Should MLB Punish DUIs More Harshly, Like PEDs?
On February 6, Todd Helton was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. A week and a half later, he publicly apologized. His manager, Walt Weiss, who is also his former teammate, stood behind him all the way. “We have all needed a little grace from time to time. He stepped up and faced the music,” Weiss said at a news conference with Helton. “Now it’s time to play ball.” Helton received no further punishment from the league or from his team. Weiss picked a curious metaphor to announce that Helton will miss the first couple of games of spring training to conserve his strength, but would then play as normal. “For a guy like Todd,” Weiss said, “there’s no reason to put your foot on the pedal right out of the gate.”
Helton was not the only one to be quickly forgiven by his team. Mark Grace was arrested outside Phoenix last August, his second DUI arrest in 15 months. The Diamondbacks fired him as an announcer, but this spring, they rehired him as a special instructor. In the wake of Helton and Grace’s arrests, a number of people have been writing articles about the curious disconnect between the way we think about performance-enhancing drugs and the way we think about drunk driving. But is it a fair comparison? After all, PEDs affect baseball on the field. DUIs are off-field offenses, and they are handled by the courts. Should baseball subject its players to additional punishment?
By contrast with its PED policy, Major League Baseball has no clear policy to address and punish alcohol abuse among baseball players. (That policy is collectively bargained; the reason for the lack of policy is that it has not been negotiated.) The word “alcohol” does not appear once in the Joint Drug Agreement, but in 2012, MLB established “a protocol for evaluating and treating players who may suffer from an alcohol use problem.” This is similar to the provisions for treatment for “Drugs of Abuse” as set out in the Joint Drug Agreement, but it lacks a mechanism for suspension and punishment.
In the past six years, drunk driving has killed two baseball players. The first was Josh Hancock, who was drunk, high, and on his cell phone when he crashed into a parked tow truck in 2007; he was the only person who died in that accident. (UPDATE: he was not high, just in possession of marijuana and a pipe, per comments below.) The second was Nick Adenhart, who died along with two others in a 2009 crash that resulted in a murder charge and a 51-year sentence for the drunk driver who hit him. Steroids, generally speaking, do not kill passengers. (Though we don’t quite know what happened with Chris Benoit.)
Of all of the baseball personnel who have recently been arrested for driving under the influence, Grace received the harshest civil penalty, because he had two such offenses in 15 months. He received a four-month jail sentence under a work-release program. “He gets to be released for up to about 12 hours a day,” a DUI attorney told Phoenix’s KTVK. “So in essence, he’s going to be sleeping at a county jail for the next four months.” His work-release will permit him to work for the Diamondbacks.
In May 2011, after Shin-Soo Choo’s DUI arrest made him the sixth such player of the year, Bud Selig announced that baseball wanted the next Collective Bargaining Agreement to give the commissioner the ability to punish players involved in “alcohol-related-incidents.” Numerous commentators including Yahoo’s Jeff Passan, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, and Sports Illustrated’s Ann Killion called for an alcohol policy with teeth. In the end, no teeth were added.
There are two issues here. First, many people have different reactions when they think about performance-enhancing drugs and drugs of abuse. Performance-enhancing drugs are “cheating” — players take PEDs because they want an advantage over other players (or because they believe other players are already cheating by taking them). Drugs of abuse, on the other hand, are self-defeating. Drunk driving is not a victimless crime, but drinking alone surely is. Alcoholism and drug addiction are recognized and treated as diseases rather than crimes.
Second, none of the players that I mentioned wound up killing anyone else in their car. Hancock killed himself and the others were lucky enough not to end up in a vehicular homicide. Andrew Gallo, the 22-year old driver who killed Adenhart, got 51 years in prison in part due to a history of drinking and driving. But Mark Grace has a history of drinking and driving, and he got four months. So does Rafael Furcal, who has two DUI arrests on his record. Grace and Furcal are lucky that they did not share Gallo’s fate and find themselves in a fatal accident. If Furcal had happened to hit another person on the road, he would have faced a very different outlook for his life.
Drugs of abuse and PEDs are used for very different reasons, and it’s appropriate to think of them differently. First, a steroid user may not need counseling, and it may be harder to effectively deter drunk driving with stiff punishments because people who decide to drive drunk are already drunk, and their decision-making capacity is already impaired. Decreasing DUI incidence may depend more on substitution than deterrence: teams may want to find ways to make taxicabs more available to players — on a no-questions-asked basis — so that players never feel that they need to drive themselves.
Second, since many have argued that PED punishments are actually too lenient, it may not make sense to call for parity between PED and DUI punishments. But what was true in May of 2011 is still true today. A lot of baseball people have been arrested for driving under the influence, and that is dangerous to them and everyone else on the road, and it is also a black eye for baseball. According to a February 6 tweet by The Sporting News’ Anthony Witrado, “12 MLB players, an exec, a bullpen catcher, an announcer and a HOFer have been busted for DUIs since start of 2011.”
It is nice that Todd Helton’s friends are standing by him. I believe in human redemption. So did the parents of Dan Snyder, the Atlanta Thrasher who died in a 2003 car crash caused by his teammate Dany Heatley, who was driving recklessly but was not drunk at the time. Snyder’s parents forgave Heatley and did not press for jail time; Heatley received three years’ probation. Then he requested and received a trade to Ottawa.
But I think that it is important for Major League Baseball to set a precedent. There is no reason for men who make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year to drive drunk. Todd Helton is making $5 million this year. According to Google, he lives in Brighton, CO, about 16.5 miles from Coors Field. According to the online app TaxiMe, he could afford to take that trip in a cab more than 108,000 times this year.
Teams should invest in services to put drunken players in a cab for free any time they need. When a player gets arrested for drunk driving, forgiveness is fine, and treatment is important. But acknowledgement of the seriousness of the offense is necessary. That player endangered himself and other people on the road. He was lucky if he did not hurt anyone else. He should not be so lucky that he avoids punishment.
Alex is a writer for The Hardball Times.
Yes, absolutely. These are wealthy people arrogantly endangering other people’s lives. There’s not a damn thing right about it. Hire a driver and quit being a moron.
The fact that the players are wealthy has nothing to do with the issue at hand. People of all income levels receive DUIs.
As Alex points out in his penultimate paragraph, wealth means that baseball players don’t even have the paltry excuse that they have no alternative means of transportation to driving while drunk. (To be clear, that’s a terrible excuse even when used by poor people in cities without public transit.) The wealth highlights how totally needless and reckless the conduct of these players and team personnel has been.
I do not think wealth is valid reason for an individual to behave any differently than if they did not have wealth in such a scenario. It is a basic tactic of deferring responsibility for a specific subset of people while holding others at fault. If you can afford to go out and drink, you can afford an alternative means of transportation if needed.
I already said it wasn’t a “valid reason.” We’re not disagreeing.
Exactly, if i go to a concert in Hollywood it would take about $50 for me to get back home with a Taxi if i were drinking. For a poor college student that might be tempting to just see if you can make it back home ASAP, but instead i get picked up.
sure, but a poor dude may not be able to easily afford a taxi everyday. Grace can!
