Sir Shandy Articles / David Lengel Date: Sep 06, 2005 - 01:39 PM What a waste. What a shame. Sidney Ponson is not only drinking his career away, but his life as well. There are two ways to break this down. Sidney Ponson is a jerk… Just once, I would like to put on a uniform and trot out to a big league pitching mound. Any MLB team will do, except perhaps the one in the Bronx. I’d like to pitch four, maybe five innings, and scatter a few runs, strike out three, maybe walk one, and end up with no decision. It doesn’t need to be Game Seven of the World Series. A perfectly ordinary mid-August encounter would be just dandy. This is the scenario I’ve played out in my head over and over, which is why Sidney Ponson drives me nuts. An Aruban knight with all the talent and ability one could ask for, never mind the money, is throwing it all away in a bid to break the single season record for arrests. His latest came on August 25th for driving under the influence of alcohol. Ponson put his and other motorists lives at risk and he deserves stiff punishment. The Orioles got tired of their fans paying to see a fat, drunk, filthy rich pitcher allow six runs in 3.1 innings pitched. They placed the pitcher they resigned in 2004 to be their ace on unconditional release waivers. It’s not quite the type of punishment I had in mind, although he is up on charges and could face jail time. Now Baltimore would like some money back. I can’t blame them. If Ponson worked in the real world, he would have been pink slipped a lot earlier. Will the O’s get any cash? Probably. Both sides will reach a face-saving deal. Ponson will wind up losing three stone and resurrect his career for the Yankees. This will be enough to drive the Camden Yards faithful to drink themselves. Sidney Ponson has a problem… Why else could he be repeatedly arrested for both alcohol and anti-social behavior? Have the Orioles tried to get him help? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he needs it. His fondness for of abusing alcohol may have been pre-determined by the science of his family genetics, not him. This is a human apologist speaking. Not everybody is given the tools to be a good citizen—anti-social traits develop for a variety of reasons. If Ponson were just your average guy that Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to de-chav, he would be a statistic, not a headline. Instead he is an Oriole headache, who is spiraling out of control. Why didn’t the Orioles suspend him, offering him final chance number 6,786, on the condition that he sought counseling and perhaps treatment for alcohol abuse? Perhaps this was offered to Ponson and he turned it down. The club, the union, and his agent have to keep their cards close to their chest as Baltimore attempt to invoke the standard morals clause, which appears in every MLB player contract. Paragraph 3(a), that reads: "The Player agrees to perform his services hereunder diligently and faithfully, to keep himself in first-class physical condition and to obey the Club's training rules, and pledges himself to the American public and to the Club to conform to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship." I had the chance to interview Ponson at spring training in 2001. He was perfectly accommodating—the “nice guy” the media likes to celebrate. I’ve always been a fan of his. However this awful, disheartening saga concludes, lets hope it isn’t with an obituary. This article comes from UK MLB Supporters Club http://www.baseballfan.co.uk/ The URL for this story is: http://www.baseballfan.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=190