GAMBLING TAKES ALL FROM CECIL FIELDER

In the early 1990s, Cecil Fielder was a notable slugger for the Detroit Tigers and also was known as a family man for the good treatment of his wife, Stacey, son, Prince, and daughter, Ceclynn.

Fielder was traded to the New York Yankees and retired with career earnings of $47 million in salary alone, according to The Detroit News, and moved his family to a 50-room mansion in Melbourne, Fla.

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But then he got hooked on gambling and lost everything.

"Gambling caused Cecil Fielder's empire to collapse," Al Arostegui, the realtor who sold the Fielders their home, told The News. "This isn't a story of a hero who went bad but a hero who got sick. For Cecil, gambling is a disease; it's like a cancer of some sort that ate away his wealth."

And Donald Trump's empire played a key role in Fielder's losses. In February 1999, the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City initially gave Fielder a $25,000 line of credit, and as Fielder gambled it all away, the casino kept extending his credit until he owed them $580,000 for a 40-hour period of play.

Fielder entered a financial spiral of manipulating banks in order to pay the bill. But in the end, Fielder lost his mansion and everything attached to it. His wife was not aware of his gambling problem until their home was foreclosed.

"I never saw any of this coming," she told The News. "I never knew he even gambled."

The couple is currently in a bitter divorce, and Fielder has gone into hiding, The News reported. Stacey and Ceclynn receive no money from him, and they even have no medical insurance.