Then the poor dude obviously shouldnt be spending money to drink in the first place.
Why should’t poor people spend their money on alcohol? There’s no moral obligation to be rich or even middle class.
If you can afford a car and can afford to go out drinking, you can afford $20 for a cab.
Not if you got drunk and blew all your cash on booze. Much more likely to happen to some one who is living at or below the poverty line of their given city than any MLB player.
@Stuck in a Slump, If you blow all your cash on booze and you have no way to get home other than to drive drunk, the right thing to do is to sleep it off at a friend’s house, in your passenger/rear seat (though this could still get you arrested), in a homeless shelter, or in the damn street.
Don’t drink and drive, no matter what (well, unless you’re escaping a legitimate apocalypse situation).
Absolutely not. There’s a reason why there are laws and why they are handled by the criminal justice system. I, personally, don’t think MLB should punish any kind of off-field behaviour, including PEDs, but at least a case can be made for MLB involvement in legal behavior that affects performance. No case can be made for MLB involvement in illegal matters.
Apply that logic to other businesses and schools will hire pedophiles, banks will hire embezzlers and trucking companies will hire people with a record of DUIs.
I agree that the MLB shouldn’t punish behavior unrelated to professional baseball. However, being a good role model IS related to professional baseball, so the MLB has grounds to punish DUIs.
I say that if you get one DUI you should not receive any punishment from MLB. Any subsequent DUI’s should be punished harshly, i.e. long suspensions and big fines.
Why do you think there should be no punishment from MLB on a first offense?
Alex I am not sure why I think that. I guess I was thinking that a guy could have an extra beer and blow a .08 while really not being that impaired. Should he be punished the same as a player who blows a .16 after running a red light? I dunno. I do know that one DUI could be poor judgement but a second DUI means you gotta problem….
If he blows .08, he’s impaired. Doesn’t mean that he’ll get into an accident, and legally, a certain degree of impairment is deemed acceptable — you can get into the car at .07, after all — but it does mean that there is an impairment.
Blowing .08 doesn’t mean you *are* impaired, it’s the somewhat arbitrary level that creates the legal presumption that you are impaired. I agree that a first offense – at least – without any aggravating factors should be ignored.
Well, alright. But a single drink of alcohol is likely to make your reaction time slightly worse than having had no drinks of alcohol. That’s true even if you are capable of driving safely after having had a single drink of alcohol. You would still be an even safer driver if you hadn’t had one.
Not really. “Impairment” is a little more complex then deciding that the scientific cut off is whatever a legislature in a state capital decided.
The other problem you get into is where to draw the cutoff line. Should players be suspended for reckless driving/excessive speed? Speeding in general? Texting while driving? All of those behaviors put the public at risk, to varying degrees. I wouldn’t argue against suspending a player who caused an accident while driving impaired, but there has to be a line somewhere. MLB shouldn’t be in the business of law enforcement. To what extent does the CBA allow ad hoc remedies for situations where there is no explicit provision for punishment? That’s the route I’d go, and leave the rest up to the law.
Very much liked the article.
To Alex Remington’s comment above:
You can’t get in the car at a .07% blood alcohol legally, probably. For a 230-pound baseball player, that’s about five beers in an hour.
In most states, there are two DUI laws:
Driving above .08%: That’s where it’s set because of federal highway funds. But .08 impairs either everyone or virtually everyone depending on who you ask and where you draw the line.
Driving under the influence: Driving with enough alcohol that means you can’t drive like an ordinary, sober person. This is a line-drawing exercise, but lots of people should not drive at a .07. (I can carry my alcohol, but I should not drive at a .07.) You can get hooked up at a .07.
Science is very clear that at .08 everyone is exhibiting some signs of impairment. That’s well past one beer.
If you blow, you should be suspended for being an idiot. That said, in a game that suspends players for saying mean words, the fact that drunk drivers go unscathed is ridiculous. I’m far more offended by Todd Helton’s drunk driving than John Rocker’s racist rants.
You forgot Matt Bush. I was rallying for this change to the CBA through my uber-persuasive comments like this and via chats with baseball writers. Alas, my requests went unanswered.
But seriously, MLB’s policy of looking the other way (Miguel Cabrera) might result in MVP seasons and triple crowns, but it is also going to get someone killed. And that family will have a very good lawsuit when they are able to show that MLB and MLBPA conspired to have a slap-on-the-wrist policy for DUIs. And forget PEDs, Jonathan Singleton got a 50-day rip for smoking a joint.
MLB and MLBPA need to modify the CBA immediately to include harsh suspensions and fines for players, coaches, and management. Whether those should be equivalent to PED punishments does not concern me, so long as they are harsh enough to get everyone’s attention. 30- to 50- days for a first offense seems appropriate. Second DUI offense? Just suspend them for the year.
Minor leaguers have much harsher punishments. The Joint Drug Agreement stipulates that marijuana usage does not result in a suspension, only a fine — up to $35,000.
No, MLB cannot be held liable for a player driving drunk on the basis that they “conspired to have a slap-on-the-wrist policy.” Maybe if the provided the alcohol – i.e., player driving home from the clubhouse drunk off team-provided booze – but even that I’m not sure of.
Re: your hypothetical about the team providing the alcohol–yes, that would probably result in liability for the team (in some states) under dram shop laws. I agree that failing to enact an employer policy punishing drunk driving could not, by itself, result in liability for MLB or any team, but it would certainly be a publicity black eye if a player killed someone while driving drunk.
Yeah, Dante Stallworth’s drunk driving case really killed the NFL.
Marver: Agree with you on principle that player incidents will not do much damage to the league in general. However, the NFL is a bad comparison. NFL players get arrested all the time. Like, seriously, allllll the time. Nobody cares because we’re used to it and it’s a game where people are paid to be violent, so who is really concerned with players getting in trouble with the law?
Stallworth was suspended for a full year, so it certainly seems like the NFL may have felt it had some publicity damage control to do there.
YES
I am glad you highlighted the problem involving the punishment of something that may be an addiction. Addictions are not overcome with punishment but with treatment.
On the other hand, someone who makes a poor decision — i.e., to drive drunk simply because they didn’t want to call a cab or whatever — should be punished.
Addiction or not, they should still be punished. Having an addiction does not mean you get a pass for driving drunk.
There would not have been a triple crown winner last year if they did, and that moves a lot of merchandise, so I don’t expect they will.
how would DUI punishment have made curtis granderson hit 3 more homers?
I think it depends on how you frame the question. Is it within the club’s jurisdiction to delve into a player’s personal life? Given the high profile of professional athletes, and the millions of dollars that teams invest in them, the line becomes blurred.
On one hand, you can argue that the job of a baseball player is not just to show up and play baseball 162 times a year; the player is an ambassador of the club, and their professional obligation extends to all aspects of daily life.
On the other hand, you could argue that a club has no need to involve itself in legal matters when we already have a judicial system to handle these situations. You can’t play professional sports if you’re in jail.
It would be one thing if there were statistics to support the notion that professional athletes are more prone to drinking and driving. If that was the case, you could argue that clubs have a moral obligation to the general public to take steps that prevent DUIs. I am not aware of any such research, though, so I don’t think there is necessarily a correct answer to this question. It’s just an interesting ethical litmus test.
