quote goes missing
Are you wondering what happened to the quote from Elijah Dukes’ mother that was in Wednesday’s St. Petersburg Times but was missing from a similar story on the paper’s website Wednesday afternoon?
It 
was apparently so inflammatory that the paper took it out of the web version and limited comments on the site because it was getting so much traffic.
I can understand why the Times made the decision.
Dukes, as most know, is the bad-boy Devil Ray who has a history of run-ins with law enforcement and women.
In the latest “Oh, for crying out loud” story about the rookie, Dukes has allegedly fathered yet another child, this time with a 17-year-old girl who was at the time in foster care with his step-grandmother. If he is indeed the father, this would make at least six children with five women since 2003.
He will not be prosecuted for having sex with a minor because she was 17 and the sex was consensual.
All of that is bad enough.
Dukes and the Devil Rays haven’t said much since the story broke. But Dukes’ mother apparently had plenty to say. She’s quoted in the Wednesday Times newspaper - the quote apparently removed from the website - as being skeptical about the motives of the women who have had children by her son. This is the deleted quote:
“Every time one of those (whores) lays down with my baby, they end up pregnant,” she is quoted as saying. “That’s right. And I’m tired of them.”
Well how about that?
I certainly don’t believe that women are always victims. I think some likely do have sex with a guy in hopes he will stay with her. She may think that having a baby will increase the likelihood of a long term relationship. Of course, we know that isn’t true. Just see Dukes, Elijah.
But, it isn’t as if any of these women held a gun to Dukes’ head and said, “Elijah, impregnate me.” Save that, was poor Elijah never filled in about the birds and the bees? Didn’t he know that sex leads to pregnancy? And babies? Didn’t anyone tell him to just say no? Or keep it zipped? Or take a cold shower. Or think of England. Or wear protection?
Or was he raised to believe that because he’s a talented athlete, he should have everything and everyone at his beck and call - without suffering any consequences?
And, by the way, why is he still a Devil Ray?
For more unanswerable questions go to www.judyhillonline.com
Tags: newspapers, online, sports, tampa
Loading ...
June 13th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I wonder if they will sell the paper at the game tonight, or pull them out of circulation again.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Elijah’s mother is insinuating that all these women are baseball groupies who hope to land the golden goose? I wonder if she believes the Cops specifically have a vendetta against him too and have him staked out specifically to catch him in the act?
The Times has a tendance lately to go for the tabloid type stories that will sell papers (which I do not care for) such as Steve / Susan Stanton and various other stories over the course of the last year that now escape from my mind. Dukes is a continuation of it but removal of that quote due to it’s inflamatory nature was a wise call. Now if they only realized the story didn’t deserve to be on Tampabay.com’s front page to begin with…
June 13th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
What?!? Trusted newsmedia scrub inflammatory passages from their coverage?
June 13th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
ahem….it isnt a ‘long term relationship’ these baseball groupies want. it’s the prospect of getting rich off an athlete everyone assumes is a millionaire. it’s been going on in mlb for decades….
June 13th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I wonder if Dukes sends these women that he has fathered a child with enough money to support them? That’s a real story. His contract with the Rays should state that a certain amount of money should go to these women. If he continues to become a father every 5 months, he will become the first baseball player to live under the poverty line. Some people never grow up, some are never shown how to.
June 14th, 2007 at 10:54 am
[...] Hill on the missing Times quote in the Elijah Dukes online [...]
June 14th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I felt sad for Dukes’ mom, who has her head in the sand … she was calling the mothers of her grandchildren whores.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:43 am
[...] Now this month, on the same day that Sue Carlton begs the city of St. Pete to make sure they allow all viewpoints including divisive speech, her employer, the St. Pete Times deleted portions of another story on Dukes and cut off online comments. [...]
June 21st, 2007 at 7:09 am
[...] And you already know that his mom said she is tired of all the ho’s coming around. [...]