Poor Jim Leyritz

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/1633652/

 

I think LeBetard did a sufficient representation of the victim.
He qualified nearly every assertion by Leyritz.

i.e.

My feelings for LeBatard and his "style" aside, I didn't get the "sympathy quest" with this telling.
I got more "three-hour glimpse," more "view from the outside."
This subject is highly emotional because so many have been affected by the irresponsibility and by the general societal indifference for the non-lethal version of DUI.
But, the presentation of one person's tale shouldn't bring scorn on the presenter. That placement seems odd.

 

I think it is absolutely ridiculous to call Leyritz a piece of shit, and I also don't think LeBatard was "trying" to defend him...

However, this line just sucked...

" - and it is hard to muster compassion when two kids lose their mother, Leyritz's victim winning all arguments with her eternal silence - "

There has to be a better way to phrase that

 

I understand, GBNF, your problem with that euphemistic phrase. It could have been worded to properly capture the magnitude to of the loss. But, overall, I think it works as a qualifier.

 

I don't have a problem with that. Good line.

 

you sound like selena roberts convicting the duke lacrosse players.

guilt, innocence, same thing, whatever.

 

Bracketing that line from The Jock Sniffer Emeritus are these two passages. Shit that Le Batard is a master of: The quote that he allows to stand unchallenged and then the interrogative assertion. It's his opinion plain and simple, and he is cowardly placing it in there in a ham-handed attempt to give him plausible deniability that it is his opinion.

The quote opinion:

''This accident happens whether I was drinking that day or not,'' Leyritz says. ``It would have happened at 2 in the afternoon. There was no possibility of me avoiding that crash with all of my senses. A mother was taken away from her kids. I can't change that. But I didn't do it. The accident did. And that accident wasn't my fault.''


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NO follow-up challenge by the writer, hence, that, to me, is Le Batard's opinion.

The interrogative opinion:

In pro football alone this week, it was revealed that at least 73 players on last year's rosters had at least one DUI arrest. What are the odds two legally drunk people would collide at the same intersection? Would you be angry if you thought you were fine enough to drive, and your view was obstructed on a dark and empty road, and you drove through a yellow light, and you were hit by a woman with a higher blood-alcohol limit who might have been arguing and texting and speeding? And you lost just about everything that mattered to you in that dark blink of time between seeing yellow and seeing red?


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Cowardly, Danny. Just say you believe him and that it wasn't his fault.

 

I don't have a problem with letting Leyritz defend himself (via the quote) ... that was sort of the point of the piece.

The second thing you mentioned really didn't sit well with me, though. I think he's trying to put us in Leyritz's shoes, which is again the point of the piece. But it does veer into dangerous and speculative territory.

 

Yes, let him defend himself, and then pound on him. Unless you believe him.

 

Honestly, I'm in total agreement with Simon here. The paragraph he quoted is dripping with the "hey, everybody does this, so don't come down on Leyritz's too much."

And I don't care if "her side has been covered before by other stories." This story could have been better if he'd talked to her family and made this about two families being destroyed by two drunk drivers. Instead, we got the implication that poor Jim Leyritz was unlucky enough to do something we all do -- have a few drinks and run a yellow light -- and someone drunker than him happened to die.

The idea that she was "drunker than he was" and that makes it less of a crime is bullshit anyway, since he wouldn't even take a breathalyzer or give a blood sample for two to three hours after the incident.

I need a lot more facts before I even begin to believe Leyritz's story. For starters, think about an intersection. Close your eyes and picture it. Let's say Leyritz is driving South to North. This woman is driving East to West. He goes through a yellow light and hits the side of her car, correct? So in order for Leyritz's story to work, she has to be moving into the intersection early, correct? If his light was just turning yellow, hers was still red. Have the cops at any point suggested that she ran a red, or went through the light early? I haven't seen that anywhere. The yellow light -- which is entirely Leyritz's word -- is presented as fact by LeBetard, which is fucking ridiculous.

 

LeBatard again attaches himself to an unpopular position to get attention.

Ho hum.