Derek Lowe had a drinking problem, according to the Boston Red Sox. The Los Angeles Dodgers starter's agent, Scott Boras, told Lowe's now ex-wife Trinka that his alcoholic binges were the reason Lowe would not be resigned by the Red Sox, as revealed in his divorce deposition released Tuesday.
Derek Lowe also had a relationship problem. Already in an unhappy marriage, Lowe had an affair with then-married LA sports anchorwoman Carolyn Hughes. The two are now both divorced from their former spouses.
Put them together and it has been a pretty tough set of years for the two-time all-star.
You're not eating, you're not sleeping—the stress of the whole thing,\ Lowe said to ESPN. ""It was a tough situation. To add even more toughness to it is the way it was handled, the amount of people who knew about it.""
Now, Lowe seems to be in the middle of another piece of news blotter. In his divorce deposition, it was also revealed that Lowe has taken amphetamines to treat adult Attention Deficit Disorder for the past three years.
Amphetamines are banned by Major League Baseball, but this specific one—Adderal—has been prescribed to Lowe, thus giving him a ""therapeutic exemption"" from the league. Lowe was in fact prescribed with Ritalin back when he was with Boston by ex-BoSox doctor Bill Morgan.
So now we have an issue. Because the letters A-D-D are coming into play, you know that's going to spark controversy.
In a time where high school students diagnosed can get extra time on SATs and ACTs, the skepticism of these diagnoses has grown. There are those that are unconvinced of the criteria used and wonder what the true reason for an increased number of diagnoses has been. There are also those that believe ADD and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder to be a social construct, aimed to remove the blame from the real problem in a hectic life. Then there's the Church of Scientology, which is opposed to the field of psychiatry as a whole, calling ADD a hoax and just another way for psychiatrists to harm their patients.
There are many other factors that people who doubt the reality of ADD rely on. And many of them may be true. There actually may be many sets of parents pushing for their children's psychiatrists to diagnose them with ADD so they can get more time on the SATs and get into that Ivy League. But at the same time, there are many students whose one-subject notebooks are filled with notes from four different classes, who couldn't remember an appointment if you put a gun to their head and whose mind wanders even during their final exam. Those people do exist.
And that right there is where the coverage of Lowe's medication and diagnosis is troubling. In articles like the one written by Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa for the Boston Herald, the authors group Lowe's diagnosis in with all of his other tribulations in life. Under the headline ""How Lowe can he go? Derek's personal woes go public,"" Fee and Raposa put his relationship, alcohol and medical issues all in one basket. Let's hope that the rest of the American public would not do the same.
Still, I would recommend that you don't feel sorry for Lowe, but instead be impressed. Lowe's fastball doesn't reach 99 miles-per-hour. The Dodgers' opening day starter has managed to move up the ranks of baseball without power stuff. He has had to make headway using precision, care and attention to detail. And only in the last three years has Lowe been prescribed any medication.
In the summer before my sophomore year of high school, I was diagnosed with ADD. I only wish I had known sooner. And to me, that makes Lowe's journey even more impressive.
Sam Pepper is a junior majoring in political science. He can be reached for comment at sepepper@wisc.edu.
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