Hometown tabloid

Normally the St. Louis media are known for what they don't report about the crown princes who wear the city's uniforms. Crash a rented SUV into a tow truck, however, and all unspoken pacts are off. The tragedy-tainment business trumps all locker room agreements. From today's Post, a solid paragraph of innuendo disguised as news:

Three days earlier, Hancock had a close call when his vehicle edged several inches into the intersection of Yellow Brick Road and Illinois Route 3. A Sauget police spokesman said Monday that a tractor-trailer struck Hancock's GMC Denali, tearing off the vehicle's front bumper. "Just another inch or so and he could have died two days earlier, because that tractor-trailer was traveling about 45 to 50 miles per hour," according to Sauget Police Chief Patrick Delaney.Neither Hancock nor the truck's driver was injured, and Hancock was not ticketed."He apparently inched forward to get ready to make a left-hand turn to go northbound on Route 3. I don't know if he didn't realize the front of his vehicle had just inched enough onto the southbound roadway," Delaney said.The accident occurred at 5:30 a.m., less than five hours before the Cardinals were due to arrive at Busch Stadium for a 12:10 start against the Cincinnati Reds

I should point out that there's absolutely nothing Hancock could have been doing at that intersection at any time of the day except heading home from a club, either one with strippers or without, but it's a path so well worn that there must be a four-color brochure enclosed with every major league contract that's signed in the region. Nothing more newsworthy than a rich twenty-something single guy out on the seedy side of town, unless it's securing a consultation with the international accident reconstruction expert Patrick Delaney, Sauget Police Chief, who can predict, down to the inch, what could happen in a crash that would be such a better story than the one that actually happened. The real crash, remember, had no tickets and no injuries. But it could have! And what if he had needed to pitch?!

Why is it that I feel as great a need to wash my hands now as if I had actually gone to the Hustler Club?