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“But I feel nothing for their game
where beauty goes unrecognized,
All I feel is heat and flame
and all I see are dark eyes” - Bob Dylan
So its baseball playoff time and everything is business as usual. The Sox and Yanks are playing and as usual all of us in Boston are waiting for them to blow it. But as I look deeper and try to enjoy the games…One thing keeps occurring to me. I have seen a huge glaring black eye of bigotry and hypocrisy on the game that I love. MLB has been talking about the playoffs. Talking about Mariano Rivera’s wife’s Cousin. All kinds of stories being told by the announcers. But no mention of Ken Caminiti. Ken Caminiti died last week of a heart attack. He was 41. He played for the Astros for quite a while and was very popular but so far I have not heard one mention of his name…which is odd because his former teammates are in the playoffs…If any other player had died there would be all kind of tributes. Players wearing armbands. Flags being raised. Video montages of their great plays. Players saying “Lets go out and win one for Ken” You get the picture. They would be doing that if it was some mediocre player…but hell…Ken Caminiti was great! He won the NL MVP the same year that my old buddy Mo Vaughn won it in the AL in 1996. So what’s up with this? What is MLB trying to hide?
1. Ken Caminiti was an addict. He had struggled for so long with his addiction and he was very honest about it. MLB has done nothing to pay tribute to him because in their minds he is a problem. In their minds he tarnishes the white bread apple pie sunday morning image that baseball still tries to put forth. And MLB is just a symptom of our cultures continuous bigotry and discrimination as they treat addicts like 2nd class citizens and like “those kinds of people.” You and I both know that if it was Mo Vaughn who had died of cancer there would be all kinds of tributes. But Ken Caminiti had a disease called addiction that average American Mr. Jones behind his white picket fence does not want to hear about.
2. Ken Caminiti used steroids. Ken Caminiti admitted it to the world in Sports Illustrated. He also stated that more than HALF of all baseball players are using something whether its Steroids, speed…whatever. Baseball does not want you to know that because it would expose them and associate them with “druggies.” Don’t get me wrong. Ken was a damn good player but he felt the need to bulk up and chase the dollar like all the other players around him. He chose to take steroids. BUT he totally ADMITTED it to the world that it screwed up his life. Ken Caminiti may have had his problems but he had the GUTS to do something about it and speak up about it to try and save a few lives. Shame on MLB for this mistreatment.
And so I think of Ken Caminiti and how much I enjoyed watching him play 3B. He could rob you of a double down the line. He hit a ton of doubles himself. He was intense. He was honest. He broke my heart when I heard about his struggles because I know what its like to see someone who is so cool be so powerless over this disease. Ken is at peace now. MLB and all its players can say what they want…or they can speak volumes of curses with their silence. But one thing will never be changed. Ken Caminiti was a great human being who won 3 gold gloves, batted 326 with 40 home runs and 130 RBIs…and in 1996 HE WAS THE BEST PLAYER IN BASEBALL!