It may help to clarify by shifting it to a different employment context. If someone worked an office job and was arrested for DUI, I think the employer would be ethically within its rights to fire them for demonstrating extremely poor judgment and engaging in antisocial behavior. It doesn’t have the social responsibility/role model dimension that MLB players do, but the idea is that you don’t want your organization to be associated with an employee that demonstrates such poor and dangerous behavior.
Now, in MLB, because of the CBA and guaranteed contracts, it generally won’t be possible for a club to cut ties with a veteran player unless there is a leaguewide policy in place that provides penalties for drunk driving.
I’m of the opinion that there should be no punishment for anything. I couldn’t care less about PEDs either, but that’s another story.
I don’t understand the hysteria about MLB DUIs. Sure, people shouldn’t drive drunk in general, so I’d prefer it if MLB players didn’t do it, but why should I be particularly concerned about Todd Helton or Shin-Soo Choo? If your neighbor gets arrested for DUI, are you stewed if he doesn’t lose his job? If you are, that’s pretty bizarre. This is their business, and the state’s business, not mine, and ideally not MLB’s either. The reason criminal justice systems exist in the first place is to standardize punishment, take it out of the hands of private actors. It’s a heck of a trick that everyone seems to take for granted that people deserve to be punished by both the state and their fellow citizens.
I completely agree. The simple fact is that many people (read: not just athletes) drive while intoxicated. Why should an athelete’s employer behave any differently than the employer of an office worker? Shin-Soo Choo getting a DUI is no different than your neighbor who is the manager of the local department store. It is irrelevant that the employee and/or employer is in the public light.
That’s my thinking as well. I know someone who lost their job because they got a DUI while driving a company vehicle, but I don’t know of anybody receiving a punishment from getting a DUI with their own car.
Is there any reason to believe that DUIs are more common among athletes than they are among everybody else?
Also, all DUIs aren’t created equal. If you watch the super bowl at your buddy’s house, drink 3 beers then drive home three blocks after the game with 0.08, that’s much different than getting bombed at a local bar and speeding down main street.
If it was really irrelevant that Shin-Soo Choo was in the public light, then he would have been getting paid like the manager of the local department store.
And the manager of the department store would probably have to at least explain himself to his employer, if not be punished by his job for the DUI conviction.
I agree, geefee. Punishments for DUIs exist already. One can argue that those punishments are too lenient, but of course that is an entirely different discussion.
The Yankees restrict beards and haircuts (or lack thereof). A team can insist on DUI clauses in all of its contracts anytime it wants.
First of all, moral action and legal action are not the same thing. Alex’s question seems to be whether MLB and its teams have a moral obligation to publicly reprove their employees when they engage in highly visible behaviors in breech of both the law and society’s virtually unanimous (in this case) moral code. It seems clear that after responding with vigor to the public outcry over steroids as a legal but also extra-legal (moral–and we all know the outrage is moral) issue, inaction on something like DUIs cannot escape moral implications.
The analogy to the next-door neighbor is tempting, but it’s also disingenuous. Neither MLB nor its players are “private actors” in anything but a strictly legal sense. Your objection implies a slippery slope argument, but is their any real risk of MLB censures of DUIs being construed as a precedent for general vigilantism? Again, players are not legal exceptions, but they may well be moral ones.
Not actually arguing either way. It may be that the value of standardized punishment outweighs any competing value of moral censure, or that their is no moral merit in censure whatsoever. But we don’t have to pretend that your neighbor and Todd Helton operate in exactly the same ethical universe–they don’t.
I don’t know why it’d be lost on me that Alex’s complaint is that they have a moral obligation to punish (as opposed to what? Legal? Cause that doesn’t make sense), but needless to say, I don’t think they do. I would never use the phrase “moral obligation” personally, but if anything, I think the right thing to do is to do nothing, and the idea that anyone is ever obligated to punish anyone else is about the most ridiculous thing I can imagine. Moral action and legal action are not “the same,” but, time for the understatement of the year: they’re also not entirely different. Law is a reflection of our collective morals, and, as Alex’s post and subsequent comments can show you, the law for damn sure informs people’s moral understanding – there usually isn’t very much daylight between the two. Are we arguing that criminal justice is not intended in part as a means of cleanly enforcing our collective moral code? Because that would be a pretty shocking assertion. Does it make sense for every single person in society to take their personal revenge or punish a supposed wrongdoer when we also have a system of laws (which, for arguments sake, those people acknowledge as legitimate) in place to serve that same purpose?
The neighbor analogy is only disingenuous if you make the assumption you’re making (or pointing out or whatever): that a professional athlete/famous person is actually different from a regular person in a meaningful way when it comes to these matters, probably to the point that they should be treated differently. Clearly I don’t think they are, and the arguments that they ought to be fall flat. There’s no slippery slope argument here, precedent for vigilantism never crossed my mind, and in no case would that influence my opinion in either direction. Everyone else is entitled to their own opinions, but as far as I’m concerned they absolutely operate in the same ethical universe.
i’ve ran into this argument several times throughout this debate, so forgive me if i draw any assumptions about your argument that you aren’t trying to make as that’s not my intention.
I understand your philosophy, but I also see it as divorced from reality to the point that you are arguing for a world that is not likely to exist. To limit this exclusively to the issue at hand, the idea that the law exists and should be sufficient in action against MLB players charged with DUI or other substance-related crimes is a reasonable one and essentially the position the MLB has currently taken, by virtue of not actively having another league-wide policy. That a DUI must necessarily happen off the field (i guess history has taught us other substance-abuse could happen on the field) means the DUI is going to be in a different category than PEDs, which could be seen to affect onfield performance, or charging the catcher or throwing something at an umpire or other on-field issues that are regulated by the MLB fairly extensively.
So I understand the position, but I feel it is disingenuous because of the reality of the league. There are already extensive rules regulating behavior for players in the MLB/MiLB, where amphetamines or marijuana or conduct unbecoming can result in suspensions or fines or action against the player. I understand your position is that this should all be removed because you see it as having no value, but if that is your position shouldn’t you also agree that if the MLB is going to take action against amphetamines or marijuana, why not take action against DUIs? Let’s even draw a line in the sand at illegal substance related issues, to avoid any ‘slippery slope’ arguments that the MLB might let goats and players get married.
For what it’s worth, my position is that the issue of alcohol abuse and baseball is institutional and not player related, so the MLB does have an obligation as an institution to take action but strict punishments against players is removing the institutional culpability. I would be more pleased with community service, education, and treatment for players/staff/personnel.
i also know that amphetamines are in the category of PEDs, but they are not in the same category of what most people mean when they say ‘PEDs’ meaning steroids/HGH/etc. And while my reading on this isn’t too extensive, my understanding is that players would start using amphetamines for a different reason than HGH/steroids. Hence my distinction.
My objection to punishing players for DUIs pales in comparison to my contempt for MLB’s drug policy.
the idea that the law exists and should be sufficient in action against MLB players charged with DUI or other substance-related crimes is a reasonable one and essentially the position the MLB has currently taken, by virtue of not actively having another league-wide policy.
