Elijah Dukes had all of the expertise on the planet. Legendary supervisor Joe Maddon as soon as in contrast him to Albert Pujols. Nonetheless, there was an issue, Dukes was a complete head case. That was how he received to the Nationals within the first place. In a Vice article, he was dubbed the Mozart of assholes. The Rays had sufficient of him, and dumped him to the Nationals for a low degree prospect. It was time for Nats followers to buckle up for one heck of a experience.
Together with his dad in jail, and his mother hooked on medicine, Dukes didn’t get the steerage he wanted as a baby, and that confirmed itself in his grownup life. When he wasn’t getting in bother, he was among the best prospects in baseball. That’s the reason the Nationals took the drastic step of hiring a former police officer to take care of the younger slugger.
In 2008, Dukes was truly fairly productive when he was wholesome. The mercurial slugger posted an .864 OPS and 13 dwelling runs in simply 81 video games. Apart from Ryan Zimmerman, there was an argument that Dukes was the very best participant on the 2008 group. It seemed just like the Nationals had discovered one thing.
Nonetheless, after declining manufacturing and an incident with Nationals supervisor Manny Acta, Dukes was let go following the 2009 season. After the Nats, Dukes fell again into outdated habits and had a lot of run ins with the legislation, together with when he tried to eat marijuana after being caught by the cops possessing it.
Whereas Dukes gave off unfastened cannon vibes in DC, we truly received the least loopy model of Dukes. As we rejoice the Nationals twentieth anniversery, we are going to look again at a number of the extra colourful characters in Nationals historical past. It solely felt proper to begin off with the top case that was Elijah Dukes.
