A Baseball Hero's Greatest Comeback

Read this terrific piece from Fox Sports about our remarkable friend, Willie Mays Aikens. Willie, as my fellow baseball fans will know, made a name for himself by being the first ever player to hit multiple home runs in two games in the same World Series. Willie also made a name for himself another way – by being one of the first major league ballplayers convicted of drug use. He was later convicted and sentenced to serve 20 years for crack cocaine. Willie, who transformed himself while incarcerated, left prison in 2008 after serving 14 years, one of the beneficiaries of the Sentencing Commission’s decision to reduce crack cocaine sentences and make that reduction retroactive.

I met Willie when he came to Washington to participate in an event on Capitol Hill and we visited a congressional office together, where he told his story. This piece really captures Willie’s essence and journey. It also reminds me that many former prisoners, not so well known as Willie, who benefited from reduced sentences have gone on to reunite with family and work to build productive, useful lives. Which ought to tell our lawmakers something about excessive sentences for drug defendants. If the Commission had not lowered crack sentences for people like Willie, he’d still be in prison, not nurturing the next World Series aspirants.

Mary Price, the author of this post, is FAMM’s vice president and general counsel.