Bobby's HiJenks

Perhaps you have seen this story this morning where Bobby Jenks, the injured pitcher of the Boston Red Sox, was charged with five misdemeanors including DUI and leaving the scene of an accident that involved property damage. There should be little tolerance for this kind of thing. Sure, we can all say that young men with lots of money will make mistakes. But it's not like these players aren't warned about these kinds of happenings. And 99.9 percent of major league players never become involved in this sort of behavior.

The story is kind of frightening actually. Jenks knew he was going to flunk the field sobriety test and said he had been taking too many muscle relaxants. Taking too many muscle relaxants? Why would he be doing that? This would seem to indicate that Jenks is having a problem with his medication as he tries to recover from a back surgery. If he knew he would flunk the field sobriety test, then he should have known that he shouldn't be driving.

After he was pulled over, Jenks mentioned that he hit a parked car at a strip club earlier. The story goes on to say that he actually hit two parked cars. The admission was nice and stuff, but why the heck didn't he stop after he hit those cars? Talk about bad judgement after bad judgement. And why do players go to strip clubs? Look, there is no moral objection to strip clubs here. The sex trade is as old as time and people are going to do what they are going to do. Far too much money is spent in this country trying to root out this sex business that could be spent better in other places. But still. Strip clubs cause massive headaches for young men with lots of money. Why risk that?

So now Bobby Jenks is going to face charges and perhaps could see some short jail time. The Red Sox cannot be pleased. They have already had a contentious off season and this doesn't help. Plus, Jenks has accused the Red Sox' doctors of screwing up his back. So the marriage between the team and the player can't be in the best of shapes to begin with. The team is now going to be torn between taking care of the player's health and distancing themselves from his actions. Plus, expect MLB to get involved because the influence he was driving under was drug related. Fun, fun, fun.

Bobby's HiJenks are an unwelcome story. It can't be winked at and it can't be ignored. Jenks has shown in this incident multiple errors of judgement and he's made a mess that he is going to have to live with for quite some time.