(May 2, 2007) – From all accounts, Josh Hancock was one of those really likeable guys for reasons that stretched well beyond the fact that he wore a St. Louis Cardinals jersey.
The reaction since his untimely death last Sunday illustrated he meant a great deal to those who knew him and fans who didn’t. Current and former teammates expressed the loss of a good friend. Others who never met him grieved publicly as well.
Whether or not you knew him, why feel sorry?
Eyewitness accounts say Hancock drank. He drove. He lost.
Instead, how about feeling relief that he didn’t take out a family of four or the driver of the tow truck he smashed?
Or, how about outrage at the St. Louis Cardinals for their second alcohol-related driving mishap in less than three months; this one following Manager Tony LaRussa’s embarrassing nap he took after dinner - at a stop light with his foot still on the brake - during Spring Training?
Or, even more outrage at Cardinals General Manager Walt Jocketty for taking the noble high ground by saying, according to the St. Louis Dispatch, "Do I know guys like to drink and party? Yes, mostly from what I understand, on the road when they're not driving."
Thank you, Walt; I feel much safer driving through St. Louis already.
Obviously, this is not a problem special to the Cardinals.
In 2005, former Nebraska and current Ohio football head coach Frank Solich was found passed out over the wheel of his truck, which happened to be facing the wrong way on a one-way street.
At the time, the nation smirked and moved on, and that was before Solich appealed (and was denied), claiming he was slipped Sebastian Janikowski’s favorite party favor - gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), a date-rape drug.
In 2006, Cincinnati Bengals player Deltha O’Neal was cited for DWI after being caught in a checkpoint. Had it not been for the Bengals’ season-long problem with the law, O’Neal’s run-in may have gone unnoticed.
Then you have Leonard Little, the poster child whose name is inevitably thrown into the mix every time a story involving a drinking athlete surfaces.
Little did nothing different than any of those others, except he left Mike Gutweiler without his mom and Bill Gutweiler without his wife in 1998 after driving with a blood-alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit and killing Susan in an auto accident.
The point is not to vilify Little. That’s already happened, and rightfully so, since he apparently didn’t learn from that one and got a second offense in 2004.
But, what if Little had only been involved in a fender-bender, or did like Hancock last week and only killed himself?
Had he died instead of Susan, would Little have endured a bit of humiliation, only to have it engulfed by a swell of support in remembrance from teammates and fans?
Is the line between public support and public rage in these instances really only as trivial as whose body is placed on a gurney?
Perhaps it is since humans have a way of using death as a scapegoat in preventable tragedy, eulogizing a person’s greatness until whatever underlying, bigger issue is conveniently forgotten.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the fight against alcohol-related fatalities has reached a plateau. Since hitting a low total of 16,572 in 1999, the numbers from 2000-05 were higher in every other year since.
Instead of sweeping Josh’s death under the rug with flippant comments that players must police themselves, perhaps Jocketty, the Cardinals, Major League Baseball, professional sports, you and I should make efforts to come down off the plateau instead of sitting idly on top and crying over those who no longer can do anything about it.
