At home on Rangers
ARLINGTON, Texas -- When Josh Hamilton is introduced before tonight’s All-Star Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium, the reception he’ll receive will be humbling.
Oh, sure, the votes of the 3.7 million fans who wanted him in the American League’s starting lineup for Tuesday’s game were nice. As was the support of his peers, who gave Hamilton more All-Star votes than any other AL outfielder.
But the cheers Hamilton will be listening for most closely will come from the family section, where his wife, Katie, his parents and his in-laws will be sitting. Because they are the ones whom Hamilton pulled into his own private hell during a well-publicized four-year struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.
They are the ones who watched Hamilton’s once-powerful body wither to a scrawny 180 pounds. They are the ones who watched his considerable future and fortune waste away. And they are the ones who watched him, on more than one occasion, cheat death.
“We all know the dark rooms he’s been in,” said his manager, Ron Washington.
So tonight, Hamilton said, is for the people who were in those dark rooms with him, who know just how far he had to travel to get to Yankee Stadium.
“Everything I’ve been through, they’ve been through with me,” he said. “So for them to see me in Yankee Stadium in the All-Star game will be a great thing. It will be a little more emotional when the family is actually sitting in the stands.”
Nor is Hamilton the only Texas-sized story of triumph and redemption on the AL roster. Rangers teammate Milton Bradley, who has waged his own dark battles with a volatile temper and self-destructive personality during a nine-year big league career, was also chosen to the All-Star team by the league’s players and coaches.
“For Milton to be voted in by his peers, I’m sure, is a big thing for him,” said Rangers teammate Michael Young, a five-time All-Star. “To get some recognition, to be respected by his peers for the way he plays the game, I’m sure it really is a humbling, flattering thing for him.”
They make an odd couple: Hamilton, the square-jawed, soft-spoken white country boy from North Carolina and Bradley, the fiery, outgoing African American from Long Beach Poly High. But they are joined now in the heart of the Texas batting order, baseball’s most potent, where Hamilton, the majors’ RBI leader, hits third and Bradley, the AL leader in on-base and slugging percentage, bats fourth.
And they are linked in another, more profound way, since the two men, blessed with enormous talent and potential, seemed destined to let personal demons rob them of both.
For Hamilton, the top player taken in the 1999 draft, a sure-fire, can’t-miss, five-tool superstar in waiting, the haunting began in the spring of 2001 when injuries suffered in a traffic accident sidelined him for a month. Idled, bored and wealthy after signing for a record $3.96-million bonus with Tampa Bay, Hamilton soon fell in with the wrong crowd, who introduced him to alcohol and cocaine.
Soon he was failing drug tests, making frequent trips to the disabled list and even more frequent ones to rehab before finally being suspended from baseball for nearly two seasons. To get back he had to start over at the bottom, pulling weeds and cleaning bathrooms at an abandoned spring training facility in exchange for permission to work out there.
That was nearly three years ago, and Hamilton has been clean ever since -- proof of that being the 10 drug tests he takes each month.
“That’s a fight,” said the Angels’ Torii Hunter, whose father, Theotis, battled drug abuse. “All he has to do is start off with a beer. Then he wants to get another high and another high. And then you go to something different.”
The Reds took a chance on Hamilton last year and he rewarded them by batting .292 with 19 homers despite being limited to 90 games by injury. Then, four days before Christmas, Cincinnati traded him to Texas for pitcher Edinson Volquez and Hamilton has rewarded the Rangers with a first half in which he’s hit .310 with 21 homers and 95 RBIs.
Only four players in history have gone into the All-Star break with more RBIs. The fans rewarded Hamilton by voting him into the starting lineup for Tuesday’s All-Star game.
“It was emotional just as far as being happy and feeling a sense of release as far as where I’ve come from and where I am now,” said Hamilton, 27. “But at the same time I still want to show people what I can do.”
That’s all Bradley ever wanted as well. But if Hamilton succumbed to outside temptations, Bradley has mostly himself to blame for many of his problems.
