The Cruel Side Of Pro Sports

Americans love their professional sports. We like the highs of our chosen team winning and suffer the misery of that team losing. But that is not what I mean by the cruelty of pro sports. After all, when you think about it, even the players on the last place team are winners. They are paid enormous salaries to play a sport they love.

No, the cruelty I'm talking about rests with the many thousands of athletes whose dreams are never fulfilled. The ones who aren't quite good enough or lucky enough to make it to the pros. Some of these people shake it off and go on to lead productive and successful lives. Many others don't. Take for example John Odom (pictured above).

Odom was a walk-on (non-scholarship) pitcher who had a bit of success at his junior college. After a 9-3 season, he was drafted by the San Francisco Giants. He had a 90 mph fastball, a good curve and high hopes. But after four seasons in the Giants system, never higher than class A, he was released.

He was then signed by the minor league team in Calgary, and then his life took a real nosedive. It was discovered that he had a conviction for aggravated assault as a minor and couldn't enter Canada. The Calgary club decided to trade him to the Laredo Bronchos in South Texas. The two clubs couldn't work out a player for player deal, and Calgary didn't want to trade him for money (saying it would look like they had financial problems).

They wound up trading Odom's rights to Laredo for 10 maple baseball bats. Instantly, Odom became a national joke, and the ridiculous trade was covered by national media. No player had ever been traded for a few bats before (worth $665). He was nicknamed "bat man" or "bat boy".

He took it well for a while, even giving interviews to the media, but the end was near. Odom only started three games with the Laredo Bronchos -- the second of which was right here in Amarillo. The Amarillo appearance was a disaster. Here's how the AP described it:

"Then came a particularly bad night in Amarillo.

Baseball isn't always the warm and fuzzy game of "Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams." It can also be cruel and unforgiving.

On June 5 in Amarillo, the 'Batman' theme played while Odom warmed up for Laredo, and he tipped his cap to the sound booth. But he was battered for eight runs in 3 1-3 innings and mercilessly taunted by the crowd. Shwam (manager) went to the mound.

'The chants, the catcalls, they were terrible. I had to get him out of there for his own good. He was falling apart, right in front of our eyes,' Shwam said."

Odom pitched in one more game, and then quit the team. Six months later, he was dead. His death was due to an overdose of heroin, methamphetamine, benzylpiperazine and alcohol.

Laredo manager Dan Shwam said, "I guarantee this trade thing really bothered him. That really worried me. I really believe, knowing his background, that this drove him back to the bottle, that it put him on the road to drugs again."

Baseball and other pro sports can be cruel. But the cruelty is not with those who make it and lose some games (or even a lot of games). It is with the shattered lives and dreams of those who couldn't make it.