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8849. Twitter.com/randy_cordova. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.