Our Crazy New Right Fielder
This may be old news for a couple of you, but J.D. Drew--the newest Red Sox right fielder--is a lunatic. Whatever, right? Any Dodger fan could have told you that. The scary part is, though, that he's not alone. Frighteningly not alone.
According to the article, he owes his dramatic turnaround in health (one that allowed him to play a career high 144 games last year...out of 162) to the Maker's Diet. It's a diet based on, yes, the Bible. Jesus was not just a carpenter, it seems. He was also a nutritionist.
Part of the diet is a specially branded energy drink called "Living Fuel." Drew drinks this before every game. You'd think the Sox medical staff would care what's in the stuff, but apparently if it's okay with Jesus it's okay with the Boston Red Sox.
Drew is also undergoing all sorts of treatments to "detoxify" his body. Any doctor will tell you that when a product claims to "detoxify" you in any way, it means you're about to be lied to. Nobody has defined what a body toxin is. Nobody can tell you what "releasing" them is supposed to do. You have as many toxins in your body as Scientologists have "thetans." They're imaginary. J.D. Drew spends a lot of time worrying about them.
Now, all of this is at the direction of a trainer who Drew met because he was looking for evidence connecting childhood vaccinations to autism. Drew was about to have a kid and, naturally, didn't want him to be autistic. Except that he was willing to withhold proven treatments to prevent disease on the basis of shaky, if nonexistent, medical evidence. Autism, bad. Rubella, fine.
She also has Drew in a hyperbaric chamber. The only way in which this wouldn't be absolutely crazy is if he missed 25 games in 2004 with the bends. And they have some sort of European electrical stimulation thing that might work...we'd know if anyone had ever bothered to clinically test it, which no one has.
So who cares, right? It's just another freaky ballplayer in a sea of them. I mean, is Drew any weirder than Wade Boggs and his fried chicken fetish? Probably not. The problem, though, is that Drew's trainers have other high profile athletes as clients. And they're all getting their medical advice filtered through religion.
There is no aspect of sports in this era that is not dominated by evangelical religion and NOBODY is talking about it. The vast majority of any Major League clubhouse is born again, and they band together to proselytize the minority and ostracize those who won't come along. Football, same thing.
Every interview is a shout-out to Jesus, every victory is his, every defeat a test of faith from him. I'm tired of it. Jesus doesn't give a low-flying fuck about who wins the NL West. (Neither, for that matter, does anyone else) He's not there to help Curt Schilling strike out another unbeliever, and he sure as shit isn't interested in J.D. Drew's shoulder problems.
You know who is, though? The team that pays him. The team that should be concerned that the person treating their $70 million investment is using a 2000 year old medical book. The team that should be telling these players that religion is a wonderful, comforting, useful thing that is uniquely personal for every human being--including the guys paying eight bucks for a beer in the fifty dollar bleacher seats. That while they may be born-again and view it as a spiritual imperative to spread the Word, nobody else wants to hear it. So shut up.
The Sox should do these things. So should every other team. It's long past time.
According to the article, he owes his dramatic turnaround in health (one that allowed him to play a career high 144 games last year...out of 162) to the Maker's Diet. It's a diet based on, yes, the Bible. Jesus was not just a carpenter, it seems. He was also a nutritionist.
Part of the diet is a specially branded energy drink called "Living Fuel." Drew drinks this before every game. You'd think the Sox medical staff would care what's in the stuff, but apparently if it's okay with Jesus it's okay with the Boston Red Sox.
Drew is also undergoing all sorts of treatments to "detoxify" his body. Any doctor will tell you that when a product claims to "detoxify" you in any way, it means you're about to be lied to. Nobody has defined what a body toxin is. Nobody can tell you what "releasing" them is supposed to do. You have as many toxins in your body as Scientologists have "thetans." They're imaginary. J.D. Drew spends a lot of time worrying about them.
Now, all of this is at the direction of a trainer who Drew met because he was looking for evidence connecting childhood vaccinations to autism. Drew was about to have a kid and, naturally, didn't want him to be autistic. Except that he was willing to withhold proven treatments to prevent disease on the basis of shaky, if nonexistent, medical evidence. Autism, bad. Rubella, fine.
She also has Drew in a hyperbaric chamber. The only way in which this wouldn't be absolutely crazy is if he missed 25 games in 2004 with the bends. And they have some sort of European electrical stimulation thing that might work...we'd know if anyone had ever bothered to clinically test it, which no one has.
So who cares, right? It's just another freaky ballplayer in a sea of them. I mean, is Drew any weirder than Wade Boggs and his fried chicken fetish? Probably not. The problem, though, is that Drew's trainers have other high profile athletes as clients. And they're all getting their medical advice filtered through religion.
There is no aspect of sports in this era that is not dominated by evangelical religion and NOBODY is talking about it. The vast majority of any Major League clubhouse is born again, and they band together to proselytize the minority and ostracize those who won't come along. Football, same thing.
Every interview is a shout-out to Jesus, every victory is his, every defeat a test of faith from him. I'm tired of it. Jesus doesn't give a low-flying fuck about who wins the NL West. (Neither, for that matter, does anyone else) He's not there to help Curt Schilling strike out another unbeliever, and he sure as shit isn't interested in J.D. Drew's shoulder problems.
You know who is, though? The team that pays him. The team that should be concerned that the person treating their $70 million investment is using a 2000 year old medical book. The team that should be telling these players that religion is a wonderful, comforting, useful thing that is uniquely personal for every human being--including the guys paying eight bucks for a beer in the fifty dollar bleacher seats. That while they may be born-again and view it as a spiritual imperative to spread the Word, nobody else wants to hear it. So shut up.
The Sox should do these things. So should every other team. It's long past time.
posted by Matthew at 4:08 PM
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