Firing of Campanis Ends 46 Years of Service to Baseball

I just don’t get it. Professional baseball athletes, i.e., Steve Howe, Vida Blue, LaMarr Hoyt, Alan Wiggins, Dwight Gooden, etc., can all be diagnosed as drug abusers and still be given a second chance to stay in baseball. The players admit to having been a “member” of this society’s worst element and yet baseball still keeps a place for them.

Al Campanis devotes three-quarters of his life to baseball with an unblemished record and, lo and behold, he suffers a 60-second lapse of tactfulness and for this is told baseball has no place for him.

What in the hell is going on? Something is terribly wrong. I’m trying to make sense of this.

James Lofton is accused--not once, but twice!--of sexual assault. And here the Raiders and 49ers are trying to negotiate a trade to acquire Lofton. They want him.

Campanis slips and says the wrong thing, for which he apologized later, and the verdict is banishment from baseball. I just don’t get it.

P.J. PADILLA

Escondido