Behind the Wheel

Yesterday morning, Royals’ pitcher Yordano Ventura and former ML infielder Andy Marte were killed in separate car accidents in the Dominican Republic.  In October 2014, Cardinals’ outfielder Oscar Taveras and his girlfriend were both killed when Taveras lost control of his car while driving in the Dominican Republic.  Not all ballplayers die in accidents on a Caribbean island, as Jose Fernandez proved in September in Florida.  Either way, major-league baseball may want to start connecting dots and formulate some kind of policy.

Because they’re young and young people oftentimes delude themselves into feeling immortal (let those of us without sin here be the first to cast a stone), athletes will do dumb things.  Baseball players today aren’t dumber than in Mickey Mantle’s time; they just have more money.  And partying may have been a little different back in the day, with Mick and the boys haling a cab to the Copa for a night on the town; as we all know, cabbies have been blessed by God for reasons not entirely clear.  Anyway, come season’s end, those Yankee players went back home to work their offseason jobs. There were no boatloads of money back then for the young and physically gifted.  They could, however, get work selling cars or men’s suits.  

Teams and agents would do well to act as parents/disciplinarians/wardens to keep their charges alive and in one piece.  The alternative is too sad to consider.  Taveras was 22, Fernandez 24 and Ventura 25.