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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > August > 04
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
For Julio Castillo — baseball or ball…and chain?
If, for just a second, you set aside that much-talked-about Rawlings baseball from a year ago, picked up a crystal ball and looked inside, what would you see?
What’s going to happen to Julio Castillo this afternoon in the courtroom of Judge Connie S. Price?
The Montgomery County Common Pleas judge will render her verdict on the former Peoria Chiefs pitcher who — in the early stages of a bench-clearing brawl with the Dayton Dragons 13 months ago — threw a baseball into the stands at Fifth Third Field and injured a fan.
Castillo was arrested and charged with two counts of felonious assault, each punishable by eight years in prison. The fan, 45-year old Chris McCarthy of Middletown, suffered a concussion, was treated at Miami Valley Hospital, released a few hours later and said he suffered headaches at home for the next nine days.
Since then, he has received a cash settlement from the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds, the parent clubs of the two minor league teams who were involved in the melee.
The three-day trail of the 22-year-old pitcher from the Dominican Republic was last month. Since Castillo waived the right to a jury trial, his fate is in the hands of Price.
In the days since the trial, everybody seems to have an opinion. I’ve talked to two local judges in the past few days who had very different ideas about what should happen to Castillo. One thought Castillo committed a felony, the other thought it was a misdemeanor — at best.
This afternoon Castillo can, among other things, be:
A. — convicted of one, or both, of the felonies.
B. — see the charge reduced and be convicted of a misdemeanor.
C. — be found not guilty of both charges.
My guess is B and I think that would be a reasonable compromise. If he were found guilty of say misdemeanor reckless assault, he could get a maximum 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. And if I were the judge I’d add a couple of other stipulations, as well.
But I don’t think he deserves eight years in prison, which would almost certainly follow with deportation, the end of his baseball career and what could still be a productive life.
And yet neither do I think he should not be made to shoulder responsibility for his actions, though everyone agrees he wasn’t trying to hit the fan and there is debate — the crux of the case — whether he was trying to hit a Dragons player or send a warning pitch to tell the on-charging Dayton players to get back into their dugout.
Castillo has paid some price already. He’s not been allowed to pitch for over a year and he paid some of McCarthy’s settlement out of his own shallow pockets.
Judge Price was going to issue a written verdict, then changed her mind and said she would announce her decision in court, with Castillo — who has been staying at the Cubs spring training complex in Arizona because he had to surrender his passport — present.
Her decision to have the pitcher here might well mean she’s going to find him guilty — of something. An innocent verdict — and his release — could have been handled in written form.
Regardless in a case has drawn such national interest, it’s probably better to do the whole thing face to face.
While McCarthy’s medical bills supposedly have been paid, Price should insist on a few other things from Castillo: A non-wiggle room probation, some kind of gratis work with people who have suffered head traumas, so he would learn, first hand, what can happen. And I’d make the Cubs — his employers the last five years since they signed him as an uneducated teen out of the Dominican — get him tutors or put him him in classes so he learns to read and write.
Right now, he can do neither — in Spanish or English. That’s inexcusable.
The Cubs certainly aren’t the only big league organization where this happens. You find guys like Castillo sprinkled all though the minor leagues, including over the years, the Dayton Dragon, who now, through the Reds. provide an English-as-a-second-language teacher for some bare-bones instruction, That’s a necessity because Major League teams sign young talent cheaply in the Caribbean and those kids give up on school, often to try to get their families out of poverty and always to chase that elusive dream.
Today Julio Castillo finds out where that dream is headed.
Will it include a baseball or a different ball? The one affixed to a chain.
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