Sometimes life conquers baseball

I live in the crack capital of the world. You can walk down K Street at any given part of the day and find dozens of crackheads loitering around, and no, I'm not talking about the hundreds of lobbyists who have offices there. Crackheads line the streets in a state of violent psychosis, thrashing out at whatever makebelieve phantoms cross their paths. One would think that just seeing what a person strung out on the stuff looks like would be enough to keep someone away from it. Apparently, that is not the case with Derek Bell, who was arrested Thursday for felony cocaine possession after being pulled over for a traffic violation, a hot crackpipe resting tragically on the seat next to him.

Bell played ten seasons with the Blue Jays, Padres, Mets, Pirates, and most noteably the Asstros. He had a career .276 batting average and could always be counted on to hit double figures in homers. His best year was with the '98 Asstros, where he played in 156 games and hit .314 with 22 homeruns, 108 RBI, and 111 runs scored. Bell quit baseball in 2001 at age 32 after two and some change mediocre years after that, leaving me to wonder what effect drugs played on ruining his career. What a shame.