Beer Blotter – Week of August 16, 2009
Nude drunk loses way in hotel
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – An extremely drunk, naked man lost his way at a New Zealand hotel and ended up sleeping in the wrong room, forcing its female occupant to hide in the bathroom, local media reported.
The 29 year-old Australian man had gone back the hotel in the resort town of Queenstown with a woman, but got up in the night and wandered into a bedroom where a couple were sleeping.
“He was a bit surprised that there were two people in his room and he was butt naked,” Sergeant Steve Watt of Queenstown police told the Southland Times.
As the intruder slept, the startled woman took refuge in the bathroom as her husband summoned hotel staff.
The man, who could not remember whom he had been with nor what room he had been in, and had no clothes or wallet.
Police gave him a ride home clad in a hotel bathrobe, but let him off after the guests and hotel decided not to press charges.
“It was far too funny,” said Watt.
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
Beer-thrower says frustration led him to misdeed
By Gerry Smith
Cubs fan Johnny Macchione, 21, was cited for battery and illegal conduct within a sports facility on Thursday after he threw beer on Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Shane Victorino during Wednesday night’s game between the Cubs and the Phillies at Wrigley Field in Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/MCT)
CHICAGO — The 21-year-old Cubs fan who threw a beer on a Philadelphia Phillies outfielder said Friday that he got caught up in the “heat of the moment” and hoped his actions would not taint the image of his beloved team.
“I am a true fan. I love the Cubs,” Johnny Macchione of Bartlett told the Chicago Tribune on Friday.
He said his decision to throw the beer on Shane Victorino on Wednesday night was not premeditated or encouraged by his friends. He partly blamed the move on frustration for how the Cubs were playing.
“No one said ‘Wouldn’t that be cool’ or ‘Hey, let’s do something crazy.’ It was just the heat of the moment,” he said. “It was just an impulse move. There’s no excuse for it.”
Seconds after the incident, security personnel escorted an innocent Cubs fan out of the bleachers. Macchione said the man was his friend’s cousin. He said he did not initially identify himself as the culprit because “I didn’t even know what was going on at the time.”
“I didn’t deny it,” he said. “Security just kind of whizzed past me and I saw them grab my buddy and I pointed and said, ‘It’s not him’ and they just dragged him out. We went down to get him. It wasn’t like I was making him take the fall.”
Macchione said he would like to apologize to Victorino. “I would like to give him my sincere apology,” he said. “I have no disrespect for him. I know what he means to the game. He’s a great player.”
Asking for forgiveness
Macchione also asked for the forgiveness of Cubs fans, who he said were “the greatest fans in the world,” and said he hoped his actions did not taint their image.
“I am one person out of millions of people,” he said. “It was one mistake. If I could take it back, I would.”
Macchione maintained he was not “heavily intoxicated” at the game. He said he has sat in the bleachers “on a consistent basis” for the last five or six years. He also said he had not heard yet whether he will suspended or banned from Wrigley Field.
He said he has learned a powerful lesson from the experience. “Every action has implications,” he said. “No matter how small at the time you think it may be, you never know who is there, who is watching and how it is going to unfold.”
Dan DeLaPaz, wrongly accused of throwing a beer on Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino, said his initial reaction to the ordeal was to laugh. Still, he said that was “hard to say” whether security saw him as the culprit for his chuckling.
“I don’t think that laughing per se should necessitate that ‘hey that was the guy that did it,’ considering other people around me were also laughing too,” DeLaPaz told David Kaplan on WGN on Friday night.
When he was apprehended, DeLaPaz said he wasn’t resisting, but was was “just raising my arms, saying, ‘it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, what’s going on?”‘
Security guards took him to a detainment area and “in their mind they thought that they had the right guy; like it was kind of ‘okay, we’re just getting the answers out of you but we also know that it was you,”‘ DeLaPaz said, adding he didn’t get the “benefit of the doubt” at that time.
“Everything was going through my mind. They’re emptying my pockets. They’re pretty much telling me that it is me as I’m telling them it’s not me,” he said.
When DeLaPaz was freed from detainment, he and the group of people with whom he went to the game – including Johnny Macchione – tried to enter Murphy’s. Some of the bouncers recognized him, DeLaPaz said, and they didn’t allow him to enter.
Though he was unsure whether Macchione was with the group at that point, DeLaPaz said Macchione later met up with them at Harry Caray’s in Wrigleyville. There, Macchione told him he threw the beer, DeLaPaz said.
“I believe he came out and then said ‘it was me,”‘ Delapaz said. “I was kind of more in shock and to be honest I couldn’t fully get mad yet because I didn’t realize the extent of what then would be to come in the next days.
I was so relieved that I was exonerated and let out of Wrigley that like, my wife’s not going to kill me and I can go home…the anger didn’t set in just yet.”
DeLaPaz said he “never could have imagined” the national publicity and his phone “ringing off the hook” over the course of the coming 48 hours.
Asked when he was going to Wrigley again, DeLaPaz said, “I’m hoping to go to the next series against the Mets, so we shall see.”
Moderate drinking ‘boosts bones’
Official advice says women should not drink more than two to three units a day
Women who drink moderate amounts of beer may be strengthening their bones, according to Spanish researchers.
Their study of almost 1,700 women, published in the journal Nutrition, found bone density was better in regular drinkers than non-drinkers.
But the team added that plant hormones in the beer rather than the alcohol may be responsible for the effects.
Experts urged caution, warning that drinking more than two units of alcohol a day was known to harm bone health.
Osteoporosis is a common problem for post-menopausal women, increasing the risk of disabling bone fractures later in life.
Further research
Scientists have been hunting for supplements which might help women maintain the strength of bones into old age.
The study authors, from the University of Extremadura in Caceres, said they did not recommend anyone drank beer to boost bone health, but said that ingredients of beer called phytoestrogens deserved further research.
They recruited volunteers with an average age of 48, and used ultrasound to measure the density of bones in their fingers.
The results were cross checked against factors such as their weight, age and alcohol use.
Women defined as “light” or “moderate” beer drinkers, covering consumption of up to 280 grams of alcohol a week – equivalent to up to five units a day, were found to have superior bone density to non-drinkers.
The findings echo those from earlier research projects, including one conducted at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, which suggested that drinking an average of eight units a week of alcohol could be beneficial.
However, experts were quick to point out that the line between a “healthy” dose of alcohol and a damaging one might be very fine.
Health concerns
At 35 units a week, the upper limit of the “moderate” alcohol consumption defined by the study is double the recommended maximum for women.
Dr Claire Bowring, of the UK’s National Osteoporosis Society, said that while the findings mirrored previous studies, it would not be recommending any woman to increase her alcohol consumption as a result.
“While low quantities of alcohol may appear to have bone density benefits, higher intakes have been shown to decrease bone strength, with an alcohol intake of more than two units per day actually increasing the risk of breaking a bone.
“There are also many other health concerns linked with alcohol which cannot be ignored.”
