It would have been a great analogy to relate the tremendous baseball pennant races to the courtroom battle between batshit crazy Devil Rays outfielder Elijah Dukes and his wife, but alas, the combative couple seem to be near a reconciliation. The St. Petersburg Times, which has feverishly been covering this case with the verve of a New York tabloid, nearly brought a tear to our jaded (and lazy) eye with this update:

The frustrated Devil Rays player broke down in tears and told Hillsborough Circuit Judge J. Kevin Carey he no longer wanted to fight NiShea Gilbert for custody of their two children.

As Carey urged the pair instead to continue working on an agreement for “joint parenting,” Gilbert said she no longer feared Dukes would harm their children and asked that a domestic violation injunction barring him from seeing them be dropped.

They can talk on the phone again! As chipper as this story is, can we look to the bigger picture? The Miami Herald (LeBatard, please pass this along to whoever is captaining that ship) had better be all over the Shaq divorce in a similar manner. While Shaq doesn’t bring the crazy nearly as well as Dukes, his divorce is a story that absolutely must be told.

Teary Dukes, wife move toward compromise (St. Pete Times)