Twenty-four year old Juan-Carlos Covarrubias-Serrano probably never knew that his few beers at a baseball game were going to forever affect his life. He was probably a regular fan just like you and me who went to the ballpark for the fun and the excitement. He got a little drunk, and in his stupor remembered that Carl Everett was a badass and has gotten away with it all his life. Everett has been a spoiled punk for all of his baseball career. He has disrespected umpires, players on the other team, his own players, his own managers, his team's top leadership and most of all the fans. His act was seen in Boston and it was one of the worst exhibits of player actions ever seen. His actions were shameful to his team, his sport and his family.

Juan-Carlos did a real stupid thing. He took that modern symbol of technology, the cell phone (probably each American's most prized possession), and threw it. What are the odds that a drunk man in the second deck would perfectly hit his target? Juan-Carlos tempted the odds and hit the target...the back of Carl Everett's head. The first irony of this story is that the weapon used, the cell phone, followed a story from a few days before where a fan tackled an umpire in...you guessed it...US Cellular Field in Chicago.

Who knows what happened. Maybe he had a fight with a girl on the phone and threw her and it away. Maybe he got a busy signal on a call and in frustration threw the phone. Hey, I've slammed mine down in anger for that reason before. Or maybe he wanted to plunk Everett. What a fluke that he was successful and finds himself in the position he is now. It was stupid. It was dangerous. But how many of us have this little scary, guilty feeling inside because of the time we drank eleven beers and drove home. Nothing happened. In my case, it was my first date with what would be my wife of 21 years. I was lucky not to hit anything and end up where Juan-Carlos is.

But I'm sure that someone else got caught or went off the road or god-forbid, even hit someone at about the same time that I pulled that stunt somewhere back in 1975. Juan-Carlos defied the incredible odds by finding his target. He also defied the odds of pulling his stupid trick a few days after the Chicago incident when the national eye was already blinking rapidly about the need to punish unruly fans more adequately. Juan-Carlos is one son-of-a-gun in trouble.

The fans in the stands rightly pointed him out. I have no problem with that. Carl Everett, the badass, wants to press charges. I have no problem with that. Sometimes in life, you have to pay for your mistakes whether you are sorry for them or not. That other fan that tried to tackle the umpire in Chicago is sorry too, but that doesn't end the consequences. It's too bad that these two young men have performed a tarnishing act in their lives.

What is the second irony of this whole story? And what perfectly tells us what is wrong with the elitism of successful athletes? The same man who said he would press charges was upset when he was hit by the phone. Carl Everett threw the phone back over the fence. The phone hit Daniel Sugayan, an Oakland Athletic staffer. Sugayan declined to press charges.