The family of late Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Duane Ward revealed a new detail about his unexpected death in a moving obituary.
“He passed away suddenly and peacefully,” the obituary reads.
Ward died on July 18 after a wellness check was requested. He was 62. No official cause of death has been released.
The Blue Jays icon had been back in Toronto with a group of former teammates for a celebration honoring their back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993.
Former Blue Jays pitcher Todd Stottlemyre shared on social media that Ward “went to sleep and never woke up.”
Hours before Ward’s body was found, he attended a team dinner with a group of his former teammates, which Ward left early.
”[Ward] and I kind of got by ourselves and visited for about half an hour [at the dinner],” former Blue Jays pitcher Tom Henke told the Toronto Star. “I never would have guessed it. He looked a little tired, but that was it. It was a long trip for him [from his home in Henderson, Nevada]. He said he was kind of tired, he was going to go to bed and get some rest for the next day. It was quite a shock. He was a great teammate.”
Stottlemyre, 61, said he and his fellow Blue Jays alums “had no idea our Friday night dinner and the photo I posted was going to be the last time we were going to see Duane Ward.”
“From celebration to sadness in a moment,” he wrote via X. “Without your contribution there would be no BACK TO BACK. Life is short and we will never know when we will be called. Give someone a hug today and reach out to a loved one and tell them how much you love them. Prayers go out to the Ward family. RIP Brother, until we see you again.”
Ward’s obituary notes that he “stayed humble and grateful” in his post-playing days.
“He treated people with respect and remained, at heart, the same boy who left home and became a hero to baseball fans across Canada and a respected figure throughout the baseball world,” the remembrance adds.
Ward is survived by his wife, Leah, his children, Drylee and Bishop, and his mother, Evelyn. He was preceded in death by his father, Tommy.
A funeral service for Ward is scheduled for Thursday, July 30, in his hometown of Farmington, New Mexico.
