Wagner Made All the Wrong Choices

Let the life and death of Leon “Daddy Wags” Wagner [Jan. 25] be a lesson to us all: Resentment is deadly. Sure, Wagner had a lot of tough breaks, but so what? No one is responsible for Wagner’s demise except Wagner himself.

I’ve heard it said that it is the choices we make, and the actions we take, that shape our destinies. Well, Wagner made enough wrong choices that he ended up with no choices to make, where the only action he could take was to manage his resentments through the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs; either way, he placed himself in a position where he was either unwilling or unable to make the choice to sober up, most likely because, in order to do so, he would have had to let go of his resentments, the only excuse he had left to continue drinking and using.

May he rest in peace.

Brent T. Stenhouse

Torrance

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What a truly moving article by Bill Plaschke on Leon Wagner. But I also read it with a deep sense of regret and anger. Why? One line in the article: “Yet on Thursday at his memorial service a couple of blocks from that shed, not one person from Major League Baseball came to say goodbye.”

How could the Angels forget to send someone, anyone to be there to honor a guy who was one of the few ties back to the origins of the franchise here in Los Angeles and, more telling, the very first and only African American on that first team?

No one.

For shame, Angels, truly for shame.

Neil A. McCarthy

Torrance