Hello, and welcome to my first blog posting here on yankees365.com. Actually, this is my first blog posting anywhere, so I hope you’re not scratching your head and going, “huh?” after reading this. With so many topics to talk about, and with die-hard New York Yankees fans making up the majority of those reading this, I’ll start with a little about myself and an experience at The Stadium to lead into today’s topic.
I was actually born into a Red Sox Nation family. My parents and grandparents were more than proud to buy me all kinds of Sox propaganda, oops, I mean memorabilia. One day around the age of 6, my best friend, who happened to be a Yankees fan, and I decided to trade all of our stuff, including hats, t-shirts and baseball cards. Don’t ask me why, we just did it. Needless to say, our respective families were not too happy. Oh well, I think I got the better of the deal!
Over the years I’ve been to The Stadium a bunch of times, and have seen a lot of great games and great moments. This season I was there when Roger Clemens appeared on the big screen to announce the 19th comeback of his career. But one night in 1995, I was there for only the 2nd playoff game at Yankee Stadium since 1981. It was the first year of the new wildcard format, and the Bombers were up 1 game to none on the Seattle Mariners. I was finally going to experience October baseball!! It was a great back and forth game, that went all the way into the 15th inning. In the bottom of the 15th, with even my Red Sox fan dad hoping the Yanks would win just so we could go home, Jim Leyritz stepped to the plate and knocked one over the fence to give the Yanks the victory!
On December 28th, 2007, that same post-season hero went through a red light at an intersection in Florida, crashing into a 30 year old woman and taking her life. His blood-alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit, and he now faces several DUI manslaughter and property damage charges, which could land him in prison for up to 15 years. Reports have surfaced of excessive womanizing, drinking and gambling over the years, causing his assets to shrink from upwards of $10 million to around $600k. Recently, Leyritz was working for ESPN Radio, covering the Yankees, and for MLB.com as an analyst. This is certainly a tragic turn of events, turning the New York Yankees cult hero who turned around the 1996 World Series, into a pariah of society. But because he was a professional athlete, and was still involved with baseball at the time of the accident, should he be treated any differently? Driving drunk is a stupid mistake a lot of people make, and sometimes it causes a lot more damage than a bad hangover. But should Jim Leyritz be treated more harshly than the average Joe down the street?
One message board post I recently saw on DailyNews.com, the website for a New York newspaper, claimed that once people see “ex-Yankee hero” or “ex-ballplayer” attached to someone’s name, it automatically opens them up to more scrutiny or ridicule than average people. Everyone makes mistakes, and he should be punished. But hopefully the courts will see him as a human being that made a mistake, who will own up to it and get help, and not a famous athlete who needs to be made an example of.
