Elijah Dukes embarks on rap career, admits to smoking weed before Nats games. Meet Fly Eli?

(Also worth noting: Elijah Dukes admitted to smoking weed before Nats home games? Screengrab via TampaBay Online.)

"Most of the guys carried [their weed] in their little man purses. You know I never did. Most of the guys carried their little man purses. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, you know."
(Elijah Dukes, via TBO.com, 2/12/2011)

This time last year, Elijah Dukes was getting ready to drive from his home outside Tampa to Viera for Spring Training with the Nationals, a starting job in right field seemingly his for the taking. We all know how that ended.

Now, a year later: according to a report by Howard Altman of The Tampa Tribune, Elijah Dukes has reinvented himself as a rapper. Meet Fly Eli:

Fly Eli, who wants to make a name for himself as a rapper, stands in front of the microphone in the little studio off 40th Street and belts out lyrics about women and booze and clubs. ...

"Life is our hook," says Fly Eli, better known as Elijah Dukes to baseball fans and those who knew him when he was a hot shot athlete growing up in Tampa. "What we see is what you get."
(via TBO.com, 2/11/2011)

But the rap career is the least interesting part of the story. Drum roll, please:

He says he was blackballed by baseball after he came forward last year with allegations that fellow ball players were smuggling drugs onto chartered aircraft, using drugs in hotel rooms after flights and how he would sometimes smoke marijuana before home games when he played for the Washington Nationals.
(via TBO.com, 2/11/2011)

So THAT'S why Mike Rizzo released Dukes! Now it all adds up! Smoking pot before Nats home games! Another bizarre, sad chapter in the Elijah Dukes story unfolds...

The videos accompanying the complete Tampa Tribune piece are must-see-TV. So, just who were these Nats players Dukes saw smoking pot and filling their man purses full of cocaine?

"Sometimes I smoked before the home games or whatever, but only in the big leagues," he says. "I was just going along with the motions, started being myself. I was going along with it. Peer pressure. You are looking up to guys and at the same time these guys are saying, 'Hit some of this.'"

"But guys smoke," he says. "That's why they don't test for marijuana.''

Dukes says he saw other ballplayers, whom he will not name, bring drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, onto chartered flights.
(via TBO.com, 2/12/2011)

Fantastic. And to cap it off, a little video of Fly Eli in all his glory, via @kevinreiss:

 

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Comments

[Section138]

The guy was baked out of his skull at the January 2009 open house at Nats Park. I have this picture printed out and staring at me at work. I *love* it. http://twitpic.com/3yqzrd

[Anonymouse]

Never understood why the Nationals released Dukes last year so suddenly. And now I do.

[The Nationals Enquirer]

Yeah Anonymouse, it never ever ever made sense, and nobody ever reported about what really happened. It was just accepted as a "baseball decision", as Mike Rizzo put it. Now it all adds up.

[The Nationals Enquirer]

@Section138 wow...well...

[Devon & His 1982 Topps blog]

This could be a story on the Onion titled something like "Pot Smoking Rich Former Baseball Player Thinks Drugs Were Unrelated To His Downfall -- Now Raps Like He's From The Street"

[jason]

Can you really blame the guy for getting stoned before Nats games? As a fan, I try to drink as much as I can to numb the pain.

[anon]

I could tell you two names of guys he saw smuggling pot and coke, but then I'd have to send you a text of a gun then come shoot you.

[section10001]

Dunno, just kinda makes me sad reading all this Dukes stuff. All the talent in the world, but just a messed up dude. Just hope for the best for him and maybe more importantly his kids.

[The Nationals Enquirer]

@section10001: yes.