I post the comment in a time of grief because it's realistic. I'm sorry, and I feel for everyone that knew Joe personally, and I wish nothing but the best for his family and friends. Steroids are exceedingly dangerous drugs, and this is a business where we're more or less casting doubt on everyone out there, from Bonds to Ryan Franklin and everyone in between.

I truly, truly want this to be something else, as awful as the result -- no matter the cause -- is. And I sincerely send my condolences to Joe's family and friends.

Now, frankly, if that doesn't cover what I'm saying, I'm sorry. It's the best I can do. Thanks, and best wishes.

A TYPICAL, DISGUSTING DISPLAY!

It's a dangerous, scary, and uncertain world out there.  Any one of us who leaves our house today could meet a tragic end.  It is the nature of this world and the lives we live: we are fragile, imperfect creatures who are both blessed and cursed with the cognitive ability to ponder our own mortality.

No one expects to die at 28 - of any cause.  Joe Kennedy was an athlete and we as fans assume that he took care of himself and was in good physical shape.  And yet, he died of an as yet unknown cause.  Sudden, shocking, and tragic, but it happened.  Everyone who is a fan of baseball mourns the loss of this guy no matter WHAT the cause of death.  

Now, that being said: everyone knows that baseball has a big problem with drugs, and to say otherwise is just sticking your head in the sand.  In the current climate of steroid scandals and congressional investigations, drugs as a cause of death lurked in the back of my mind as soon as I read the news.  Ken Caminiti's shocking death a few years ago was hopefully an aberration and not the norm, but there has been a precedent set.  

Of course, we as fans and spectators are far removed from any sort of autopsy process being performed on Joe Kennedy and we only know what the media tells us.  A quick google search turns up an article that says no one may know for sure for six or eight weeks.  ESPN.com reports that Kennedy may have had an enlarged heart.  However, nothing is certain.

Joe had a wife and a one-year-old child, and I am sure I am not alone in sending them my heartfelt sympathies.  Every article I have read has said that Joe was a really great guy, and I have no reason to doubt those claims.  Now, if the toxicology report comes back and says that he died of unnatural causes, will that change the fact that he was a great guy?  NO.

SC was just saying what many of us were thinking: in the current climate of scandal in baseball, I can't rule anything out.  No one is shitting on Joe Kennedy's grave.  There is a precedent.  Whatever Joe died of, his death is still the tragic death of an affable, ostensibly healthy young man.  

To all of you who take umbrage at SC for being honest and open with the community about his initial reaction to news of Kennedy's death, I have this to say:

Fuck off.

the back-and-forth is still going on on both those threads. if you were locked out i had nothing to do with it, and i doubt SC would do it. might be a weird cache thing or something....

It's just a question of arrogant self-entitlement against drunken limp-dicked self-loathing--DaBB