Jenkins Tries To Battle Back From Heartbreak -- Teaching Is Part Of Therapy For Pitcher

Looking back, Ferguson Jenkins isn't certain what he was hoping to accomplish. Was it catharsis, a sense of closure, or his own painful first step in the healing process?

But on the day after Christmas, Jenkins knew this much: The presents under his Christmas tree, the unwrapped gifts that were intended for his three-year-old, Samantha, and his fiancee, Cindy Takieddine, had no place in his home.

Eleven days earlier, Cindy and Samantha were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning on a rural road near Perry, Okla., an act ruled a murder-suicide by police.

Jenkins packed the unopened gifts into his truck and began returning them to stores. Samantha's Cabbage Patch dolls, Beauty and the Beast towel set and Santa Claus sweater went back, as did the jogging suit and sweater Jenkins had purchased for Cindy.

"The tree was still up, and those gifts were just sitting there," said Jenkins.

"I didn't want to give them away, and I didn't want to destroy them. They were for certain individuals. I thought it might help. But when I started doing it, the day went blank. I went to some stores, and people had read the articles and tried to help me. But I had to return Samantha's bicycle, and it was gut-wrenching. I thought returning them would help give me a sense of maybe some value, but it really hasn't. It's still very hard."

For Jenkins, 49, the grieving process is a stage he knows far better than anyone should. In December 1990, Jenkins' wife, Maryanne, suffered a broken neck when she rolled her truck in an accident near their ranch. She was listed in stable condition at a hospital.

In a heart-rendering example of triumph and tragedy, Jenkins was elected to the Hall of Fame and became a widower in the span of four days.

Maryanne developed pneumonia and died suddenly - while Jenkins was on the road as part of the Hall of Fame announcement.

Left behind were little Samantha, the couple's only child together, and Raymond, 10, Maryanne's son from an earlier marriage.

Who could imagine his pain? Within two years, Jenkins lost his wife, found a new love, and dealt with the horror of his fiancee killing herself and his daughter.

Still recovering, Jenkins has returned to baseball, as a minor-league pitching instructor in the Cincinnati organization. He won 284 games in his 19-year career. Teaching has become, in part, his therapy.

"I just hope maybe down the road I'm going to understand more," said Jenkins. "I haven't really learned a lot from it all yet. It's been a lot of trials. I lay awake at nights, still, just thinking, `Could I have done something different?'

"The lonely hours, the times you're all alone, it's not good. It's not good at all. I feel things have been taken from me, and I'm not ever going to get them back. But I try to reflect on the good times these individuals gave me, and those I gave them."

Control always was Ferguson Jenkins' calling card. He struck out 3,192 and walked just 997 - second-best ratio of any Hall of Fame pitcher in the modern era.

But in one of life's ironies, Jenkins, in retirement, has faced a series of events beyond his control.

"Baseball is easy. Life is hard," Jenkins once said. Today, those words ring truer than ever as he ponders why.

Why did Cindy, 44, a compassionate woman Jenkins once described as "a godsend," commit such an act?

She was troubled by Jenkins' tentative decision to accept a traveling job in the Reds' organization, but why did she resort to violence against Samantha, a child with whom she had developed a special bond?

Cindy's suicide note, scribbled on the back of a sales receipt, only raised more questions, Jenkins said. It read, in part:

". . . ruining someone's life and telling them to get out the best way they can - that's immoral. I was betrayed. I cannot leave and go away without Samantha. I love her more than life itself and cannot envision my life without her. She has been my child for almost two years. To all those who loved me and Boog (her nickname for Samantha), please forgive me. I had no way out."

Jenkins denies asking his fiancee to leave, and says the reference to betrayal makes no sense. Cindy's problems, he surmises, might have stemmed from an alcoholic mother who died, or perhaps her father, who was against their live-in relationship.

"The questions are numerous, and yet all the same. I don't think they'll ever leave me," Jenkins said. "And I don't think some of the answers are ever going to be brought forth. You're not sure why these things happen to people. But you can't safeguard anyone you love. You can't even safeguard yourself. It's made me understand we're weak, very weak."

Jim Wakeman, a deputy sheriff who drove Jenkins to identify the bodies, witnessed the extent of Jenkins' shock.

"That night, when I took him, I don't think he spoke a word all the way up there, 40 or 50 miles," Wakeman said. "Either one of those losses would be hard for any man to take, but when you have one, then have another two years later, that's just as bad as it gets. It's a hell of a tragedy. I hope he doesn't have any more in his lifetime."

At his lowest this winter, Jenkins joined a support group for parents who have lost a child. He sought counseling from clergymen.

After declining a job at AA Chattanooga, he accepted a restructured offer limiting his time away from home to the rookie-league season of June-August.

His three older daughters from his first marriage live with their mother in Chatham, Ontario. Jenkins lives at his 160-acre ranch near Guthrie, Okla., with Raymond, now 13, and ranch foreman Tommy Christian. A neighbor who lives two miles down the road comes by to help with meals.

An uncle believes the ranch is the embodiment of Jenkins' misfortune and has suggested he level the house and start over. Jenkins chose to have his pastor bless his home.

"There's a presence of the family still there," Jenkins said. "But, of course, they're not there in body. It's hard because we had just finished a room for Samantha, and nobody's really lived in it. The room is decorated for her. It's for a young girl, a three-year-old. But unfortunately there's no life in that room. The house is lonely, but the memories are there, and they'll never fade. Never."

As a pitcher, Jenkins was known for his calm, reserved manner. He draws upon that trademark composure in dealing with the many requests to rehash his tragedies. He has endured the death of his mother, blind since his birth; with the humiliating 1980 drug arrest in Toronto; and with an acrimonious 1987 divorce from his first wife, Kathy.

"Personal feelings a lot of times you can hide," he said. "But I think the people who know me know I'm suffering as much as any individual who has lost people close to them.

"Life has been tough. I don't want any more pressure. Right now I'm focused on Raymond. Samantha's gone, but he's still with me. I'm hoping we can deal with the pressure together."