Poor Jim Leyritz

Is LeBatard really trying to make us feel some sympathy for this piece of shit?


http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/columnists/dan-le-batard/story/1062949.html

 

I thought Dan did a decent job of staying neutral and showing Leyritz' hell.
Last week I thought about taking a stab at the story, but wasn't comfortable doing it just from Jim's side. And Jim does have a very compelling side to tell, if the evidence his lawyers are presenting is true. The only fair way to do a story like this is to go back and forth from his tragedy to the nightmare of the family who lost their mother. Dan didn't go that far, but I think he stepped out of the way and let Jim try to convince the world (and himself) that he deserves sympathy. And you know what? He does. Two people made very bad decisions that night; one pays for it by death, the other is condemned to a living hell.
Don't drink and drive. Just don't.

 

I think it's a little unfair to call him a piece of shit.

I have zero sympathy for drunk drivers, but let's be realistic here. If the evidence is true, the other lady was completely trashed, too. So can you really say with any amount of certainty that Leyritz caused the crash? Should he be villified if the woman who died in the accident was texting while driving drunk?

I hated the guy as a player. Hated the Yankees. But on a human level, to me, I don't think a lot of the shit he's getting is necessarily fair.

Again, it all depends on the accuracy of what his lawyers are presenting.

 

First line of the piece

The grass has browned around this haunted house in Davie.

First line after the first subhead

He is sitting at his dining room table in Plantation.


Either Dan is trying to get us to curry sympathy for The King by making us aware he has two homes (but is broke), or he has the biggest house in Broward County, or I misread it.

 

Another sob story demonizing a dead victim engineered by attorneys aided and abetted by the biggest jock apologist on the planet.

Burn, Jim, burn.

 

I make no excuses for drunk driving -- there are none -- and anything remotely approaching one isn't going to be received well, but I'll say this: There but for the grace of god go a whole bunch of "nice people" right here on this website, and anybody who would even think of saying that's not true is living in a complete fantasyland.

This is a horrible deal, but the end result -- two people who have been drinking, are driving and arrive at the wrong place at the wrong time, leaving one of them dead -- could have happened to a lot of people held in high esteem here, most of whom would never be described by anybody who knows them as "a piece of shit."

 

This is an interesting story. It's too bad that Dan's reputation as a jock sniffer interferes with the telling of it. At least he didn't work in the word 'majestic.'

 

This whole thing sounds like a coin flip: both drivers drunk and being reckless. Flip a coin, and next time it's the woman who lives and Leyritz dies.

So why condemn Leyritz to hell in this instance?

To the person who called Leyritz a POS---that's right, go ahead and throw the first stone. May you throw a "perfect game" for the rest of your life. Here's hoping YOU never, never drink and drive.

 

This is pretty dumb. Because there are people who, you know, won't.

 

He won't drink and drive, they took his license away when he turned 80

 

I'd like to remember the Jimmy Leyritz that I met when he first came to the Yankees. He was a young enthusiastic kid who was happy to be in the show and would do anything to stay there. Obviously, things have changed drastically in his life, but I believe the person that I remember is still there somewhere.

 

This could have been a great story if LeBatard had enough integrity to tell Leyritz's story with a little bit of skepticism, or presented it as half the tale. The idea that her side has been told, and his has not, is complete horseshit. She's dead. That isn't a "side."

Only been drunk three times since the accident? What integrity.

Feel awkward about fucking your girlfriend in the room next to your ex-wife? Hero.

I've now reached the point where I wonder if a professional athlete did horrible things to a member of LeBatard's family whether LeBatard would write 3,500 words about how horribly misunderstood the athlete in question was.

What more should we ask of Donte Stallworth? I mean, he did flash his brights several times and honk his horn before running a man down in the street drunk at 6 a.m.? Should one man's inability to obey pedestrian traffic laws really ruin another man's career? Oh by the way, I made no attempt to contact the victim's family for this piece because that doesn't exactly fit in with what I'm trying to do here.