Former Rays/Nats OF Elijah Dukes is no stranger to the CSTB police blotter, however, he tells the Tampa Tribune’s Howard Altman — while plugging a forthcoming CD — that his sincere attempts to clean up the grand old game fell on deaf ears.
In several interviews, including one at his home and one at the studio, Dukes talked about how the police are out to get him, the difficulties of being a black athlete in Tampa and how he was “thrown under the bus” by Major League Baseball.
He says he was blackballed by baseball after he came forward last year with allegations that fellow ball players were smuggling drugs onto chartered aircraft, using drugs in hotel rooms after flights and how he would sometimes smoke marijuana before home games when he played for the Washington Nationals.
A cursory glance at Dukes’ subpar stats over the course of 3 partial big league seasons reveals… a player younger than Wily Mo Pena or Jeff Francoeur. And there you have it, the nicest thing anyone will write about Elijah Dukes. Until his album comes out, anyway.