St. Louis – Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock was in a potentially serious traffic accident less than three days before the one that took his life Sunday, according to police reports.
Hancock walked away from that early Thursday morning crash uninjured, but he was late for the team’s afternoon game a few hours later.
The club and several teammates said he had overslept. But sources said he was late because he was hung over, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Two nights later, after pitching in a Saturday afternoon game, Hancock spent the evening at Mike Shannon’s Steaks and Seafood drinking to a point of impairment, according to a couple at the restaurant.
The couple said they overheard Hancock telling ESPN broadcaster Dave Campbell that manager Tony La Russa had been infuriated with Hancock on Thursday because he was “too hung over to play.”
A club source also said Hancock was hung over when he arrived at the ballpark. Hancock was killed about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Autopsy results have not been released, and toxicology tests are pending.
Three days earlier, Hancock had a close call when his vehicle edged several inches into the intersection. A Sauget, Ill., police spokesman said Monday that a tractor-trailer struck Hancock’s GMC Denali, tearing off the vehicle’s front bumper.
“Just another inch or so and he could have died two days earlier, because that tractor-trailer was traveling about 45 to 50 miles per hour,” Sauget Police Chief Patrick Delaney said.
Neither Hancock nor the truck’s driver was injured, and Hancock was not ticketed.
La Russa declined to say Monday whether he had knowledge of Hancock’s Thursday accident. “That’s not a baseball-related question so I don’t think I’ll answer it.”
The Post-Dispatch reported that the man who sat near Hancock at Shannon’s on Saturday night – who asked to be identified only as Vince – said he overheard Hancock tell Campbell that he missed the start of Thursday’s game because he had spent the previous night drinking. Hancock told Campbell that La Russa fined him $500, according to the man.
“They were standing behind us at the bar, probably for about 45 minutes,” said a second witness, Vince’s wife, who did not want her name revealed. She said Hancock had “several” drinks.
“He had a mixed drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other,” Vince said. “And my wife’s comment was, ‘He can barely put a sentence together.”‘
The two eyewitnesses said he remained at the establishment when they left at 10:31 p.m.
