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Accident or suicide? ‘He always seemed like he was running from something’

The cliff where Brad Halsey perished, which is on private property near the Guadalupe River in Texas.

(Photo: Soobum Im, USA TODAY Sports)

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas -- Detective Juan Guerrero pulled back the yellow blanket that covered Brad Halsey, a 33-year-old former major league pitcher. He inspected the cold body found at the base of a 100-foot cliff on private property near the Guadalupe River, about 30 miles northeast of San Antonio.

No cuts or scratches. No sign of a struggle. No evidence of homicide, the detective concluded. Both legs looked broken, he noted, likely caused by the impact of a fall. Probably suicide, the detective said he thought early that Halloween afternoon.

Then Guerrero checked Halsey's black Honda parked nearby. On the passenger's seat he found a baseball glove, a baseball and a flier advertising pitching lessons Halsey was offering. No suicide note.

A week later, with an autopsy showing Halsey died from blunt force injuries, Guerrero told the captain of investigations at the Comal County Sheriff's Office he thought Halsey likely died in an accidental fall. Yet the detective says he still wonders, and the case remains open pending the completion of a toxicology report.

Like his death, Halsey's life was filled with questions and doubt. Although he had a journeyman career — playing for three major league organizations and two independent teams in a decade — Halsey packed memorable moments into his 286 1/3 innings as a big-leaguer.

He emerged from Westfield High School in Houston and junior college obscurity to be one of the top pitchers for a University of Texas team that won the 2002 College World Series. Two years later he was pitching for the New York Yankees.

Brad Halsey makes his major-league debut, pitching 5 2/3 innings to earn the victory against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

(Photo: Chris Carlson, AP)

Facing Brad Halsey on May 20, 2006, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds hits his 714th career home run to tie Babe Ruth for second in career home runs.

(Photo: Ben Margot, AP)

He won his first career start by beating the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Less than two weeks after that, Halsey was on the mound at old Yankee Stadium and starting the game against the Boston Red Sox in which Derek Jeter famously made "The Dive" into the stands after catching a foul ball. And in 2006, while pitching for the Oakland Athletics, Halsey gave up Barry Bonds' 714th home run, tying the slugger with Babe Ruth for second on the all-time list.

Public records and interviews with former coaches, teammates and friends show Halsey was quiet, private, quirky, smart and witty. But his behavior changed as he tried to hang on to a fading baseball career and fell victim to prescription and recreational drug abuse.

Less than four months ago, police found Halsey walking chest-deep in the nearby Comal River and identifying himself as Lucifer. Officers had responded to a call about a man who fit Halsey's description throwing rocks at people floating by on inner tubes and talking to people no one else could see.

Halsey said he was prepared to fight "Mitch," but witnesses said they saw no other man. After Halsey exited the river and turned unruly, police put him in shackles and drove him to an area hospital for evaluation. The police report noted Halsey had mental problems due to drug use.

A few months earlier, according to two men who spent time with the former pitcher in the last months of his life, Halsey told them he had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The men also said Halsey made an outrageous statement, claiming he was on cocaine and other drugs when he gave up Bonds' historic home run and had spent much of the $1 million he made during his baseball career on drugs.

"He always seemed like he was running from something," said James Pankey, an instructional coach in the San Antonio area who along with an acquaintance, Tripp Deason, detailed Halsey's alleged disclosures.

Halsey's mother said the psychiatric diagnoses were "not accurate" but offered no further comment. Former teammates, including Jason Kendall, the A's catcher when Bonds hit the home run, said they saw no evidence Halsey used drugs.

"He was such a quiet kid. But when he got on the mound, he had a bulldog mentality about him," said former major leaguer John Flaherty, who was the catcher for Halsey's first career start. "He didn't flinch in some of the big spots that (manager) Joe Torre threw him in."

His training started unconventionally.

Road to the majors A boy pitching to his mother

David Knepper was a neighbor to the Halseys in Houston years ago and said he would drive past their home and marvel at the sight. There was little Brad Halsey pitching to his mother, Loretta Halsey, who was decked out in catcher's gear.

"It would be in the dead heat of the summer, hot as hell," Knepper said. "I thought, 'That is one dedicated mama right there.' "

Talented but scrawny at 6-2 and 160 pounds when he graduated from high school in 1999, Halsey, a left-hander, initially drew no interest from Division I colleges. But he put on weight and picked up velocity on his fastball, and before he knew it was being drafted by the Yankees in the eighth round in 2002 and signing for a $130,000 bonus.

