Was he hungover? Did he forget his glove? Was this a Nuke LaLoosh situation? America needs to know.

I'll bet not being drunk was part of being ready to play...

'unprepared to play' = drunk. Scott Spiezio has serious, serious problems, and for people like him, I'm torn between feeling sorry for them and wanting to keep them far away from society.

Yeah, I read that as "drunk" or "hung over" too. He'll always have his two rings, I guess.

And his sweet tat.

I wonder if he'll pursue baseball or music now. Sandfrog isn't a good band, but he seems passionate about it.

Weird career. In an otherwise nondescript career, he has had two pretty good seasons, and his team won the series both times -- which were the only times he has ever been in the post season. His total post season line is a nice .284/.379/.531.



Dude's made $16MM plus playing baseball. It should take him at least a few years to drink all that up. Here's hoping he gets some help before that happens.

whew, i must admit i kinda threw up a bit a week ago when i saw a pic of him in a braves uni.

cheers!

Dude's made $16MM plus playing baseball. It should take him at least a few years to drink all that up.

There was a story in Hoopsworld a little more than a month ago which reported that "sixty percent of retired NBA players go broke five years after their NBA paychecks stop arriving."

"Many indulge in lavish spending habits. Some receive bad financial advice from their agents and only travel with an entourage. Others experience a high divorce rate and are flooded with child and spousal support payments, multiple payments in some instances. Then there are those who get caught up in all the above."

I doubt it is much different in baseball. A fool and his money are soon parted. Latrell Sprewell went broke, despite making $96,622,500 in his career. I would not be surprised to learn that Spiezio has burned through his measily $16,000,000.

The crazy thing about Sprewell possibly being broke (you never know, maybe he just didn't pay his bills for whatever reason) is that he was also a popular endorser for a time before he choked Carlesimo and then again a few years after that and he had a thriving custom car business.

He surely made a lot more than $97 million dollars over the past 16 years. I know taxes take a good chunk of that, but still, you would think you could live on that for awhile.

Some receive bad financial advice from their agents

Tony Gwynn was broke at one point, thanks to an agent taking advantage of him. Luckily for him, he still had more than a decade left to play, and made plenty of money over that time.

I do think it's worth pointing out that athletes likely take home less than half of their public salaries, between taxes, agents, union dues, etc. Not that that still isn't a ton a of money in most cases, but I'm just saying.

'unprepared to play' = drunk.

or really really really hungover

not that it really makes a difference to the Braves

A lot of people don't realize what it's like for someone whose entire family has no money, whose entire neighborhood he grew up in has no money, to suddenly be rich, even if he can only count on getting the million-dollar salary for a couple years. You go back home, and everyone you know is still poor. It's hard not to start giving it away to everyone, not just your parents, but all your relatives, and your friends. People need money immediately, and you're the only one who has it.

A lot of guys who come from poverty make a pact with their friends that if just one of them makes it big, he'll help out the rest who weren't so lucky. Well, $5 million divided among 20 people is not as much as $5 million for just one person.

Especially given the legacy of prejudice and segregation. Black people may make nearly as much as white people in terms of average income these days, but they have far less savings.

(Not that this necessarily describes Spiezio, whose dad was a major leaguer. or Sprewell, who...well, that's a lot of money to waste. No excuse for not even having a million left.)