E.K. NATION

According to this artcle by SI's Franz Lidz, former Phillies catcher Darren Daulton has become a total fruitbat. Let's look at some nuggets, shall we?

"I've been thrown in jail five or six times," Daulton says from his home in Tampa. "Nicole thinks I'm crazy. She blames everything on drugs and drinking. But I don't take drugs and I'm not a drunk. Nicole just doesn't understand metaphysics."

Metaphysics? Ummm...we're at a loss. Care to delve deeper into this?

"I didn't have my first out-of-body experience until I was 35," he says. Curiously, the epiphany occurred at one of baseball's holiest shrines -- Wrigley Field. "I hit a line-drive just inside the third base line to help win a game," he recalls. "The strange thing was I didn't hit that ball. I never hit balls inside the third base line!"

He left the ballpark in tears. "I told my wife, 'It wasn't me who swung that bat! It wasn't me!'" he says. "She thought I was Looney Tunes." She's not alone.

Okay, we think we see where you're going with this, Dutch.

After Dutch retired from baseball in '97, things got surreal enough to be painted by Salvador Dali. He was arrested and put on probation for reckless and drunken-driving charges. He was arrested on a domestic-violence charge after a dispute with his second wife, Nicole, who has since filed for divorce.

In 2004, Daulton did a two-month stretch in Pinellas County Jail. He'd been found in contempt of court, stemming from a failure to comply with a court order issued in his and Nicole's divorce battle. He was sprung after agreeing to serve out the remainder of his six-month sentence in a drug-and-alcohol rehab program.

So we're guessing it wasn't you who did these things either, eh, Double-D? Uh-huh. And it wasn't us who predicted the Chiefs and Saints would play the Super Bowl two years ago; the ancient Mayans actually did that. We've taken note of your end-of-the-world proclamation, in conjunction with said Mayans, who believed the world would come to an end on December 21, 2012.

"On that day, at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, those who are ready to ascend will vanish from this plane of existence, like the crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek."

Daulton hopes to beat the rush. "I can't wait to disappear," he says. "I'd disappear today if I could."

Don't mind if ya do.