Sunday, October 19, 2008

D-U-I. D-U-H.

And as Boston was continuing to add to their lineage as the New Overlords, far away from the maddening crowds, Joba Chamberlain was doing what morons do at 1am.

Namely, drinking and driving and speeding.

Now, I'm not going to completely kill the guy for this. He's 23 and a pampered athlete who almost lost his father last summer. We don't know if he was truly hammered or just over the limit, if the open container was a light beer or a 40 ounce bottle bag, and if the speeding was 5 over the limit with an expensive car in a cash-strapped area, or something a lot more than that. Hell, we don't even know if any of this is true. It's not as if a trooper has never seen a famous name on a driver's license and decided to up the ante.

But there's one thing I do know. Bad franchises get to be bad franchises by needing overly young and/or questionable character guys to do, and be, everything. And right now, Chamberlain is the only guy on the Yankee roster with the stuff to be a #1 starter... and he's screwing it up.

It will also lead to Treatment and Tabloids and Condemnation, because hell, New York would like to talk about anything other than how Boston's still playing games.

And when the Yankees finish third in the AL East and out of the playoffs again next year -- and it's hard to see how they get better than either Boston or Tampa right now -- the failure of Chamberlain to become a 15 to 20 win guy is going to be one of the biggest reasons why.

Oh, and he also gets to endure a lifetime of drinking heckles. When, oh when, will athletes learn to just have a designated driver at all times?

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