While Boston slept
We get one of these about once a year, the jock-asleep-in-car-with-engine-running story. The most recent, of course, was St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, who fell asleep at the wheel at an intersection during spring training with his car in drive and his foot on the brake. He didn’t even wake up when police in Jupiter, Florida, tapped his window with their big, heavy, wake-up-you’re-under-arrest flashlights. LaRussa ended up failing a breathalyzer and entered his World Series title–defense season with a big swinging Yoke of Shame around his neck.

A similar fate befell one-time Detroit Lions linebacker Donte Curry, who fell asleep at the wheel in Covington, Georgia, in 2002. Curry also fell asleep with his foot on the brake and could not be woken up from outside the car. Police had to park an SUV in front of Curry’s car to prevent it from rolling into traffic; they then sent an officer in through the rear window to wake up the sleeping Lion. When finally roused, Curry said he thought he was in Milledgeville, Georgia, which is 60 miles away from Covington.

And there have been plenty of others. Remember Bruce Smith, Virginia Beach, 1997? Smith pioneered the famous “Sports Illustrated Defense,” in which one explains away being asleep at the wheel at an intersection at 6:30 am by claiming fatigue from posing for SI photographers the previous day. Police were later left to wonder why Smith didn’t fall asleep during the 18 holes of golf he played after the SI photo shoot.

This week’s culprit is none other than David Boston, the erstwhile former Cardinals/Chargers/Dolphins wideout with the huge bulging arms who turned out to be a steroid user with slightly smaller arms, then turned out to be a free-agent bust, then a terminal-injury case. After being released by Miami before the start of the 2006 season, Boston was attempting a comeback, this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Boston was found asleep at the wheel of his car at a Pinellas Park, Florida, intersection. When police woke him, he said he was on his way from Orlando to the Tampa International Airport. After a field sobriety test, Boston passed a breathalyzer, but the results of a urine test for drugs are not yet known.

Another busted DB
This week it’s South Carolina Gamecocks safety Emmanuel Cook, who got popped August 23 after police caught him in a car, near campus dormitories, with a pistol. It seems the gun belongs to a friend, a James Gore III, who was in the car with Cook and was seen to be “hiding something” when police approached the car and asked him to show his hands.

The car didn’t belong to Cook, either, but police nonetheless charged him with unlawful possession of a gun by someone under 21, leading to his immediate suspension from the team.

Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier, still sipping $14 Piña Coladas paid for by Dan Snyder, stood by Cook on Friday, saying “He’s a good young man and obviously was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” But the “Old Ballcoach” has had a tough run at South Carolina. Just a day before the Cook incident, Spurrier suspended three players — including starting quarterback Blake Wallace — for the team’s first game of the season because of poor summer-school attendance. A few years back, his team pioneered the laptop-theft-ring story. And Spurrier and the university administration recently became embroiled in a nasty dispute when the school cited academic reasons in its decision to refuse admittance to a pair of players the coach had recruited. “Academics? This is the SEC!” was more or less Spurrier’s response. The ensuing piss-fight garnered a tremendous amount of notoriety for the school.

But a good cigar . . .
We haven’t had one of these in a while. Arkansas defensive end Marcus Harrison was suspended indefinitely this past week after police arrested him for possession of a controlled substance, speeding, driving with a restricted driver’s license, and not wearing a seat belt. This basically was your boilerplate strong-odor-of-marijuana/SUV offense, with a couple of small twists.

One, Harrison admitted to having “one little pill” on him when he got busted. The pill turned out to be X.

Two, Harrison was busted for having “one partially smoked marijuana cigar” and “one unsmoked marijuana cigar” in his car. Which is pretty interesting, since we haven’t had a blunt arrest since . . . well, I’m not sure we ever have. Kudos to Harrison for being a “Sports Blotter” ground-breaker.

I’m loath to give any of our three criminals any points at all for this week’s arrests. Harrison caught a felony charge, but shouldn’t defensive linemen be allowed to do Ecstasy in college too? Just because they weigh 300 pounds, we should discriminate against them? He who is without sin, throw the first syringe full of anti-meningitis medication. . . .

The tally, then, remains as before.

When he’s not googling “sleeping DUIs” and “blunt drama,” Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached at M_Taibbi@yahoo.com .