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A Changed Man?

ELIJAH DUKES ON ELIJAH DUKES

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By CARTER GADDIS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 21, 2008

Updated: 02/21/2008 12:11 am

VIERA - Seemingly chastened, seemingly at peace with himself, former Rays outfielder Elijah Dukes said all the right things Wednesday in his first public comments since he was traded to the Washington Nationals.

With his 3-year-old son, Elijah Jr., frolicking in the back of the interview room at Space Coast Stadium, Dukes said it was bittersweet to hear on Dec. 3 he had been traded by the team that drafted him in the third round out of Hillsborough High in 2002.

"The good part of it was that I get the chance to get a clean slate," said Dukes, whose 2007 season was overshadowed by a much-publicized domestic dispute with his estranged wife, NiShea Dukes. "The bad part of it, I never want to leave a job with the negative behind. You always want to leave on a good note, and I didn't get that chance. That's the sad part about it."

Dukes, 23, whose indiscretions last year included allegedly threatening NiShea Dukes' life on a voice mail and sending a photograph of a gun to her cell phone, said that living and playing in his hometown was not an environment conducive to "finding himself."

"Being young and being at home," Dukes said, "is not a good thing if you're somebody that's not mature enough to handle these situations."

He could not, he said, fault the Rays for the way they handled him.

"I had good support from Tampa Bay," he said. "I've been trying to find myself for a long time. It's a shame that it happened, maybe, after the trade, more so than before the trade. But they gave me a lot of support, and as everybody knows, they gave me my chances. They put people in my way that could help me, but it was just finding myself."

It was, in fact, an offseason of self-discovery for Dukes. The Nationals hired a player assistance specialist, James Williams, to deal specifically with Dukes, who referred to Williams on Wednesday as a "second father."

Williams, Dukes said, came at him with "tough love." And that, Dukes said, was enough to help him see the light.

"I've been working on myself for a long time," he said. "I finally found that breakthrough, and from now on, you'll probably get a chance to see what the real Elijah Dukes is like."

Still, the Nationals understood the chance they took in trading for Dukes, who also was charged last year with marijuana possession and still has an open case involving an alleged violation of a domestic violence injunction, for which a disposition hearing is scheduled March 4 in Tampa.

Nationals president Stan Kasten said it was a conscious decision not to put Dukes into the spotlight until the start of spring training. With the spotlight on Wednesday, there was little doubt about the image the team wanted to portray: As the news conference broke up, Kasten suggested a father-son "photo op" with Dukes and Elijah Jr.

"We understood that the best way for this to work for the Nationals, for Elijah, was to do a number of different things on a number of different fronts," Kasten said. "One of the decisions we made was not to make him available to the media, and I take responsibility for the decision, with the thought that the things that we wanted to accomplish had the best chance of succeeding out of the glare of the media."

Dukes was asked Wednesday whether he had noticed a difference in his response to potentially explosive situations this past offseason.

"I have tests in my life every day, trying to raise my son and stuff like that," he said. "I had my issues, but I overcame them without being on the front page or behind bars or something. So, obviously I kind of dealt with my things the right way."

Dukes comes into spring training competing for playing time in the outfield with Lastings Milledge, Austin Kearns and Wily Mo Pena. General Manager Jim Bowden praised Dukes' performance in front of the cameras Wednesday as "phenomenal" and expressed optimism that his personal issues could be behind him.

"Everything that we've asked him to do in his personal life and his professional life, he has absolutely followed 100 percent," Bowden said. "Our plan is for him to continue to do that."

If not, Dukes acknowledged, he might have used up his last chance to make it in baseball.

"I always leave that up to God, but as far as getting it together and knowing that I have to get it together?" Dukes said. "Yes, I know I have to get it together now. But I never count myself out."

ELIJAH DUKES ON ELIJAH DUKES

Reporter Carter Gaddis can be reached at (813) 259-8291 or igaddis@tampatrib.com.

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