Quote:
Originally Posted by Amazin69
Tragically, Brown died at age 33 in Houston of leukemia. Which leads me to wonder…was he gay? Young single men dying of "leukemia" in 1981…it wouldn't be impossible. (Yes, most of the early AIDS deaths were in NY, LA, and SF ["coincidentally" the same three cities where the US government was "immunizing" gay men against Hepatitis-B in the late 1970s…], but having played in San Francisco, Brown might have travelled back there later on.) Was this the reason why Brown didn't seem to get a full chance, why Westrum was so set on keeping Thomasson in the lineup and even playing utility infielders like Chris Arnold and Steve Ontiveros in the outfield, while leaving Brown on the bench?
Maybe…but perhaps not. Brown could simply have had a lot of bad luck, from the broken arm at the wrong time, to the cheek contusion at the wrong time, to Westrum deciding that Gary Thomasson (final stats for 1975, .227/304/347) just had to be in the lineup every day, even after Matthews returned. And you can fatally compromise your immune system in other ways, such as intravenous drug use (it was the 1970s, after all) or simply extreme poverty (Brown played before the "one day's service gets you on the pension plan" revision of 1979; he could have fallen to homelessness and contracted leukemia that way). Or perhaps he was simply born with inadequate white blood cells and was lucky to make it to 33.
We'll probably never know. RIP, Jake.
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Your theories are
wildly speculative, to the point of reckless. They can't be entirely ruled out. However, Brown wasn't single. He was a married man with two children holding down a job. His death certificate also notes the form of leukemia.
I think he was just a hard-luck guy.