Chad David Curtis, born on November 6, 1968, is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1992 to 2001. Beyond his athletic career, Curtis's life has been marked by both professional achievements and serious legal issues.
Curtis played for several teams, including:
- California Angels
- Detroit Tigers
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Cleveland Indians
- New York Yankees
- Texas Rangers
He made his major-league debut in 1992. In 1993, Curtis hit .285 with six home runs and 59 runs batted in, but led the league with 24 times caught stealing. He also led all AL outfielders in errors, with nine. During his first season as a Tiger, Curtis hit .268 with 21 homers and 67 runs batted in, while leading the American League with 670 plate appearances. In 1997 with the Yankees, Curtis hit .291 with 12 home runs and 50 runs batted in. In 1998, Curtis hit .243 with 10 home runs and 56 runs batted in during the Yankees' 114-win regular season.
Curtis played all four games of the 1999 World Series in left field. He is best known for hitting a walk-off home run in Game 3 of the series against the Atlanta Braves; it was his second home run of the game.
On December 13, 1999, the Yankees traded Curtis to the Texas Rangers. During the 2000 season, Curtis became the first right-handed batter to hit a home run into the upper deck in right field at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. In 2001, he hit .252 with 3 home runs and 10 runs batted in just 38 games.
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Legal Issues and Conviction
During the 2010-11 school year, Curtis began substitute teaching and volunteering in the Lakewood Public Schools (Lake Odessa, Michigan) weight room. In 2013, Curtis was convicted of sexually assaulting three underage female students while he was employed at Lakewood High School in Lake Odessa, Michigan.
On August 16, Curtis was found guilty on all six counts, including third-degree criminal sexual conduct (a crime that involves sexual penetration). In an hour-long address to the court, Curtis accused all his victims of lying; he claimed that they made unwelcome sexual advances to him. The Barry County, Michigan Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor Pratt later stated that Curtis' sentencing statement "was the most selfish, self-serving, victim-blaming statement I've heard in my career as a prosecutor.
In a 2014 federal civil lawsuit filed against Curtis by his three victims in the criminal sexual conduct case and by a fourth Lakewood High School student accuser with similar claims, Curtis was found liable for battery against all four girls. A former Lakewood Public Schools board member who had started a group ministry with Curtis, Brian Potter, revealed for the first time in a 2015 deposition that Curtis had admitted to him in May 2012 that Curtis kissed one of the victims and had been "inappropriate".
In May 2018, a federal lawsuit was filed by one of Curtis' victims, claiming that Curtis transferred nearly all his money and assets to his ex-wife, Candace Curtis, in an effort to avoid court-ordered payouts to his victims.
The state appeals court affirmed the convictions and sentence of former Major League Baseball player Chad Curtis, who is in prison for sexual misconduct with teenage girls in western Michigan. But the appeals court, in a 3-0 decision released Friday, found nothing that would call for a new trial. The 46-year-old Curtis was eligible for parole in 2020. Curtis was out of prison after serving 7 years for sex assaults.
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Chad Curtis: Artist and Educator
Chad D. Curtis is also an artist and educator who is motivated by politics of the environment, land use, climate change and the evolution of these relationships over time. Visually, Curtis’s work references traditional notions of the sublime landscape and monumental beauty such as vast open spaces, the horizon, trees and mountains. These landscapes represent the very same desires that helped fuel the westward expansion and Manifest Destiny of the United States. In similar ways, digital technology is fueling a worldwide expansion with an equally devastating impact on humanity and the environment.
Through a range of processes and materials, including the intersection of traditional methods of making with digital fabrication, Curtis’s work consistently pushes the boundaries of craft-based practices, strengthening, challenging and redefining these traditions and helping forge a path for other artists to do the same. He is passionate about this identity and aims to grow it into a more inclusive and expansive space.
Current Artistic Endeavors
Chad Curtis is an artist, designer and technologist living and working in Philadelphia. Curtis’s work, drawing inspiration from from both digital technology and homebrew DIY makers, examines the effects of high technology on the relationship between human beings and the natural environment.
This work explores 3d printing with clay, utilizing iterative computer code to generate emergent structures that evoke the form and feeling of natural systems and biological growth. The abstract code doesn’t reveal its physical form until the printing process, resulting in a unique convergence of gravity and clay’s pliability with digital code, fusing technology and traditional materials.
Curtis now has a clay printing beast with approximately 30” x 30” of travel in the X and Y axis. With that complete, it’s time to get back to Grasshopper and code some new forms that expand and diversify the formal language. A lot of what I accomplished during this time is a deeper understanding of the code that creates these forms, and how to balance control and letting these forms be what they want to be. And the shift to the smaller scale was a magical discovery!
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3D Printed Drip Baseball Keychain | Edit Tutorial Using @AutodeskTinkercad
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