I think this is an unreasonable assumption. As I wrote above, “That policy is collectively bargained; the reason for the lack of policy is that it has not been negotiated.)” Bud Selig has stated his desire to punish players for alcohol-related offenses. He lacks this power because he has not gotten the players’ union to agree to it.
i have since read your other comments and gathered as much. i reckon we may not be far apart in thinking that disciplining players for an infringement is less likely to have lasting, meaningful results than the MLB as an institution enacting institution-wide change. If the problem is DUIs or PEDs or ty cobb beating a fan to a bloody pulp in the stands, punishing the player at fault is one reaction but there are changes that can be made to the MLB as a whole that would better impact the culture and lessen the extent to which these types of problems occur.
you’re right, of course, Alex. I was merely attempting to play devil’s advocate and got myself turned around in my phrasing. It’s true, though, I think, that the MLB hasn’t taken action against DUIs so whatever Bud Selig’s personal goal was, no action was taken. I do see this trotted out as a reason why it shouldn’t change, but that’s not what I was trying to say here. Sorry for any confusion, as much as anyone can be sorry for something said to strangers on the internet.
my sentiments exactly
Sorry for the tangent, but what about getting fired for slapping a two-year-old on an airplane? Is that a case of an employer delving too far into an employee’s personal life?
I agree thoroughly that MLB must up its punishment of DUIs, but I don’t see why you confuse alcoholism with drunk driving during most of this post. If a player has an addiction to alcohol or drinks more than is good for him, the league and his team should provide support to help him live a healthier life. If a player is driving drunk, even if it’s the only time he drank alcohol in a year, he should be punished for putting lives at risk.
I think your chief complaint is that the justice system is rigged or that penalties for non-fatal DUI charges are too lenient…or both. DUIs don’t affect the product on the field like the use of PEDs does. Kids aren’t running out and getting DUIs to mimic their favorite ballplayers. No one thinks they have to run out and get a DUI in order to help them make it to the show. Having MLB regulate DUIs opens Pandora’s Box; should MLB regulate murder, rape, assault, adultery, etc? Obviously, this leads to an arbitrary end point.
I think the intention — trying to reduce DUIs — is certainly noble. But you’re really barking up the wrong tree (MLB) when your chief complaint is that Mark Grace only got four months. That’s a complaint with our justice system.
i don’t disagree with your conclusion, but i take the opposite side of this argument. I think the average baseball fan is much more likely to be charged with a DUI as a result of the culture surrounding the sport than is a kid likely to start taking PEDs in order to succeed. And similarly, the culture of sports related to violence and thus violent crime is more problematic to me than on-field performance issues. If the MLB has any obligation, I think it’s an obligation to address the culture it facilitates through education and enforcement. If the argument turns on whether the actions of players or the MLB is impacting what fans might do, I think the MLB is more guilty than Todd Helton or Josh Leuke, but both could take part in working toward a solution that reduces accidents or violence. One way the MLB could take steps in changing the climate is through harsher penalties for players, because if a kid is so impressionable that their decision will hinge on the action of a sports star (or the culture around it), then maybe seeing Miguel Cabrera treated by the MLB the way Ryan Braun was treated would have an impact and make that kid think twice.
i will conceed, though, that those terrible magnet necklaces that supposedly enhance performance should be banned because kids are likely to buy them and look like idiots.
Look, I know it’s severe, but I say zero tolerarance. I spend half my time defending defending DUIs in court and I’ll tell you right now, they don’t get it. People rack up four or five and don’t stop until you sit them down and explain the next one puts them in jail.
As for addiction, the league wouldn’t be punishing alcoholism, they’d be punishing the inexcusable decision to get behind the wheel. Make ’em fear for their career and they won’t get behind the wheel, I’ve seen it before in 90% of DUI defendants.
As a defense lawyer, you should be intelligent enough to know that a person with an addiction does not care about what the law dictates. It is not a matter of “getting it”, but rather a matter of managing the addiction so that a person can behave in a manner not detrimental to themselves or society at large.
Addiction: The continued use of a mood altering substance or behavior despite adverse dependency consequences, or a neurological impairment leading to such behaviors.
You know what gets most of my clients into AA? The judge threatens to put them in jail. I wouldn’t be against MLB offering a probation that included counseling, but it should behave exactly like a probation, you drop out of counseling then you face the suspension.
You’d be amazed how little sympathy you have after the first time you get someone out of a DUI and they kill a teenager.
If the judicial system is forcing people into AA, why does MLB need to do the same? I have no sympathy for anyone convicted of a DUI, but penalizing a certain subset of people twice for a given offense and another only once is not the definition of equality.
I’m a defense attorney too. You should find a line of work where you don’t resent your clients so much.
A) I disagree that MLB players shouldn’t be held to a higher standard. B) Every employer should have a similar policy.
People get addicted to alcohol. People are in court for driving drunk. No one is addicted to driving drunk. No one is in court for being an alcoholic.
Alcoholics often drive drunk. People who drive drunk are sometimes alcoholics. People who are addicted to alcohol need to drive too. Let’s not gloss over the overlap there.
Courts also funnel as many people as possible into AA regardless of whether they’re alcoholics. Where I am, when a person gets a DWI or DWAI, if they’re a first timer they can get their license back early by completing a drinking driver program, which amounts to little more than 16 hours of AA indoctrination and propaganda. I find the whole thing pretty disturbing.
By ‘zero tolerance’, are you implying that they should be permanently banned with a single DUI?
Yes, but if you caught me in a couple months I might say no. I’m just tired of these things being whitewashed, “Todd’s a good guy who made a mistake.” First off, while some of these guys may have been caught the one and only time they’ve driven drunk, it’s much more likely they’ve made it a habit. If they do habitually drive drunk then I’d argue that’s pretty fair evidence that at the very least that person is recklessly and dangerously inconsiderate.
Let’s use an example of another crime that is selectively (by its nature) enforced: spouse battering. Do you feel that a guy who beats his wife should also be banned?
My biggest beef with a zero tolerance policy for either is that for every guy caught driving drunk or beating his wife, there are 10 more doing the same thing at that very moment without being caught. And most never will be caught.
The outrage over the offense is warranted, but it’s bad enough that traffic and domestic offenses are extremely selectively and arbitrarily enforced by the justice system. Now we want to have employers take their pound of flesh too?
I lost a job for being convicted of an offense that was a plea down from a DUI – a misdemeanor. Then I wised up and got a union job. There is zero chance MLB will ever punish players for this, because they will never even entertain the notion, otherwise there is no reason to have a union in the first place.
Chris Benoit spent 20 years doing top rope flying head dives. However “fake” pro wrestling is, that takes its toll. I have heard his toxscreen was clean, but his brain scan was that of an 85 year old alsheimers patient. Past steroid use may have played a small roll, but it was mostly brain damage that caused him to kill his wife and son.
Drunk driving is a victimless crime, assuming their are no victims. Should players be punished twice? Once by the authorities and once by Major League Baseball?
