CINCINNATI -- Obsession chooses you. You do not choose it. Did that German lathe operator choose to be obsessed with Monica Seles? Did John Daly choose chicken wings? Did Ricky Williams choose weird? No. Their obsessions chose them.
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| Every smile you make, Doyel will be watching you. (Getty Images) |
I'm obsessed, though not criminally so. The Washington Nationals outfielder is in no physical danger from me, not least of which because he's in no physical danger from just about anybody. Dukes is bigger than most people and stronger than most people, and on the off chance he meets an exception to both rules, he could still just run away because he's faster than most people, too.
Which is one reason I'm obsessed. The guy is, from a physical standpoint, fascinating. He's fascinating from a mental standpoint, too. He's a world-class head case, and a little bit scary. Maybe more than a little. Which makes him more than a little fascinating.
And I have a six-year history with this guy. Sort of. In 2002 Dukes signed to play football at North Carolina State. The sportswriter who covered N.C. State for the Charlotte Observer in 2002? Me. And I was fascinated by his story -- his father in jail for murder, his own series of arrests in Tampa, his improbable physical dimensions that had some schools recruiting him as a defensive end, others as a running back. USA Today called him "the top two-sport player in the country."
We spoke a few times by phone, Dukes and I, and when he didn't qualify academically, he told me he would play baseball at Louisburg (N.C.) junior college and then try again at N.C. State. But a few weeks later the Devil Rays drafted him in the third round of baseball's draft, and he was gone. Unhappily, I let him go.
A few years later I'm reading something on the Internet when I stumble onto a sentence that identifies perhaps the most talented prospect in all of baseball as ... Elijah Dukes?
My Elijah Dukes?
My obsession was born. What was it like the first time Tiki Barber gazed into a mirror? That's what this was like for me. Suddenly I couldn't get enough of Elijah Dukes. He was a fabled five-tool player, meaning he could do everything there is to do on a baseball field. Some stories made him out to be the next Bo Jackson. Others indicated he was a mean dude, another Albert Belle. Whatever he was, I had to find out more.
I followed him from Class-A Bakersfield to Double-A Montgomery to Triple-A Durham. Those comparisons, the ones to Bo Jackson and Albert Belle? They were both right. Dukes was a 30-homer, 30-steal guy if he could play a full season, but he kept getting himself suspended. Coaches, managers, teammates, umpires -- he had issues with everybody. He averaged barely 100 games a year from 2003-06.
This guy was a train wreck, but train wrecks are fascinating. Plus he was a locomotive. He homered in his first major league at-bat, at Yankee Stadium in 2007, and then he homered in the next game.
How could I stop following Elijah Dukes? I could not, even as his self-destructive mode took a frightening outward turn. Last year he was leading American League rookies with 10 home runs through 184 at-bats when his wife sought a restraining order, saying he had threatened to kill her and their two children. Dukes was no longer Bo Jackson or Albert Belle. He was a nightmare.
But I had gone too far to turn back. Dukes was my guy. Never wrote about him, not like this, probably to avoid mixing business with pleasure. Following Dukes wasn't my job, it was my hobby, and he's the only person I've made into a Google Alert. Every time a story was written about him, it hit my e-mail. There were hundreds. I've read 'em all.
