Miguel Cabrera, Austin Kearns, Adam Kennedy, And Three Ways To Handle A DUI

There've been a handful of DUI cases so far in baseball this year. Three of them, to be precise, or at least three that I can think of. Obviously, there's Miguel Cabrera, who seemed to dominate headlines for a solid week and a half. There was Adam Kennedy, the news of which was strangely broken on TMZ, whose editors referred to him as "MLB Star Adam Kennedy". And today we found out about Austin Kearns, who was arrested on February 12th.

What these guys have in common is that they all had a bit too much to drink before getting behind the wheel, and then got busted for it. But what they don't have in common, though, is the way they each handled their arrests. Three baseball players, three DUIs, and three different ways of dealing with the problem. Those ways:

Miguel Cabrera: belligerence. Cabrera swore, asked the officers "Do you know who I am?" and drank scotch from the bottle.

Austin Kearns: sheepish bargaining. Kearns told the sheriff that he was a professional baseball player, and asked to be given a break.

Adam Kennedy: contrition. We don't know much about Kennedy's actual arrest, but pretty much immediately the next morning he phoned the team and all of the writers individually to explain what had happened and express his regret.

So the obvious follow-up is: which approach is the best? And if you learned anything from your parents, it should go without saying that the answer is Adam Kennedy's. Be up front, honest, and sincere about everything and you, too, may one day be forgiven for your failings and go on to compete for a bench job with the Seattle Mariners.