Texas Rangers Reliever Jeremy Jeffress Arrested For DWI
Texas Rangers reliever Jeremy Jeffress was placed on the restricted list after being arrested early Friday morning for allegedly driving while intoxicated. What punishment will he face from MLB?
The Texas Rangers are without right-hander Jeremy Jeffress, who was placed on the restricted list prior to Friday’s game. The reliever was arrested in Dallas early on Friday morning on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
According to the arrest warrant, Jeffress was spotted driving erratically just before 3:00 am by a patrol officer. The officer reported that Jeffress had bloodshot eyes, smelled of alcohol, and admitted consuming multiple drinks earlier in the night. In addition to failing field sobriety tests, he had a .115 blood-alcohol concentration.
The police report also stated that officers found a substance believed to be marijuana in the vehicle. Jeffress denied it was his, and was subsequently given a blood test to determine whether he had used the drug.
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
This is hardly the first time Jeffress has let poor decisions keep him off of the field. The former Brewers right-hander was suspended twice in the minors for testing positive for marijuana. In 2007, he served a 50-game suspension, and he was suspended 100 games in 2009. Had he tested positive again in the minors, he would have been issued a lifetime ban.
MLB players are not governed by the same rules concerning marijuana use due to the Joint Drug Agreement. In the past, the league has not suspended players who test positive or are convicted of using marijuana.
A player on the restricted list can only return with MLB’s approval, so there isn’t an exact timetable for Jeffress. He is likely to remain on the list until the results of his drug test are returned. The Star-Telegram reported that the 28-year-old had expressed regret for his actions, and the team indicated that they were both disappointed and concerned.
While most of the attention from MLB centers on a potential positive test result for Jeffress, their bigger concern should be his irresponsible decision to drive while under the influence of alcohol.
In recent years, MLB has lost several players to drunk driving accidents. Cardinals reliever Josh Hancock died after crashing his car while under the influence in 2007. Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver in 2009. St. Louis outfield phenom Oscar Taveras had a BAC of .287 – nearly six times the legal limit – when he crashed his car into a tree in the Dominican Republic in 2014, killing both himself and his girlfriend.
In all three instances, the clubs honored their lost teammates with patches, memorials and moments of silence. Adenhart was a tragic victim of someone else’s bad decision, but MLB honored the losses Taveras and Hancock equally. There was little evidence of condemnation of their actions. It seems ironic to wear patches for both an innocent player killed by a drunk driver, and a player who killed someone while driving drunk.
Jeffress didn’t hurt anyone while driving under the influence on Friday morning – but he easily could have. Nearly 10,000 people died in drunk driving accidents in 2014, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Over 1,500 of those deaths were passengers riding with a drunk driver. More than 2,000 of those killed were occupants in other vehicles or pedestrians.
Despite the seriousness of the crime, the Joint Drug Agreement does not address driving while intoxicated.
This leaves MLB all but powerless to argue for stronger discipline. The Players Association can simply point to past precedent, which puts punishment decisions in the hands of the team. In turn, teams have no incentive to issue harsh suspensions because it only penalizes their own organizations.
Next: Pirates Cole To Miss Monday Start
The question for MLB is what it will take for the league and the union to realize drunk driving is a serious offense. If the loss of their own players is not tragic enough to convince them, it’s hard to know what might. Until DWIs result in serious consequences, there will always be players like Jeffress who ignore the potential consequences of their decision to drink and drive.