Plaschke on Tim Crews' family

C'mon, Clerks sucks on TNT.

Anyway....
How the leap is made from "Tim Crews got stupid drunk and killed himself" to "the family doesn't deserve to feel some sort of embrace from the Dodgers" is just beyond me.

 

And yet you've been reading this board for so long.

 

I thought it was just an OK story, by Plaschke's high standards. It was a little syrupy for my taste, and the part where he gives McCourt and Lasorda's phone numbers to Crews' widow comes off as self-serving, even if Plaschke didn't mean it to be.

But the biggest problem is that he doesn't sufficiently deal with the fact that Crews didn't exactly die an honorable death. Could that be part of the reason that the Dodgers are ambivalent about honoring his memory, or that his friends are reluctant to come by and talk about what a swell guy he was? How do his wife and kids feel about the fact that their husband and dad was responsible for the sorrow of two other families as well as their own? You can't set up Crews to be this great guy who's been unfairly forgotten about and just mention in passing that his blood alcohol was .14 when he crashed the boat. It leaves a glaring hole in the story.

 

Crews was left off the playoff roster for Ricky Horton in 1988 and was none too pleased about it. I don't get the part about him on tape jumping around after the Gibson homer. Unless they let him sit in the dugout/bullpen.

 

I agree with those who find the ending heavy-handed. If Peter King did this, we'd be up in arms. I understand why Plaschke gets a pass, because he is excellent. But still . . . . . .

Something I did not think of before seeing it here was why should the Dodgers owe him something? Well, that team drafted him, he spent six seasons with them, and he was only an Indian for a month.

Also . . . . Olin's death is very glossed over. If Crews was the guy driving and he was drunk as a skunk, I wonder how Steve Olin's family feels about this. I wonder if a Plain-Dealer columnist has spoken with them.

At the same time, Crews' family deserves to have their story told, and it's a compelling one. And 14 years later, there really is no need to harp on the incident, because this story was about how a family rebuilds their lives following a tragedy.

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting the Dodgers honor his memory.

How about the idea that about all his kids know (apart from what family members have told them) is their dad was drunk one night, wrecked a boat and two people died?

There wasn't more to his life than that? His son wouldn't be interested to know more about his baseball career? His son wouldn't like to hear some stories about scrapping through the minor leagues to get to the big leagues and hanging on for a career as a non-star?

Crews fucked up and paid with his life. He used bad judgment. But it's not like he's friggin' Mohammed Atta and set out to do something evil.

Surely there's some teammate somewhere who can say something like, "Hey, your dad told me to hang in there when I wanted to give up and go home." If that's the case, who would be hard enough to deny his kids the warm feeling they might get from hearing that?

Plaschke is not doing the official it's the xx-year anniversary, let's go back over what happened that night. This is about Crews' family. If you could say or do something that would give those kids some comfort, you wouldn't do it?

 

Love the Plasch-Man, but, to me, this was no Her Blue Heaven or Phat Chants.

It was certainly solid, if not perhaps straining in the lead with the whole idea that the Dodgers owe the Crewses something.

I'm sorry that Tim Crews didn't have a friendship as close as Payne Stewart did with Lee Janzen. And, it's too bad that he then got drunk and killed someone (along with himself).

Patti Olin and her 17-year-old daughter are more sympathetic figures to me.

But, it gets back to Seinfeld.

Sports is about the uniforms... clothing. Because a guy was a decent middle reliever wearing blue and white for a few years, he gets the bouquet.

I thought the writer interjection was OK, though I didn't like the handing out source numbers.

 

I thought that was an unfortunate sentence in the piece.

 

All I'm saying is that part of the reason the Crews family hasn't heard much from the Dodgers as an organization or some of his ex-teammates could be that they have ambivalent feelings about him considering the fact that he got drunk and was responsible for 2 deaths besides his own. Does the family deserve sympathy? Of course. But if Plaschke is going to write a story saying what a shame it is that Crews has been forgotten, he has to address the question of why he's been forgotten. I don't think he does that well enough, which keeps this from rising to the level of a great piece.

 

Yes...

But (and perhaps this gets to my unpopular take on the Vick $10K to Va. Tech), if that was his motivation, I wouldn't take away from the altruism by putting it into the paper (i.e getting paid to do it).

 

I totally agree.

Bad for you, I know.

 

I'm not saying the Dodgers <i>organization</i> should do anything.

As far as judging Crews' behavior, if you've been around ballplayers, you probably know very few are moralists. I'm sure for every one who judges Crews' behavior harshly, there are 100 who think, "Wow, that could have happened to me" whether it was in a boat or a car.

If you were his friend, you ought to be willing to do something kind for his family.

I think maybe Plaschke's point was to spread the word in the hope that someone will see it and pick up the phone or send a note.