R.I.P.

MLB Pitcher Who Retired to Become a Cop Killed En Route to 9/11 Event

Anthony Varvaro—who played for the Seattle Mariners, Atlanta Braves, and Boston Red Sox—was 37.

Anthony Varvaro, a former Major League Baseball pitcher from 2010 to 2015 who retired to become a police officer, was killed in a vehicular crash on Sunday. He was 37. Varvaro had been on his way to serve in an event commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks when he was involved in a head-on collision with a wrong-way driver, police said. Following his baseball career, which saw him pitch for the Seattle Mariners, Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox, Varvaro immediately began training as an officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He was assigned to the World Trade Center Command after completing his training and later returned to Port Authority’s police academy to work as an instructor. “Not only was he everything you could want out of a ballplayer, he was everything you could want in a person,” Michael Hampton, who helped coach St. John’s University baseball during Varvaro’s tenure on the team, told the Associated Press.