Delmon Young has been arrested and is facing charges of battery after allegedly threatening and then attacking a valet attendant at the Viceroy hotel in Miami, Fla., according to Peter Burke of Miami Local 10 News. Citing a Miami police report, Burke writes that Young choked and threatened to kill the attendant after being denied entry into a closed nightclub. The attendant escaped and ran for help. Police went to Young’s condominium and described the former Major League outfielder, who answered the door half naked, as “unsteady on his feet” with “slurred speech.” He allegedly made ethnically charged comments to both the attendant and the police.
This isn’t the first bout of legal problems that Young, formerly the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft, has run into in recent years. Back in 2012 while playing for the Tigers, Young was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment, to which he eventually plead guilty, after tackling a man and shouting an anti-Semitic slur at a hotel in New York City.
Young, 30, has been in the Majors for parts of 10 seasons, splitting his time between the Rays (who drafted him), Twins, Tigers, Phillies and Orioles. Young, who is currently a free agent, spent parts of the past two seasons with the Orioles. He was released by Baltimore partway through the 2015 campaign and did not sign with a new organization.