During his two years in the Yankees farm system, Halsey grew close with Jared Koutnik, an infielder drafted by the team in 2002. Koutnik said the two were notorious for their late-night drinking.

After making his debut for the Yankees in 2004 and going 1-3 in eight games, Halsey was traded in the offseason with two players to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Randy Johnson. Koutnik, who was living in Chicago in 2005, recalled Halsey wanting to go out drinking one night when the Diamondbacks were in town to face the Chicago Cubs.

Koutnik said they stayed out until at least 4 a.m. and that Halsey was so drunk Koutnik had to carry him into his room at the team hotel. That afternoon, to Koutnik's surprise, Halsey was pitching against the Cubs — and he threw six scoreless innings to earn a 6-0 victory.

After going 8-12 with the Diamondbacks, Halsey was on the move again, dealt to Oakland, where he mostly pitched as a reliever in 2006. Halsey then had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder in 2007 and was released by the A's in March 2008 and didn't pitch that season. He signed with the Dodgers in March 2009, but they released him six weeks later.

His options suddenly narrowed.

The descent begins Halsey's pitching, behavior turn erratic

Brad Halsey pitches against the Boston Red Sox on July 1, 2004. Later in the game, Derek Jeter would make "The Dive."

(Photo: Kathy Willens, AP)

Drawing no offers from major league teams, Halsey drove his black BMW from Texas to New York and joined the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League.

"You could see he didn't really want to be there," said Dave LaPoint, then the team's pitching coach. "You could see who he was and why he was in the big leagues. Then he would go through some lapses where he wouldn't throw the ball anything like he did the last two times out."

Halsey's behavior turned as erratic as his pitching, according to teammate Ron Flores, a pitcher who said Halsey grew angry and paranoid. A teammate told police Halsey had talked about someone or something from a fourth dimension sucking out all of his energy, according to a police report that did not identify the teammate.

In late June, after a game in Camden, N.J., pitcher Joe Valentine recalled, Halsey and his black BMW disappeared. Halsey's mother filed a missing persons report.

She told police she hadn't heard from her son in six days and his roommate hadn't seen him for a few days either. She also said, according to the missing persons report, her son told her he'd been taking Adderall — a stimulant used to treat attention deficit disorder and narcolepsy — without explaining why. Flores said it was no secret Halsey had been taking the prescription drug, which was gaining popularity among athletes for improving focus.

Halsey's agent, Tom O'Connell, told police Halsey also had a problem with painkillers, according to the missing persons report, and the Ducks released him after 11 starts and a 5.86 ERA because of his poor pitching.

A day after the missing persons report was filed, Halsey turned up in New York. His mother flew in and took him home to New Braunfels, where the family moved after Halsey graduated from high school. By December, authorities were looking for him again.

This time, according to a new missing persons report, Halsey had said voices told him he needed to be in France with the Cassiopaea Cult, led by a self-proclaimed scientific mystic who believes in subliminal thought transfer. Yet Halsey had not been diagnosed with any mental health issues, his mother told police.

Koutnik said Halsey later told him the problems started after he was released by the A's. Halsey said he started hearing voices of aliens and that on eBay he sold the national championship ring he won at Texas and used the money to fly overseas to talk to someone about aliens, according to Koutnik.

In 2010, Halsey had played for another independent team — the Gary (Ind.) SouthShore Railcats of the American Association — and completed the season without incident but without a contract. So Koutnik, who said he'd loaned Halsey a car and housed him because his friend was broke, helped to get Halsey a tryout with several teams, including the Yankees.

It started with Halsey playing catch in the parking lot, and Steve Lemke, a Yankees scout, said he noted that Halsey's arm strength looked good but his pitching shoulder looked stiff.

He threw about 40 pitches, Lemke recalled. Fastball was 85 mph to 88 mph. Good stuff, Lemke noted, but not great.

"I could tell (the Yankees) wanted to give him a shot," he said. "So I passed the word on how he threw and that he looked healthy enough to pitch."

John Kremer, the Yankees director of player personnel, called Halsey and said the club had a spot for a relief pitcher with the Trenton (N.J..) Thunder, its Class AA affiliate.

