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Rays fans now root for a player who killed a man and it is not clear why

This post is not about Andrew Bellatti. It is about Rays fans, but it needs some background before we get to that…

Andrew Bellatti

Tampa Bay Rays pitching prospect Andrew Bellatti was called up and made his Major League debut this weekend.

The move went mostly unnoticed even though it comes five years after Bellatti was convicted of vehicular manslaughter after he lost control of his car and killed another driver and seriously injured the driver’s son.

Bellatti had a history of driving recklessly according to testimony and details of the accident are ugly:

“According to testimony in a previous hearing, Bellatti was rushing his girlfriend to a high school basketball game when he lost control of his car, which crashed head-on into a van…Witnesses testified that they saw Bellatti’s Ford Mustang approach the Steele Canyon High campus at a high rate of speed, cross into the opposite left-turn lanes to avoid a car exiting the school parking lot, and return to his lane before the car spun out on rain-slick pavement.