From Stoned To Brewer

Leitch|published: Tue 30th May, 12:45 2006

This image was lost some time after publication.

On Sunday, Philadelphia's Ryan Howard hit yet another home run, his 12th of the month. The guy's hot, and, judging from his physique, pretty obviously not on steroids. But that's not the most interesting part of his homer; what we're fascinated by is whom he hit it off.

The pitcher who gave up the homer is named Joe Winkelsas, a 32-year-old Brewers righthander making his first appearance in the majors since 1999. Where has Winkelsas been? Well, hauling garbage and doing everything he can not to be stoned anymore.

Winkelsas had a full-blown addiction to marijuana. It got so bad that he never made it through the 2000 season with the Richmond Braves before he was sent to a drug rehabilitation clinic in Atlanta.

We've always found the notion of someone being "addicted" to marijuana a perplexing one, though these monkeys would disagree. Winkelsas says that he sought his own treatment for marijuana addiction and ultimately kicked the habit while working as a garbageman in Buffalo. (This seems almost certain to end up as a Vincent Gallo movie.) A story about Winkelsas contains the following anecdote.

He can see himself coming home from another bar fight at 4 a.m. —- drunk, blood on his face. Bacon grease on the corner of his mouth from eating at a restaurant whose name he can't even remember. Hair all messed up. Drool everywhere.

That TOTALLY happened to us over Memorial Day. If that's wrong, we don't want to be right!

Dude, Where's My Glove? [That's Blogtastic]

(Oh, here's some other stoned ballplayers, if you're curious.)