Private companies should be able to set the rules that they desire for people that are employed by them, assuming they do not trump any basic human rights. Government should not get so much privilege.
Seriously?? Victimless?? That is by chance only, a drunk driver always has the ability to kill some innocent person.
Many, many companies (and fedral and state employees) are fired as a resulet of one DUI. It’s not innocent reckless behaviour, it’s always dangerous.
what do you think a victimless crime is? Whether by chance or impossibility, if you do something illegal, and nobody is hurt by it, then there’s no victim. That phrase doesn’t imply that the activity isn’t at all dangerous.
No saying it’s victimless trivializes the fact that DUI is inherently dangerous. Someone just didn’t get killed this time.
A “victimless crime” is a class, not a post facto designation. Attempted suicide is sometimes described as a victimless crime, because the only target is the self. A foiled bank holdup is not described as a victimless crime, even though the robber got caught before he was able to steal any money.
It only trivializes it if you attach certain innappropriate connotations to the phrase. If there is no victim then there is no victim, doesn’t mean it’s not a “real” crime. It needn’t be a value judgment.
There also isn’t a hard and fast definition, you won’t find it in a statute anywhere. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said “hurt,” because it could imply physical pain or monetary loss, but of course absolutely no one would describe an attempted robbery as victimless, because…well, there are victims, obviously. Who was the victim in Todd Helton’s DUI?
I’m pretty sure you’re the one who doesn’t understand what a victimless crime is. Just because you didn’t hurt anyone doesn’t make it victimless – it’s the possibility you could have that does.
The problem is that the phrase is almost invariably used when a person is arguing that a given crime shouldn’t be against the law. So it gets all tied up with “not even theoretically affecting anyone else,” rather than the plain meaning of the phrase and people have visceral, and usually not altogether thoughtful reactions when they see it used to describe some thing like this. Would you care to explain in what sense it is inaccurate to call a crime in which there was no victim “victimless?” or alternatively, would you care to identify the victim? I don’t imagine you can or would. Do you believe any crime at all can be victimless?
DUI (talking about the basics here) is a crime involving one person: the defendant. Another person could be “victimized” during the commission of that crime, but that’s neither here nor there because the elements of the crime do not require it – it’s not a crime against a person or property.
Maybe, but what the hell’s the point of describing it as a “victimless crime” except in the context of ethics? Are you making a purely semantic distinction? Is there any value in that outside the context of either the law or ethics?
Doesn’t need a point. I’m not going to refuse to describe something in a factually accurate way because someone may have a knee-jerk reaction to it. Now that would be disingenuous.
And do you not see the ethical implications of victimlessness other than when you’re talking about something that poses no danger to others? “no harm, no foul,” or usually less foul, plays a huuuuuge role in peoples’ perception of crime and punishment and justice. The author might not describe DUI as victimless, but i promise you he condersiders it that way, as do most people decrying the use of that term. Here’s an easy way to tell: if somebody had been hurt, would their reaction change? You bet it would. If Adenhart hadn’t been in Andrew Gallo’s path, he wouldn’t have been sent to jail for 50 years. What’s the difference? Victims.
Victims: All the smart people who don’t get on the road on Friday and Saturday night because the roads are so filled with drunk drivers. If you look at accident statistics, this is the time most fatal accidents happen, finding another way home just makes sense. But it also makes you a victim.
I don’t think PED’s and DUI’s are the same at all. MLB should be concerned about PED’s because that affects the game. DUI’s are about the community itself and about whether one group of people are exempt from the law. Teams need to deal with that – but not MLB.
IMO – if found guilty, judges should impose whatever the local statutory normal is for JAIL time – such time (and any community service time) to be served DURING the baseball season. Fines and license revoking and such doesn’t mean squat to high income and high celebrity folks – and shouldn’t even be considered as part of any sentencing penalty in a case involving them. Fines are only potentially relevant to someone who earns less than judges/cops/etc. Jail time hits the high profile folks right where it hurts. In the case of Todd Helton, the Colorado DUI law allows anywhere from 5 days to 1 year in jail for the 1st DUI offense. I assume that “normal” tends to be towards the lower end of that range – but that’s up to the judge.
If the judge doesn’t jail the offender or if that’s all done offseason, then I do think the team should impose some sort of in-season suspension. There is nothing more offensive to a fan with kids than trying to explain to them why Superstar doesn’t have to obey any laws because laws are for “little people”.
There’s a lot to be said for determining fines based on income (particularly speeding and parking tickets – if I were rich, I’d probably park wherever I pleased), but saying we should throw the rich and famous into jail more readily than the average person is hideous.
The punishment should have an EQUAL IMPACT on the person. Reality is that fines themselves aren’t ever going to be income/wealth skewed because that gets the courts into a financial audit that they can’t do and that is irrelevant to their business. Given that reality – what do you do?
The purpose of a punishment is to change the behavior. The main reason the rich/famous are constantly in court for this that and the other offense – and in many cases, base some of their earnings/fame specifically on that sort of notoriety – is because none of the other penalties mean squat to them. Judges/media are far too concerned about creating an impression that “everyone is treated exactly the same in this court” – when their goal should be “what available punishment is most likely to change this individual’s behavior”.
I’m not saying punish them more harshly than others. I’m saying tailor the punishment to changing their behavior. If that means that the rich/famous are sent to jail instead of petty fines and other meaningless (to them) punishments – well maybe that is exactly what will end the legal entitlement mindset that they often have.
There are generally considered to be three purposes of a punishment: retributive, rehabilitative, and deterrent.
The retributive purpose is the classic notion of a “punishment”: the idea is that a crime has hurt society and society exacts its vengeance by punishing the perpetrator.
The rehabilitative purpose is the one that is actually designed to change behavior, to rehabilitate the perpetrator to mainstream society by changing their behavior so they do not commit the crime again.
The deterrent purpose is designed to make sure that the same crime is not committed by others.
There have been a bunch of comments along these lines here (and it just seems to be something people think), but where are you getting the idea that the rich and famous are constantly committing crimes and have a disregard for the law that exceeds that of the average person? I have no way of disconfirming it, but it strains my imagination to try to believe it. Even so, you’re lumping.
If that general class of people are committing more crimes (which again, would shock me – ever been to court? Not a Robin Leach crowd), that means everyone fitting that description who commits a crime has some mindset that needs to be corrected moreso than the average person? Reverse that approach, and let’s say poor people…maybe poor people from certain neighborhoods and ethnic groups have a flagrant disregard for the law. Does it still seem fair to you?
In this case then, the punishment of jail would fit both of the latter two purposes. Specifically re say Todd Helton, I suspect he’s probably not a likely repeat offender anyway but a short jail stay will make that a bit more certain than a meaningless fine ($600-$1000 by statute) or community service (48-96 hours).
And jail would be an exemplary deterrent effect on his community sporting peers – eg Knowshon Moreno, Matt Prater, DJ Williams, Alex White, Charlie Monfort (Rockies owner), Brian Griese, John Mobley, Brandon Marshall, JR Smith, etc are some of the more recent local sports professionals arrested for DUI in the Denver area.
