Jacksonville Sentinel Baseball Czar, Michael “Mike-Mike” Michaelson

June 2^nd, 2034

You wouldn’t begrudge someone going through a divorce to be able to block out his ongoing struggles and perform his job with the same alacrity that he was known for prior. Surely, there must be some drop-off caused by the slowly unfolding disaster going on just behind the curtain of professionalism that a man would try to uphold.

My colleagues will gleefully recount when I went through my own divorce how I would show up in the same shirt three days in a row, reeking of stale cigarettes and that singular stench that one only acquires from hours at bars frequented by the lowly sort of degenerate gamblers and misty-eyed misanthropes that I called brothers. It is for that reason that we lowly divorcees must all now stare directly into the sun-cum-Superman that is Danny Burton and shrink at its mystifying and torturous glare. No longer can we use the general insouciance of a man going through a divorce as armor, for now we have the glorious and utterly annoying presence of Burton who, despite his ongoing and very public divorce proceedings is having one of his most successful seasons to date.

Through the first two months of the season, Hitman has swatted 14 homeruns and looks more akin to his 2029 MVP self than his more gracefully-ageing ’31-’33 persona.

So what gives? For a player of such renown as Burton to have such rotten misfortune while also returning to the club where he grew up is sure to illicit some interior tumult… and yet. Burton is currently leading the team in home runs, RBIs, OPS and slugging. He’s also earned the lion’s share of left field starts despite a promise to see-saw time between him and Mora.  He doesn’t even have to face lefties anymore thanks to the surprise ascension of Tetsu Hayagawa.

“I am embracing the struggle,” Burton said recently in one of his few talks with reporters. “My personal life is a little bit more exposed than I care to have it, but that’s my fault. I’ve come to peace with my past actions and am focused on being a better person than I have bene in the past. While I can’t change what I’ve done, I can control how I respond. My goal this year is to be the best player, the best dad, the best husband I can be for my family, my teammates and me.”

Coming up in PEBA, Burton was a fixture in the Jacksonville nightlife scene. That perception changed in 2022 when the phenom started dating and eventually married Sabine Aguillard-Burton. The once party boy settled into his new life and for a while, all seemed well in chez Burton, however, as is well known now, there was a familial rift that was caused largely by Burton’s star power and fame.

It seems as though there is reason to believe that Burton’s change is more than transitory. Word is that he speaks with his girls nightly and is making overtures at a reunion with Sabine. While we here in Florida hope for a reunion, he doesn’t have to be so goddamn smug about it.