Simply Tragic

Everyone knows about the hellish turn Jim Leyritz's life took in December of last year. Seems it wasn't all that great beforehand either:

Like many professional athletes facing retirement, Leyritz struggled with living an ordinary life. He and his wife, Karri Leyritz, consumed lavishly during his Yankee career. In court filings, Leyritz’s lawyer acknowledged that they had spent most of his baseball earnings by 2002, when he filed for divorce. By then, little was left to fight over besides their three sons . . .

. . . In 2004, a social worker concluded in a custody evaluation that neither Leyritz was an ideal parent. Karri Leyritz’s live-in boyfriend had a long criminal history, and in 2003, she tested positive for benzodiazepines, anti-anxiety drugs for which she did not have a prescription. Jim Leyritz, according to the report, used amphetamines and drank heavily as a player. The social worker also reported that a marriage counselor determined that he was struggling with “issues centered around learning to cope with life transitions and adjusting to life without baseball” . . .

. . . Although the Leyritzes were unemployed, they frequently placed the children in after-school day care and, in Karri’s case, left them with baby sitters, according to the custody evaluation and the transcript of a hearing before the divorce judge. Teachers reported that the children were often absent when in Karri’s care, and when they did attend, they did not have lunch, were missing socks or wore disheveled, torn uniforms.

Every single thing about his life has been ugly since he quit playing baseball. I have no love for Jim Leyritz the ballplayer or the man, but I feel very, very, sorry for him and everyone in his life.