Remember when independent-leaguer John C. Odom made headlines last May when he was traded away from the Calgary Vipers for ten baseball bats? Well, the bats are still around...A medical examiner said Odom’s death in Georgia in November at 26 was an accidental overdose from heroin, methamphetamine, the stimulant benzylpiperazine and alcohol. Odom’s death had drawn little notice until the start of spring training this year. Now, former teammates, managers and club officials keep asking a question for which there is no satisfying answer.
“I guarantee this trade thing really bothered him. That really worried me,” said Dan Shwam, who managed Odom last year on the Laredo Broncos of the United League. “I really believe, knowing his background, that this drove him back to the bottle, that it put him on the road to drugs again.” There’s a more drawn-out recounting about the ordeal on Salon, which mentions that Calgary didn’t even use the bats that they acquired for Odom, which - believe it or not - were purchased by Ripley’s for $10,000.
Odom’s family is still trying to exchange the corpse for 20 pounds of topsoil. Hey, those daffodil bulbs aren’t gonna plant themselves.
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