Chad Curtis was the 1,155th player chosen in the 1989 MLB Draft. Forty-fifth round. Three colleges. By any conventional measure, he had no business playing in the major leagues. He played for ten years. He won two World Series rings with the New York Yankees. He hit a walk-off home run in the 1999 World Series.

He also told Rod Carew, Hall of Famer, career .328 hitter, one of the most respected men in baseball, that he wasn't going to listen to him. He said the entire team had decided not to speak to Jim Gray after the Pete Rose interview, a claim every other Yankee immediately denied. He picked a fight in the Texas Rangers' weight room over a teammate's music. He used a Derek Jeter bench-clearing brawl as an opportunity to publicly lecture about teammate conduct. Every team he played for found the same thing: once Curtis got comfortable, the preaching started, the moral superiority came out, and his act wore out its welcome. He played for six teams in ten years.

After retiring in 2001, Curtis returned to West Michigan and began volunteering at Lakewood High School in Barry County, Michigan as a strength and conditioning trainer — with direct, unsupervised access to student athletes.

Between 2011 and 2012, prosecutors alleged Curtis used that access to sexually abuse multiple underage female students. He was arraigned in Barry County District Court on five counts of criminal sexual conduct. A sixth count was added in August 2012. At trial in August 2013, three of his victims testified. The jury convicted him on all six counts.

At sentencing, Curtis used his statement to blame his victims, profess his Christian faith, and suggest he and one of the victims could write a book together. Barry County Circuit Court Judge Amy McDowell sentenced him and stated from the bench that he was "a threat to any community you get into." Prosecutor Julie Pratt called his statement "the most selfish, self-serving, victim-blaming statement I've heard in my entire career as a prosecutor."

Curtis was sentenced to seven to fifteen years. He served the minimum, released September 22, 2020 at age 52. In the civil litigation that followed, four victims sued Lakewood Public Schools and settled for $575,000. A federal judge ordered Curtis to pay one victim $1.8 million in damages, a judgment he and his ex-wife Candace immediately began working to evade by transferring assets and filing for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy was denied.

Kevin and Jeff cover the full arc - the 45th round, the World Series rings, the clubhouse feuds, and everything that followed, and what the pattern running through all of it says about who Chad Curtis really was.

Note: The specific details of the crimes are a matter of public record but are not described in this episode out of respect for the victims, who were minors.

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Intro Music:
Music by Marching Music -Guide Right -By John Philip Sousa | Royalty-free Music - Pixabay

Outro Music:
Music by Marching Music -The Thunderer By John Philip Sousa | Royalty-free Music - Pixabay