Luke Scott has Wacky Opinions, Sky Still Blue

Luke Scott has revealed his thoughts to David Brown of Yahoo Sports on a myriad of subjects: hunting, guns, politics, Mark Reynolds, Ted Nugent and...yeah, the birthplace of the sitting President of the United States.


DB: You don't think that Obama wasn't born in the United States, do you?


LS: He was not born here.


DB: [Sighs].


LS: That's my belief. I was born here. If someone accuses me of not being born here, I can go — within 10 minutes — to my filing cabinet and I can pick up my real birth certificate and I can go, "See? Look! Here it is. Here it is." The man has dodged everything. He dodges questions, he doesn't answer anything. And why? Because he's hiding something.


I'll use a variation of a fact I use a bunch when people get upset at the actions or words of a professional athlete: Hey, nobody said ballplayers had to be bright. These guys are paid to hit and catch a ball, they didn't go to college on academic scholarships. Many of them fit the stereotype of the dumb jock. So why would I hold them up to a higher standard than other dummies I meet in everyday life? My days of hero worship are long behind me.

Look, I'm not a gun owner but I don't disagree with many of Scott's assertions about the 2nd Amendment and he's correct about how human hunting helps balance out ecosystems. And being slavishly devoted to one side of the aisle or another? That's just America these days.

But the whole "Birther" thing? Well, that just means you're a big dummy. Or at least you have a really big blindspot when it comes to President Obama.

But I'm also not going to tell Luke Scott to "Shut up and play ball!" either. He has the right to his opinion and I hate it when athletes are villainized for being honest. That's why so many ballplayers come off as so vanilla these days. If nothing else, Scott's candor is refreshing and certainly entertaining.

And I'll still be pulling for him to put one a few on the Eutaw Street this season....