This story is a day old by now, but rest assured that it was current when Peter Segall — still America’s most trusted name in battery-by-special-teamers news — sent it along yesterday. I was too busy wrapping up week one of my new, quasi-serious NFL-related writing gig (click here to see me ape Jeff Johnson and not be edited very much) to get this posted in a timely fashion. Hopefully, no punter-on-paterfamilias violence will result from this oversight. This one incident, via ESPN, is more than enough:
The day after being cut by the New England Patriots, punter Danny Baugher (above) is alleged to have turned his anger and frustration on his 54-year-old father.
Baugher, released by the team on Aug. 29, has been charged with assaulting his father, Erle, in a fast-food parking lot at 4 a.m. on Aug. 30, police said.
Police said Danny Baugher, 23, was drunk at the time and told them that he “was released by the New England Patriots [Aug. 29] and he was not handling it very well,” according to a police report obtained by the Boston Herald…
According to the police report, a spat between father and son inside a vehicle escalated to the point where Danny Baugher punched Erle in the face. Erle Baugher declined medical treatment.
Officer Timothy Kane, responding to a 911 report of two men fighting, said Danny Baugher had “bloodshot glassy eyes, slurred and thick-tongued speech, as well as the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his breath.”
He described Baugher as “very evasive with his answers” and, when ordered out of the car, unable to keep his balance “due to high level of intoxication.”
It’s early, yet, in Baugher’s career, but it’s not too much to venture that he may someday be the punter who makes us forget about Todd Sauerbrun.
“Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be punters…”