Royster still shaken by player’s death

By Rob Miech

Friday, May 9, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

Jerry Royster nearly spent four recent days at Cashman Field without fielding an inquiry about Mike Sharperson.

The seventh anniversary of Sharperson's death loomed, and Royster endearingly talked about how the Stars hung Shaperson's No. 15 jersey below the Cashman radio booth for several seasons.

Royster also took a visitor into the maze of the 51s' clubhouse to show a framed photograph of a tribute to Sharperson -- the Stars standing with bowed heads at third base -- hanging on a wall.

"I thought I was actually going to get out of here without talking about it," Royster said. "I think about it too much, still. I was so close to him. He was a good friend, so was his family.

"Coming back here brought it all back."

Royster managed the Stars, the 51s' predecessors, in 1996, when the popular Sharperson, 34, was killed in a one-car accident in the early-morning hours of May 26, 1996.

Hours earlier, Sharperson received word that the San Diego Padres had sent for him. Royster even pulled him from the game to tell him.

"He came off the field, I told him he was going up and he cried," Royster said. "It was a tearful reunion for him to be going back up there, and all the guys sat around him after the game. I remember it like it was yesterday."

Sharperson hung out a bit and then joined some teammates for a celebration at the Hard Rock Hotel, according to longtime Las Vegas general manager Don Logan.

After 2 a.m., with a light rain falling, Sharperson left to see his fiancee and young daughter at the condo they were renting in Green Valley, pack some clothes and head back to McCarran International Airport to join the Padres in Montreal.

Around 2:30 a.m., he drove his sports-utility vehicle around the new transition from I-15 south to the eastbound I-215, when he apparently misjudged the curve and two tires swerved off the concrete edge of the highway into an embankment.

According to police, Sharperson was not wearing his seat belt and was thrown out of the sun roof, which had jarred open when the vehicle flipped.

"He was a stickler about wearing his seat belt," Royster said. "That was the weird part about it. That's all he ever talked about. He wouldn't let you ride in his car unless you put on the seat belt.

"I remember telling his fiancee about the accident, and she just said, 'Jerry, Michael didn't have his seat belt on? That doesn't sound like ... ' I said, 'Well, that's how things happen.' "

Highway patrolmen found Sharperson's Dodgers equipment bag in the passenger seat.

"They think the seat belt might have saved him," Royster said. "He ended up going through the moon roof of the Explorer. Went right through it. That's what killed him."

Logan spoke with officials from the Nevada Highway Patrol a few times after the accident and said they did not suspect foul play.

"It was as well-marked as you could have expected," Logan said. "More than anything, I think it was just his unfamiliarity with the area. He could have gone down Paradise to the 215, but he thought he had to take a right on Tropicana up to 15, then take that south.

"They didn't think he was speeding, from the skid marks. He just slid off, fishtailed and went into that cut. It was an ugly thing."

Sharperson first played in the major leagues with Toronto in 1987, was dealt to the Dodgers and had an All-Star campaign in 1992, when he played second and third.

In '93, he made almost $1 million with the Dodgers. The following year, he was sent to the minors, and he played only seven games with the Atlanta Braves in 1995. The Padres then acquired him.

Sharperson had been with the Stars for only 32 games, but the impact he had on many in Las Vegas was impressive.

"Anyone who was in Las Vegas will tell you how they handled the Sharperson recall," Royster said. "It was special. Normally, a guy gets called up and you go, 'Congratulations, nice going,' and that's it.

"With Sharperson, it was like an event. It was like we all were getting recalled. They celebrated totally different than they would have for anyone else."

Four years earlier, Sharperson had been an All-Star at the highest level of the game. In Las Vegas, he treated everyone else as if they were all-stars.

"He took care of everyone," Royster said. "He made sure they were where they were supposed to be. He was just a leader, a natural leader. He was in charge of the Dodgers' clubhouse and the Stars' clubhouse. He sure made my job easy."

Royster managed the Stars for two more seasons before catching on with the Milwaukee Brewers organization. He returned to Cashman for the Home Run Challenge two winters ago, and questions about Sharperson flowed.

Royster, 50, managed the Brewers for most of last year, and the versatile Lenny Harris, Sharperson's best friend on the Dodgers from 1989-93, played with Milwaukee for the entire season.

The memory of Sharperson was a regular topic of conversation between Harris and Royster, and Royster recalled the postgame sessions that bonded the Stars and were often chaired by Sharperson.

Royster vividly remembered sitting with Craig Colbert, Randy Ready, Rob Deer, Sharperson, another few players and a coach or two.

"Way back in the clubhouse, we just sat around, went over the game and talked baseball," Royster said. "Ironically, that was the last team I had that would sit around after the game and talk about it. We did the same thing that night.

"I'd be in there doing my work, and they'd start gathering outside. And I would join them. We did it that night."

It was going to be one of the biggest accomplishments of Sharperson's career to go back to the majors to play the game that he began adoring as a youngster in South Carolina, and it led to his death.

"He would not have been in that spot had he not been called up," Royster said, gazing way beyond the outfield fence at Cashman from the home team's dugout. "It's just amazing how God works. You don't even wonder why anymore."