Son of former Cardinal Tolan shot by cop

So I'm watching NBC Nightly News from earlier tonight on my DVR, and I see a flash of a grainy black and white baseball picture...and it's the Cardinals.

I wasn't paying all that much attention so I back it up. Pretty bizarre...

Turns out this kid in the Houston area, Robbie Tolan, a minor league outfielder with the Nationals' Hagerstown Suns as recently as 2007 and for the Bay Area Toros of the Continental League in 2008, finds himself in the hospital with a cop's bullet in his belly.

Robbie and his cousin - both black and unarmed - were driving an SUV a cop errantly believed was stolen through the predominantly white suburb of Bellaire, and after a confrontation in the driveway of the family home with the kid's mom, the cop shot him, according to the story.

With a white cop in a white suburb chasing black kids in a "stolen" SUV, racial profiling obviously comes to mind, and the community outcry has been growing all week. The cop is a 10-year veteran with an excellent record, but that's about all the police department is saying.

Robbie is in severe pain but expected to recover.

Now, with the Cardinals connection. Robbie's dad, Bobby Tolan, played in the majors from 1965 to 1979 mostly with the Cards, Reds and Padres.

That time included a spot on one of the best-ever Cards clubs, the 1967 World Champs.

In 1967, the elder Tolan recorded 265 at-bats playing in all the outfield spots. Tolan was younger than his son is today when he was traded to the Reds after the 1968 season for Vada Pinson.

Watch the story for yourself. (pardon the Herpes medicine commercial at the beginning... not my idea.)

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