No news has been no news on the Jim Leyritz front for a while -- until tonight. Turns out a test of Leyritz's blood from the night he killed a woman when he was driving came back above the legal limit: .14. (The limit in Florida is .08.) What's even worse for Leyritz is that he was probably more intoxicated than his test says he was, as the test was given three hours after the collision, and his BAC had probably dwindled since the accident: The former catcher who retired eight years ago balked at breath and blood tests for alcohol tests even after learning that 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch died in the Dec. 28 wreck.The amount of alcohol in blood reaches its highest level about an hour after drinking.
A second blood test taken at 7:12 a.m., nearly four hours after the crash showed a .13 level.
So ... yeah. Given that math, Leyritz could well have been double the legal limit when he decided to get behind the wheel of a car. Not smart.
This is where we usually get all outraged and angry, and there's good reason for that, but I'll stick by my original position on this: It's incredibly sad, but not just for the family of the deceased. (Though that level of sadness is incomprehensible to me.) It's sad for Leyritz too, whose life -- though blood will still pump and lungs will still breathe -- is essentially over.
