Should DUI Be a Fireable Offense?

Dan McLaughlin

Before we get started, let’s try a poll.

Now, let’s talk about something else: baseball. You may not care about our “national pastime” (most Americans don’t) but in St. Louis it’s still a big deal. Any dad I run into undoubtedly knows the finer points.

This winter everyone’s talking about the fate of the team’s lead broadcaster, Dan McLaughlin, who’s been calling Cardinals games for a quarter century. It’s actually an incredibly prestigious job. Cardinals announcers often become legends, including Harry Caray, the much-revered Jack Buck, and Buck’s lesser (but better known) son Joe, he of the hair plugs addiction.

But it all came crashing down for McLaughlin last month when he was pulled over for weaving in his white BMW and cited for DUI.

A Creve Coeur police officer arrested McLaughlin around 6:30 p.m. Sunday on Interstate 270 near Ladue Road. He had slurred speech, glassy eyes, “intoxicants” on his breath and performed poorly on a field sobriety test…A homeowner also called police and said a man was parked outside his house, “not making sense.”

Almost immediately it was announced that McLaughlin, 48, would forfeit his job. He also lost a side gig announcing St. Louis University basketball games.

I blanched at this news for two reasons:

1) I really like McLaughlin. He’s very square and doesn’t employ the advanced statistics I prefer, but has an extraordinary gift for avoiding cliché, which is the most important thing a sportscaster can do. He’s also not annoyingly “homer.”

2) Should DUI be a fireable offense? I’ve been brewing on this for weeks now, and I’m torn.

After all, McLaughlin is already being punished for his crime. It’s his third DUI, and he’s charged with persistent driving while intoxicated, a felony. For his last DUI in 2011 he got two years probation. This charge carries a maximum sentence of four years, and he may have to do a short stint.

If it interferes with his broadcast duties then, absolutely, I can understand firing him. Same thing if he’s drinking at work, or getting sloppy on air. But by all accounts these things aren’t the problem; he’s completely professional and well liked. (And gets top ratings, to boot.)

Instead, McLaughlin seems to have been let go for moral reasons. Not just because he drove while intoxicated, but because he broke his promise to stay sober.

Ironically, even McLaughlin himself propagates this narrative. “This is as last-chance as it gets, absolutely,” McLaughlin said in 2012 following his last DUI, upon the announcement that he would keep his job. After the recent arrest he told the Post-Dispatch he was “deeply remorseful” and had “[n]o excuses.”

“I’m dealing with this and seeking the treatment that I need,” he wrote in a text message.

This narrative bothers me, the idea that McLaughlin failed. The subtext, and you don’t need to spend much time on Twitter to confirm this, is that he’s a bad person.

But he’s not a bad person. He’s an alcoholic. He went through treatment last time as well. If he falls off the wagon again, it will be unsurprising again. That’s the reality of alcohol addiction.

Another Cardinals hero, manager Tony La Russa, received a DUI in the 2007 offseason; on his first game back he got a standing ovation. He was pinched again in 2020 just before taking over as manager of the White Sox, but this revelation didn’t cost him his job, either. (One officer on the scene recognized him, noting: "This guy's like the Michael Jordan of baseball.")

Maybe, as Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan says, the third time is different, but why? Even if you believe that employers have an extra-judicial responsibility to punish employees for their failings, would this even help?

I seriously doubt it. You don’t need to be an addiction specialist to know the best way to help McLaughlin is to give him something to live for, something to fulfill him and occupy his time. Casting him out of the game he loves — the sport he’s dedicated his life to — likely won’t bode well for his sobriety.

People sympathetic to harm reduction believe employers should not drug test their employees. If someone’s problematic drug use affects their work, sure, there should be repercussions, but something humane, perhaps treatment.

Does the same principle apply here? I’m not sure. Maybe this is different. McLaughlin could have hurt or killed someone. I believe his license should absolutely be revoked, perhaps permanently. Maybe he needs to serve serious jail time.

But I dislike the idea that even after you’re square with the law, you still have to answer to your employer. It seems like double jeopardy. And for someone like McLaughlin, losing his career might be worse than prison.*

*I’m not saying that watching Cardinals games announced by Chip Carey, McLaughlin’s likely replacement, will also be worse than prison, but I’m not looking forward to it.

"I hope that people can look at me, the people who struggle with this disease every single minute of every single day, and say, 'If that guy could do it, I can, too,'“ McLaughlin said in 2011, as he was entering treatment. “I would want nothing more than to be a story of inspiration and hope for those who deal with this.”

My heart goes out to Dan, but that’s the wrong way to look at this. It’s great when people beat alcoholism and become inspirational figures. But many, perhaps most, don’t. And we, as a society, need to accept that, and learn to help chronic alcoholics manage their struggles.

There’s a way to do that without shame. What we’ve seen here, isn’t it.