Sometime over the next 48 hours, a Major League Baseball team is almost certain to ask a convicted, admitted child molester to play in its organization. It’s likeliest to happen Tuesday, during Rounds 3 through 10 of the MLB draft, or perhaps Wednesday, over the draft’s final 30 rounds. And on the off-chance that the handful of teams with Luke Heimlich on their draft boards opt against selecting him, the chance that he goes unsigned is basically zero.
For more than a year now, teams have grappled with the idea of Heimlich. He is Oregon State’s ace and one of the best college pitchers in the nation; he is the signatory of a guilty plea to molesting a 6-year-old female relative when he was 15. He is a left-hander whose fastball tops out at 97 mph; he is an endless supply of bad headlines, treacherous questions and awful publicity. He is worthy of a second chance, with low recidivism rates for the crime to which he admitted; he now says that despite the guilty plea, he didn’t commit that crime, which only confuses the matter more.
Sports so often stumbles as it tries to strike the balance between talent and principle, and Heimlich’s case is no exception. His eventual signing will represent a clear value judgment: that his ability as a baseball player outweighs the moral quagmire of his actions and serves as an admission that the organization will embrace someone who in his guilty plea wrote “I admit that I had sexual contact” with a little girl.
His records were sealed on Aug 28, 2017. Why is he being referred to as a Convicted anything?
Isn’t this a libel headline?
BTW, he was passed up in all 40 rounds last year. If the MLB did it last year, then they can do it again this year, even though he doesn’t have a record nor is a registrant b/c his records were sealed and part of the program allowed him off the registry. Because his juvenile records were exposed (which they never should have been), all MLB franchise just see a child molester than someone who went through so many feats to get off the registry. Well, no one should have known any of that, to be honest.
Curious, since he’s a private citizen with no criminal background legally and the MLB is a private franchise, then isn’t the MLB subject to not discriminate against him?
These people gotta stop name calling people like that, especially to somebody that they don’t know.
Wow! I think I would seek legal advice! I believe Luke had his offense (sealed or expunged). He also no longer has to register! I would sue this writer! F him!
Luke was not drafted.