You should spend five years in jail for a first offense and 20 for a second. Drunk driving kills 10,000 people a year. MLB shouldn’t have to punish their players because the law should.
In the absence of that, DUI should carry a season long ban. Second offense is a lifetime one. Drunk driving deaths are the easiest thing to prevent. Just don’t drive drunk.
I’m glad you’re not in a position to write laws or MLB policies.
Personally I wish he was writing the laws. 5 years is a bit harsh for a first offense, but DUI punishments as they stand now are basically a joke, less than a slap on the wrist. Spend an hour in jail until someone posts your bond, then still be able to drive yourself home? A joke. At the minimum you should lose your license for 6 months to a year and have several hundred hours of community service.
There needs to be a better solution. People are still getting killed regardless of drunk drivers. Automobiles are a huge part of the American culture, as is alcohol. We should do a better job of making our roads safer and preventing drunk driving,not making harsher penalties. An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Intoxicated people need to be stopped before they get behind the wheel.
YES!
uh-oh….
This story provided not one argument for DUIs, just some claim about MLB setting a precedent. What the heck does that mean? The criminal system handles DUIs. Why does MLB need to get involved?
I do think that the MLB should punish players, though this is partially because I think more famous people have a tendancy to get a bit lighter on crimes of this nature. The more important reason though is because public opinion of player character can easily affect a ballclub: I’ll use a football example here, but the Bengals have had serious reputation issues ever since their above average arrest rate in the early and mid 2000s, which did hurt sales, albeit only slightly, during their better seasons.
I don’t think a lifetime ban or anything that extreme should be considered, but…say, a 30-50 game suspension or some kind of forfeiture of pay seems like an appropriate punishment.
I’ve never understood how one thing that’s illegal and isn’t proven to improve a players performance is worse than another thing that’s illegal and isn’t proven to improve a players performance. Anyone with an answer?
And if “roids” enhance performance, tell me how tying off a few after a golden sombrero doesn’t improve performance.
Brandon, that’s just silly. Coming to a rolling stop at a stop sign is illegal, and it isn’t proven to improve a player’s performance. Do you not see how taking HGH is worse than coming to a rolling stop? Or am I reading your statement wrong?
There’s a difference between a minor infraction and something that you can get 20+ years in prison for. If you roll a stop sign sober, a kill someone you aren’t going to jail for life. If you drive drunk and kill someone, in a lot of states (and the one province) you are.
I don’t think that entangling alcoholism with drunk driving is informative in this case. One is a personal, self-destructive behavior and is, in most manifestations, legal. The other is a behavior with great potential to maim and kill *other people* who do not consent to your actions who whom in many cases do not even know you. It is also illegal, and in fact kills thousands of people per year. Not all alcoholics drive drunk, and not all drunk drivers are alcoholics. One behavior is personal, private, and indeed should be met with help. One kills thousands of innocent people per year, and regardless of whether its roots lie in alcoholism or sheer idiocy, it should be punished.
To me,the real question, which some commenters have posed here, is whether MLB should impose extra punishments on its players for “off field” crimes in the first place. Obviously PEDs are in their own class because they affect the game itself, so we’ll leave them out. But the fact is that MLB already imposes extra punishments on players who use drugs as innocuous as marijuana–and we’re not talking driving high, we’re simply talking testing positive at all. So MLB has already decided to make itself an arbiter of what constitutes acceptable off-field behavior for its players. If we accept that MLB has the purview to punish its players for off-field, recreational use of non-performance enhancing drugs, then I think we should absolutely expect them to throw the book, all of it, at players who choose to break the law in a way that endangers life and limb of innocent bystanders.
I’m generally in favor of a hard line preventing employers from interfering in their employees’ personal lives even if said employees are being idiots. There are many US employers who have instituted policies disciplining employees for actions outside of work, and plenty of them do an incredibly terrible job of it.
It sounds ridiculous to say that beginning with a policy that sounds sensible, like punishment for DUI, can end in punishment for things like supporting political candidates and having embarrassing Facebook photos. But that happens in this country. We’re seriously screwed up.
Who has gone to jail for support of a political candidate or having embarrassing Facebook photos?
The above comment makes no sense.
You’re right exactly, Tim. People love to talk about freedom and complain that they’re being tread upon and run for the hills because the latest inoccuous government action means theyre about to be rounded up into to camps and stuffed into hobbit homes. But when a private company punishes them for trivial things and treats them like dirt, they don’t bat an eye. That’s the problem with this country, people have far too narrow a view of what freedom is.
“Drugs of abuse and PEDs are used for very different reasons, and it’s appropriate to think of them differently.”
In terms of intent, yes, drug abuse and performance enhancement are different. But long-term use of steroids can become abusive, and one could make the case it is more effectively treated as a disease (from a harm reduction perspective). Steroid use can reduce the natural production of testosterone in the body leading to a cycle of addiction. In this case, harsher punishment would be ineffective because the underlying problem is a medical one.
From Josh Hancock’s Wikipedia page:
“Police found 10.95 grams of marijuana and a pipe in his vehicle, although toxicology reports came back revealing that there were no drugs in his system. Hancock was texting on his cell phone when the accident occurred and was not wearing a seatbelt.”
So someone is wrong.
In any case, does marijuana significantly impair one’s driving ability? I don’t know, it might, but texting while driving certainly does. MLB should crack down on texting while driving.
You’re right. It appears that the final drug report did not show that he was high, just that he was drunk and in possession of pot and a pipe. I had misread the articles that I was reading, which had not specified the results of the toxicology report. I just found the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article that Wikipedia cites as a source; it’s no longer on the web but I was able to access it in Wikipedia. Thanks for the correction.
Oops — I mean, in LexisNexis.
My answer is “yes.”
But I would alo like to point out that most PED infractions are violations of the controlled substance act and, as such, are also a matter for the criminal courts.
Numerous studies have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than driving with a 0.08% BAC. States are finally banning that. Do you really think MLB, or any employer should punish it’s employees for talking on a cell phone while driving? Leave it to the government to deal out punishment. It’s not something the league should have to enforce.
As stated previously, PEDs have a direct affect on the field. DUI’s, not so much.
Like you people haven’t ever driven drunk before. Give me a break.
And you all should get DUIs. Maybe it wouldn’t happen as often, and not as many people would die. But we all do it so who cares?
In my 32 years on this earth, I have never driven drunk. Nor have I ever driven while holding a cell phone handset. Give the people murdered by such wanton irresponsibility their lives back. Then you get a break.
What about domestic violence? Todd Helton and Mark Grace might have brought harm to someone. Brett Myers, to cite one example, was directly harming someone. Did the league punish him?
Yes, yes, we know Pandora’s box yaddah yaddah. The thing is, MLB, in punishing players for “Drugs of Abuse” already opened said box. If you’re going to punish for weed, coke, and the like, you need punish for DUI’s as well. I’m not arguing for either side of this because its a never-ending debate. Also hilarious, are the folks lamenting a player being punished twice for the same offense of a DUI (by the government and MLB) but not one person says a damn word when a player, (ex Jordan Schafer, Elijah Dukes, etc.) is “punished” twice for possessing these drugs of abuse. Laughable, just laughble.
