Darren Daulton Still Delightfully Nuts

One would think that with the power of astral travel, Darren Daulton would choose to visit Vienna during the Renaissance, or Rome during the reign of the Caesars. But a card show in Ephrata, Pa.?

That's where our hero showed up on Saturday to sign autographs and share banter with a rather long line of baseball fans who remembered his glory days in the 1990s. Our coverage of Daulton has been well documented, — he was a particular favorite of Mr. Leitch — and I was kind of sad to see him out of the news over the past year or so. But as we can see in this fine story from Lancaster Online, the former All-Star has lost none of his edge.

"Just because you can't see something," Daulton said Saturday, before an autograph session at the Ephrata Lions' Club's annual card and memorabilia show, "doesn't mean it's not there." Daulton perceives lots of things that aren't conventionally "there." His beliefs are an eclectic hodgepodge of metaphysics, numerology, time travel and even occasional references to the Christian God and Jesus.

Specifically, he believes people with transcendent understanding of all this will ascend to earth at the conclusion of the Mayan calendar (11:11 a.m. Dec. 21, 2012) and then move to a new plane of existence.

Then there was this head-scratchingly brilliant observation, for which it is left to you to interpret:

"Think of all the movies you've seen in your life, even horror movies, whatever. You get to experience all of them. It can get pretty bizarre. That's when you go get the cooler and sit in the corner."

On his second wife, whom he was accused of abusing in 2004:

"Nicole thinks I'm crazy. She blames everything on drugs and drinking. But I don't take drugs and I'm not a drunk. Nicole just doesn't understand metaphysics."

If he's never drunk, what's in that cooler he's got in the corner?

Darren Daulton's Spiritual Journey [Lancaster Online]