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Brewers prospects given tour of Tent City
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Chad Robinson, a pitching prospect for the Milwaukee Brewers, is about to turn 21, but on Tuesday he got a dose of reality that will make him think twice about drinking too much when he celebrates.
SLIDESHOW: Brewers tour Tent City
Robinson and about 40 other prospects ranging in age from 17 to 22 took a tour of Tent City, the Maricopa County jail where convicted felons who are sentenced to up to year go to serve their time.
"It's really sinking in since I'm turning 21," Robinson said.
The Brewers, who played their Cactus League games for years in Chandler and are now in Maryvale, set up the tour for the impressionable young players, some of whom could be making big money in a few years. "You guys have a few beers and get pulled over, this is reality, this is reality in Arizona," said Frank Neville, the team's minor league medical coordinator.
The players are in town for a winter conditioning program where they work out for four hours in the morning and usually spend a few afternoons a week visiting hospitals, Boys and Girls Clubs or some other community service function.
The players, most of them baby-faced, walked through the jail in matching black sweat suits as inmates lounged on their metal cots wearing their black-and-white striped uniforms.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio struck up a conversation with a Spanish-speaking inmate, who told the players he was there for a month for having a tiny amount of cocaine.
Deputy Doug Matteson, a former professional hockey player who lost part of a leg four years ago when a drunken police officer crashed into his motorcycle on U.S. 60, gave the players advice about going to the clubs in Scottsdale and Tempe.
There are "professional socialites" whose main purpose is to start relationships with athletes and celebrities, he said.
He cautioned the players to be careful around strangers they're hanging with, because they may be carrying drugs.
If someone associating with a ballplayer is arrested, it will reflect badly on the player and team even if he didn't do anything wrong, Matteson said.
Valley police and judges aren't impressed by athletes either, Matteson said.
"If you got a 10-for-10 hitting streak, it doesn't matter," he said. "You'll get 10 days in Tent City."
Arpaio reminded the players that top athletes such as former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson have served time in Tent City.
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