But alcohol is legal!
The league would seemingly already have precedence to punish players for DUI. I think PED’s are a poor comp though. The league has already suspended players for the illegal use of psychoactive substances, even when there is not a legal intervention by the courts. DUI is an illegal use of a psychoactive substance. Singleton was suspended for marijuana this year and Belisario was suspended for cocaine last year. The league has established that it is willing to act in the absence of intervention by the courts. It should hold DUIs to the same standard as the use of drugs regulated by the controlled substances act.
The purpose of MLB’s performance enhancing drug policy is to discourage players from creating a prisoner’s dilemma situation: everyone is better off if no one does it, but left to their own devices it’s best for them to defect and use performance enhancing drugs. Players can all be better off by getting an outside authority (the MLB) to monitor and punish defectors. The punishment isn’t there to punish ‘wrongdoing,’ it’s there to solve a collective action problem.
The pool of people affected by drunk driving is society at large. Unsurprisingly, there is an organization that tries to solve collective action problems for society, called government. If you think players who get DUIs are insufficiently punished, then you should work to make DUI charges harsher for everyone, not just baseball players.
If you want to argue that baseball should punish players who drink and drive because it makes the game look bad, then maybe that’s something the MLB should get into–that governing institution corresponds to the people affected. Otherwise, the jurisdiction of the collective action problem is completely different for the two–the government, not the MLBPA, is in charge of punishing DUIs, because they cover everyone affected by the charge.
Everything about this is exactly right except that agents don’t create prisoner’s dilemmas, a certain structure of competing utility functions does; the whole issue is that everyone should hate prisoners dilemmas because participants mutually agree on a preferred outcome but have no mechanism to ensure cooperation to achieve it. Given how well put all this is, I’m pretty sure you already know this. I was just trying to think of a comment that was worth posting beyond some totally banal “This is a really good point.”
A problem with this (otherwise excellent and well written) line of reasoning is that it assumes that government will be responsive to pressures to punish DUI more severely when those pressures are applied. Fact is, for many governing bodies, that’s not the case. Equally powerful pressures are brought to bear from the other side — I have no idea why, or who’s behind them — that nip the lawmaking in the bud. (Personal experience involving an attempt to pass some state-level legislation, in a state with an unusually severe DUI problem, on request.)
There are times when baseball and other sports have an opportunity to be ahead of their time in addressing social problems like this one. Pro basketball and football, and maybe hockey too, have dropped the ball on this issue. Why shouldn’t baseball pick it up? Sure, in an ideal world, an enlighted, responsible and responsive government would be effective in taking on the DUI problem. That ain’t the world we live in.
“But I think that it is important for Major League Baseball to set a precedent. There is no reason for men who make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year to drive drunk.”
There is no reason for anybody to drive drunk. And yeah, the difference between 50 years in jail or just 6 months without a licence might be just luck about what you hit. But consequences making a difference to punishment is something that applies all across the legal system.
The MLB needs to identify and punish cheats. There’s already a legal & policing system for identifying & punishing people doing illegal stuff. I don’t think the MLB needs to add additional punishments. If a player avoids punishment entirely, that’s a problem with the legal system. I also think it’s got no business testing for recreational drugs.
What the MLB, and teams, should be spending money on is better education of players, on putting things in place to make it much harder for a player to do something as stupid as driving drunk.
I don’t think that equating drunken driving and PEDs is helpful in this argument. They are different classes of problems.
I do think MLB should take a stronger stand on the issue. I don’t think a suspension would be appropriate. However, forced counciling and/or a fine would be. These are all high profile individuals who, at all times, are associate with MLB. In this case, MLB would be no different than any other private employer with a policy regarding drunk driving.
I also think drunken driving is an issue of particular concern in MLB. I would be interested to know if the incidence of drunk driving is higher in athletes and MLB in particular, than the general population. If it is, that would be an even greater reason for MLB to address the topic.
“Should MLB Punish DUIs More Harshly, Like PEDs?”
Yes
That’s a player’s private life. Leave them alone.
It’s not private when they drink in public and drive their car home, not at all.
After he runs over your family we’ll see if you think they should be left alone
When sports stars use drugs of abuse (non-PED) they are so bad. They are role models after all. Yet rock stars and actors cop no fingerwagging when they do it – if anything it can enhance their repuatation. Are musicians and actors not role models. It is a little hypocritical that sportsmen have to be angels but other celebrities have a lesser standard.
A bit like PEDs w.r.t. to NFL cmpared to baseball.
I find it hard to believe that a police officer can be arrested for drunk driving, and have it enhance his reputation. Quite the opposite, that normally means they will be fired.
I’m pretty sure mavericksquad.com is using the word cop as a verb here.
Something should be done, the military has the option of taking DUI charges on base and circumventing local governments, this could result in the forfeiture of pay, loss of rank and extra duty. Now, I’m not saying that MLB should be able to take jurisdiction over anything, however, we do have examples of employers dealing with off duty shenanigans. I’d love to see MLB have some sort of policy about this, I’m rather shocked about how many baseball player DUI’s I’ve read about lately, and MLB (as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL), should strive to keep their noses clean. My wife still lets me hear about Shin Soo-Choo’s DUI, and she was really angry with Helton over his. These incidents are, at the very least, demoralizing to the player’s fan base.
I don’t know if a suspension is really called for, but I’d certainly be happy with fines imposed by MLB, followed up with mandatory rehab, even after the first offense. At that point, there really is no excuse for a second DUI, so if you get one then MLB should step up it’s penalties.
It is a complete joke, and even funnier that that asshat Mark Grace gets off with slaps on the wrist cause he’s in his neck of the woods. That guy is a clown if you’ve heard him call games.
it is perfectly within the rights of an employer to levy some punishment to an employee for committing acts and/or crimes which bring shame and ill-repute to the organization.
it is therefore well within the rights of major league baseball to levy some punishment to players and personnel who commit DUI offenses.
DUI is no joke. when you’re DUI, you are weilding a lethal weapon, recklessly. doesn’t matter if you’re speeding down main street or driving three blocks home from your buddy’s house. your reactions are impaired, your command of the vehicle is impaired, and you are apt to kill or maim. if you’re driving drunk, you’re foolishly and selfishly putting the lives of innocent people at great risk.
as public personae, when baseball players get off DUI charges, or those DUI charges get poo-pooed by baseball, the media, and society, it sends a message, that drunk driving really isnt a big deal. that its some big joke that’s ok as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. the only reason it doesn’t hurt anyone is from pure chance.
if you recklessly discharge a firearm, you should be punished, regardless of whether anyone gets hurt. if you recklessly drive under hte influence (and all driving under hte influence is reckless) then you should be punished regardless of whether anyone gets hurt.
the fault is not solely with baseball, of course. as a society we wish away and excuse away drunk driving all too readily. oh, it was just one mistake, oh it was no big deal, oh, he can handle himself. bullshit. baseball can and should lead the way.
it has nothing to do with addiction. crack addicts need help. if a crack addict breaks into your house and steals your stuff to pay for his next high, should that burglury be excused? if a stoner gets doped out of his mind and vandalizes your property, should that crime be excused? if a dude in florida smokes bath salts, rips off his clothes and starts eating a homeless man’s face, should we just look the other way?
if an alcoholic drinks and gets behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, that reckless, dangerous, destructive behavior cannot be ignored.