"He was willing to go anywhere," Kremer said.

No BMW. No chip on his shoulder. Halsey, according to teammates and coaches, arrived in Trenton exuding a sense of camaraderie. Pitcher Pat Venditte recalled Halsey's advice before the players stretched the day after Venditte pitched poorly and said he'd been distracted on the mound.

"He was very into the mental aspect of pitching," Venditte said. "He had me look at a small cloud in the sky. He said, 'I want you to focus as much as you can to make that cloud disappear.'"

Halsey went 2-1 pitching 31 1/3 innings in relief and was released after the season.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman declined to discuss Halsey for this story.

Back in Chicago with Koutnik, Halsey went without sleep for days at a time, stopped showering regularly and unnerved the young players Koutnik was coaching. Koutnik said he confronted Halsey, who said he'd gotten a prescription for Adderall and was taking more than the directed amount.

Convinced Adderall was to blame when hallucinations later kicked in, Koutnik said he urged Halsey to get help. He called Halsey's mother.

Loretta Halsey flew to Chicago to bring her son back home again.

Not long after, Halsey tried to commandeer a barge on the San Antonio River Walk and then his father died of cancer. The River Walk incident led to his arrest — one of seven in less than six months on varying misdemeanor charges stemming from incidents during which he was invariably aggressive. His criminal record was growing almost as prodigious as his baseball record: 14-19 with a 4.84 ERA during three seasons in the major leagues.

Conflicting final days ‘He was planning for the future’

A guesthouse in New Braunfels, Texas, where Brad lived for a year before moving in with his mother months prior to his death.

(Photo: Soobum Im, USA TODAY Sports)

Halsey let his hair and fingernails grow long. He balked at questions about his baseball career. Stared blankly for hours — most noticeably while at the Faust Hotel, where he drank about a half-dozen Amstel Light beers followed by a vodka and Red Bull a few times a week for more than a year until recent months and occasionally grunted and laughed to himself.

"He looked troubled," said Dustin Stevenson, a regular patron.

But the arrests stopped, and Halsey started giving pitching lessons to young players. Sometimes he worked alongside Pankey, an instructional coach at E-Train facility in New Braunfels.

Pankey and Deason said they saw Halsey use crystal meth and that Halsey discussed his drug use and mental illness in May. Pankey said Halsey was relieved to talk about his mental illness, but their time together subsided two months before Halsey's death when Halsey left the E-Train. He wanted more clients — more than the facility's owner, Cookie Ibarra, said he could provide.

Despite his episode in the river in August, Halsey continued to give lessons and talked about returning to Chicago to work for Koutnik. But in September, he called and said he wasn't coming — about the same time Halsey was arrested for challenging a police officer to fight after Halsey had been suspected of trying to break into cars. He spent six days in jail before a judge ordered his release.

Yet even after that incident, Halsey printed up fliers advertising his pitching lessons, connected with an instructional coach in San Antonio and, after living with his mother for a few months, signed a lease for an apartment.

Detective Juan Guerrero of the Comal County Sheriff's Office has been investigating the death of Brad Halsey since Halsey's body was found on Halloween.

(Photo: Soobum Im, USA TODAY Sports)

"He was planning for the future," detective Guerrero said.

According to the detective, Halsey's mother said she thought her son was headed to the river when he left the house Halloween morning. She did not know him to climb rocks, the detective said. But her son loved the river, and the two of them fished together for rainbow trout, the detective said she told him.

A memorial service for Halsey was held by the river a week after his body was found. Though the service was supposed to be private and small, a former teammate said more than 200 people attended. Halsey's older brother, Marcus, a chaplain in the National Guard, presided. That same day, the detective returned to the cliff.

He hiked up the private driveway that curled up the steep hill. At the top of the cliff, he took in the magnificent view of the river, rocks and trees. The detective made a mental note of the rugged terrain and loose sand. Easy enough to slip if someone got too close to the ledge, he said he thought, and he felt queasy as he looked at that ledge.

Then, the detective said, he spotted a Texas evergreen. For some reason, he said, the tree settled him, and he paused to catch his breath. He thought about the nature of his work, and allowed himself to feel the full weight of Halsey's death

In that quiet moment, the detective said, he paid his respects to the pitcher he never knew.

Contributing: Bob Nightengale