LAKE GEORGE, NY – While on a little respite here in God’s Country, I happened upon this little nugget that, for some silly reason, basically limbo-ed under the “newsworthy radar” this week. But now that I’m sharing it with you, maybe it will get the attention and dialogue it so definitely deserves. So, here’s this jewel of a story, as taken from USATODAY’s Daily Pitch:
Bernie Carbo was willing to pay $2,000 for hit men to break the arms of his former Cardinals teammate Keith Hernandez.
“I knew some people, and I had $2,000, and I asked them to break his arms,” Carbo tells ESPN’s Outside the Lines in a segment to air Sunday at 9 a.m. ET.
Hernandez had testified in Pittsburgh on Sept. 6, 1985, that it was Carbo who introduced him to cocaine.
A couple of Weekends With Bernie will kill you!
Carbo, famous for hitting the three-run homer for Boston in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series that led to Carlton Fisk’s game-winning blast, said he was high on drugs at the time.
Carbo tells Mark Schwarz: “I was addicted to the point where I couldn’t play without the drugs. … Nobody (in a typical clubhouse) did as many drugs as I did.
“I was taking mescaline. I was taking cocaine. Crystal meth. Smoking dope and taking pills and drinking. I felt that even though I hit this home run and I reached a place in my life that I dreamed about, it didn’t bring me any happiness.”
Now, 62, Carbo says he’s been clean for 16 years. The Boston Globe’s Stan Grossfeld penned an expansive piece on Carbo last month. Carbo also says he would apologize to Hernandez for introducing him to cocaine.
Why didn’t Carbo’s plans to break Hernandez’s arms go through?
“(The hitmen) said, ”We’ll do it in two or three years if you want it done, but we’re not going to do it today, Bernie. If we went and broke his legs today, or broke his arms, you don’t think they would understand that you are the one that had it done?’ ”
AND FROM MLB.COM: Now 62, the former outfielder, who played for six different teams, said he’s been clean and sober for 16 years and would be apologetic if he saw Hernandez again.
“If I was to be with Keith Hernandez today, I would tell Keith Hernandez, ‘I’m sorry that I introduced you to the drug, and I’m sorry that I was your problem,” Carbo told “Outside the Lines.”
So, my question to all you is:
What if Carbo had succeeded in getting Keith’s arms broken? What the Chicago Black Sox would have happened in baseball??? Who would have been in those Just For Men commercials?
I need answers, people!
West Coast Craig, tomorrow.
