A Dilemma of Colonic Proportions

When Bartolo Colon hit his home run last month I got caught up in the hype and anticipated the release of his Topps NOW card the next day. I didn't actually purchase the card from Topps at full price, but once the print run was announced at 8,826 copies I was able to snag one from the many resellers on eBay at a discounted price. Colon's exploits with a bat and on the basepaths have become baseball legend in a blooper-reel kind of way, and that makes his record-setting (oldest pitcher to homer, oldest player to hit their first home run) knock interesting enough to garner a whole load of attention.

I generally have a low-to-no-tolerance policy for players who get popped for PED use. I hesitated to even order this card, because Bartolo Colon is one of the guys who's been suspended for PED violations. I don't really give Ryan Braun a pass (just as an example) and I probably won't give Dee Gordon a pass, either, but Colon's zaniness as a batter and his portly build pushed me to kind of look past his cheating. It's a double standard and I recognize that it is, but I can't explain fully why I let some guys off the hook and others I condemn for basically the rest of their careers. Maybe it is just a personality thing.

So of course as soon as I worked all that out in my mind and ordered the card, the news came out that Colon was being sued for being a deadbeat dad to a couple of kids. Well, heck. I could go either way on PED use, but I am a firm believer that you've got to take care of your kids. The lawsuit just alleges that he hasn't taken care of his kids, though, so I can't assume that he really hasn't taken care of those children, but it certainly raises a red flag. I imagine that the courts will keep whatever happens sealed and we won't know how this gets settled unless one party or the other wants us to know. In the end I guess it's none of my business, but until I hear otherwise my fandom of Bartolo Colon will be followed by an asterisk.