RIP Jose Fernandez

Drunken driving is drunken driving, no?

 

That's seems to be the authorities' take ... As I understand it (and keep in mind I'm getting this third-hand at best) there's some doubt as to who was actually driving.

 

I would be more frightened to be on a boat where drinking was going on than in a car with an impaired driver.
And I have been on a pontoon where a few beers were flowing, and there was no excuse for it.
I was on a fishing trip with my brother a few years ago, and he flat out asked a third guy to leave his six-pack at the dock.

 

Alcohol also affects the body much differently on water than on land, because of motion and equilibrium and such. This is especially true if you're in the sun.

Unexpected Impact: The Effects of Alcohol and Drugs During Boating

Even the two-beer maximum to drive home is a bad idea on a boat. Also on a boat, passengers put themselves at risk if they don't have their wits about them.

 

I live only a few miles from the coast -- albeit about 35 miles north of where the accident occurred -- and there was a lot of thunder and lightning to the east from midnight on. It wasn't a good night to be on the water under any circumstances.

 

We had a guy around here a year or two ago -- a defense attorney whose boat is called "Naut Guilty" -- cruising the harbor while enjoying some pops. Underage girl (who also was drunk) falls overboard, someone else turns on the engine and her arm was gone.

 

Loved watching this kid pitch. Can't believe he's gone. Life can be cruel to anyone.

 

It shows you how much of a regional sport that baseball has become that this story doesn't seem to have gotten much traction nationally. (Part of that, of course, is that Arnold Palmer bumped the story from the front pages late last evening.) My son is 7 and a pretty big baseball fan, but he hadn't heard of him. There's no way at 7 that I would not have heard of, say, Dwight Gooden, mostly through baseball cards. Sean Taylor's death was news for days, weeks even.

 

Doesn't help that he played for the worst franchise in baseball, whose national profile is pretty limited. Gooden played in NYC for a great and exciting team with young stars and established vets.

 

I hear you. When I was a kid, say starting at age nine, I went virtually nowhere without the Street & Smith annual on my person. Knew it inside out. I could have given you the fifth starter on any team in baseball. Now, my nine year old, who loves baseball as much as I did, can give you the Blue Jays starting nine but not a hell of a lot else from around the league.