Being under the influence of alcohol is not a behavior of choice. People don’t drive with destructive intentions. In most cases, they just want to go home.
Do doctors let their patients drive home from a hospital all drugged up? No they don’t. They make sure they have a ride home. It should be the patroons responsibility to make sure their drinking customers get home safely. The way things are now, the drinkers are put in a position to fail.
Instead of being proactive and coming up with solution. People are being reactive and wanting steeper punishments.
“Being under the influence of alcohol is not a behavior of choice.”
Surely you mean that it is a behavior of choice?
You can choose to drink or not to drink, but you can’t choose how much the alcohol is going to effect you. You can’t choose your behavior after you get drunk. At that point you’re under the influence of the alcohol and your judgement is impaired. They shouldn’t be driving, but they don’t know they shouldn’t be driving.
It really depends on how much you’ve had. I think a lot of us have been in a situation where we’ve had a drink or two and tried to figure out whether or not we’re in a condition to drive. Starting to calculate: how far do I have to drive? How many cars are likely to be on the road? I’ll probably be okay, won’t I? When you start drinking, your decisionmaking skills are impaired — they don’t disappear.
It’s incumbent on everyone who drinks alcohol to understand the effect that alcohol has on them, and drink accordingly. People are responsible for their actions.
Some people are responsible, but many people just aren’t. Not many people volunteer to drive drunk people home either. Not many people stop drunk people from getting in their cars also. The problem is there is no system in place to prevent drunk driving. There is only a reactive system, to punish those who get caught.
Some day in the future, this problem will be solved. Drunk people will be able to put their cars in auto-pilot, to get safely home. Right now, this problem could also be solved if everyone volunteered one day per year to keep the roads safe from drunk drivers. Until then, some people would rather punish drunk people, than actually help them.
Whether one believes that MLB should punish DUI offenders turns on your view of ballplayers. If it is just another job, the answer should probably be no. If they are paid all that money partly so that they can be looked up to (to be heroes, if you like), then it is another story.
I don’t think baseball, or any employers, should punish players for actions that do not affect their job responsibilities. It’s not to say that players shouldn’t be punished for DUI–that is why we have laws and a criminal justice system. Players should be punished in the court system, and to the same extent as any other person committing the same offense. The criminal justice system has evidentiary standards and a burden of proof to protect the accused. Will the employer provide the same protection of the accused player’s rights? And, do we we want the the baseball team duplicating the judicial system?
Addiction to alcohol should be treated in the same manner as addictive drugs of abuse. Over time addiction generally will affect the player’s ability to do his job.
YES.
I think we tend to think about this question the wrong way. We think “should the MLB punish players for X,” assigning complete responsibility for the action to the player and inferring that the only way to deal with the action is through punishment. Through punishing the players, the MLB is absolving itself of any culpability in the action (this can apply to PEDs or DUIs or being John Rocker or whatever you want). That is the premise I reject.
If the question is “should the mlb punish these players” then the answers tend to be “yes, punish them!” or “no, it’s the player’s life and the MLB shouldn’t be inserting itself into it” but neither of these answers would necessarily impact the cultural issue here.
I believe the MLB has a much better job to do at educating and teaching critical thinking skills to its players; focus on how to avoid the crime in the first place more than focusing on how to punish it. We expect (or at least accept) institutions like a college or the army to take an active role in trying to shape the minds and critical outlooks of the people who move through those systems. If I’m taking a 16 year old from a third world country, or an 18 year old from a suburb or rural america, or even a 22 year old from a div 1 college, and then making them spend all day and night under my care for 200-365 days a year for 6 years or more, I’m at least somewhat culpable for the person they become at least inasmuch as I have control of the culture I’ve surrounded them with.
Teams hire sports trainers and psychologists and require players attend various trainings and workshops starting in the minors. Take an hour out of the training day a couple days a week to teach some general social/life skills. Encourage mentorship programs between young players and veterans/staff. Train staff and players on how to recognize signs of domestic violence or drug addiction or abuse. Encourage players to share their experiences openly with each other. Engage players in their community from a young age. A lot of this is done, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be across the board. The MLB is in a better position to fix the root issue than the players are.
Letting players get a free ride home from a bar at any time is a very good idea. Instituting community service or fines or even suspensions for offenses is a decent enough idea. But there are a lot of steps the MLB could take to really change this issue that wouldn’t require comprehensive approval in the next CBA, and fans need to generally stop treating baseball players as if baseball is just a job. For most of these guys, it’s been the only life they’ve known since their late teens.
This is a good point, and many pro sports, including but by no means limited to baseball, do more in this direction than is generally recognized. I’m reminded, for example, of the in-season suspension that Cardinals mega-prospect Shelby Miller got a couple of years ago from his team, for an “incident” in which alcohol was involved. I think even Miller recognizes today that that was a good response. Other, lower-profile minor-league players have gone through the same thing, but we’re less likely to hear about them because they’re not as well known.
Thing is, though, there’s a big difference between a 21-year-old kid just starting to figure out the life of a pro ballplayer, and a 39-year-old face of the franchise with a wife and two kids. I don’t know whether Helton has a chronic drinking problem (or the disease of alcoholism — not the same thing, but obviously much overlap), and have no reason to believe that he does. If he does have such a problem, however, the Rockies lost their ability to nip it in the bud fifteen years ago. Mentoring and intervention aren’t going to cut it with somebody like that. If it is indeed in baseball’s interest to deter players from drunk driving, there’s not much they can do in such a case EXCEPT punishment, since they’ve lost that immersive control over his life that you cite as being there for the kids on their way up.
What’s wrong with a 10 game suspension for a DUI? That seems appropriate for a first offense. Double or triple it for a second one.
Let’s make sure we keep the 2 problems here separate.
The first and main part is the crime against citizens by endangering lives. All of this penalty is handled by the justice system. Whether the penalties are too much or too little, or should be based on income, is another discussion.
The second part is the defamation of Major League Baseball. The players contribute to the image of the company and can hurt it’s value. This is the only part that MLB has the right to take action upon. Their penalties should reflect that, in whatever way that makes them break even.
So if these men need more punishment, you should handle it through U.S. legislation. Businesses have no place in crimes against citizens.
No one has mentioned Jim Leyritz. He actually killed a woman while driving drunk. I think he largely got away with it though, because the woman he killed also happened to be drunk. ….Florida.
I think it is disgusting a bit the extent that first time DUI offenders are vilified by the public. People are human beings and are capable of making mistakes. There isnt a perfect human being out there in the world. Sure some mistakes are worse than others. Im not advocating drunk driving, but I am sure there are a few people vilifying drunk drivers here that have done it and havent been caught. Impaired driving is impaired driving. If baseball wants to punish someone punish repeat offenders. Punish their wallets, make them do an anti drug education program during a suspension.
Sure.
Just as soon as they stop selling beer at the stadiums.