“It’s hard to compare the two situations,” Washington said. “We all know Josh’s story. And to recover and do what he’s doing to keep himself together the way he has is huge. Milton is a different story.
“Milton’s problems are problems [of] a guy just trying to be a perfectionist. And there’s no perfection in the game of baseball. He blows up, people take it as if he’s being a difficult type of guy. But if Milton blows up, most of it is at Milton.”
If Milton blows up? Old Faithful hasn’t erupted as regularly as Bradley, which explains why Texas is his sixth organization in eight seasons, following stays with Montreal (where he was suspended for spitting gum at an umpire); Cleveland (where he battled with Manager Eric Wedge); the Dodgers (where he threw a water bottle into the stands, was investigated in domestic violence cases three times and was arrested for disorderly conduct); Oakland; and San Diego (where he tore up a knee while being restrained from charging an umpire).
And in half a season in Texas he’s already tried to confront a TV announcer who had some unflattering things to say about him.
In fairness to Bradley, though, it hasn’t always been his fault. In Los Angeles, for example, a fan threw the water bottle first, and no charges were filed in any of the domestic violence calls. And in the incident when he was with the Padres, it was umpire Mike Winters who was suspended for baiting Bradley.
Yet the perception that Bradley is out of control persists -- a perception he does little to counter by frequently refusing to speak to the media. He denied two requests to talk about his All-Star selection for this article.
“The people that don’t really know him and know what they read or know what they heard have prejudged him,” Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels said of Bradley, who was suspended twice and ordered into anger-management counseling sessions during his two seasons with the Dodgers. “You get a chance to be around this guy, he’s extremely articulate, extremely intelligent, extremely intense.
“We all know the issues he had in the past. But as far as we’re concerned, what he’s done in Texas has been outstanding.”
What he’s done is take a .316 batting average into the All-Star break despite being slowed by tendinitis in his left knee, an injury that could land him on the disabled list for the 13th time in his career. And with 19 homers and 57 RBIs, he’s on pace to shatter his career highs in both categories. He’s already equaled his career high in homers.
But what’s perhaps most impressive is that Bradley, 30, once considered poison in the clubhouse, has become a locker-room leader in Texas.
“He has nothing to apologize for,” Young said. “He’s a really popular guy in here. Everyone loves him.”
Bradley’s rehabilitation is apparently complete with the rest of the league as well, since it was his peers who voted him onto the AL roster for the All-Star game and Manager Terry Francona who added him to the starting lineup in place of the injured David Ortiz.
“You look at guys that get voted in every year by the players, those are the most respected guys in the game between the lines. And the fact that he was included in that does speak volumes,” said Daniels, who signed Bradley as a free agent nine days before trading for Hamilton. “I’m glad to see he’s finally getting his due.”
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The numbers
Career statistics for Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley.
BRADLEY
*--* Year G AVG. R HR RBI 2000 42 221 20 2 15 2001 77 223 22 1 19 2002 98 249 48 9 38 2003 101 321 61 10 56 2004 141 267 72 19 67 2005 75 290 49 13 38 2006 96 276 53 14 52 2007 61 306 37 13 37 2008 80 316 55 19 57 Totals 771 277 417 100 379 *--*
* Tore a knee ligament last September while being restrained by Padres Manager Bud Black during an altercation with umpire Mike Winters. Suspended for four games after throwing a bag of balls onto the field in 2004, when he was with the Dodgers. That September he slammed a bottle into the stands and was suspended for the rest of the season.
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HAMILTON
*--* Year G AVG. R HR RBI 2007 90 292 52 19 47 2008 93 310 60 21 95 Totals 183 302 112 40 142 *--*
* First overall pick in the 1999 draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Because of failed drug tests and numerous rehab attempts, Hamilton didn’t play baseball from 2002-06. He won a spot on the Reds’ opening-day roster in 2007. He was traded to Texas in December.
