In Defense of Josh Hamilton: From One Addict to Another

This is how I imagined I looked when I played ball as a kid.

The sporting world's collective imagination was captured in a way only sports truly can capture it. Here was a former crackhead, heroine-addict and alcoholic, now on national TV on one of the biggest stages in baseball, absolutely tearing it up. Even people who didn't care about sports tuned in by the end of it, as the story that couldn't have been better if it were scripted entered its second act. Here was the sweetest and most effortless swing I'd seen since Ken Griffey Jr. was in his prime. Here was Josh Hamilton, hitting 28 of the 38 balls he swung at out of the yard at the 2008 Home Run Derby at the old Yankee Stadium. Here was the best story in sports.

Josh Hamilton was the best story in sports, but today, I think you'd find many people are unimpressed with Josh Hamilton. In fact, many are worried this is the end of his story. And here I am, to tell those people to shut up and leave him the fuck alone.



Hamilton entered major league baseball in the most conspicuous way possible: he was the first pick in the 1999 MLB Entry Draft. In most sports, that means being the first picked out of a few hundred. In baseball, that meant Hamilton was first of over 1500 players drafted. That stat is irrelevant, but the numbers are big. Anyhow, the sky was the limit and the signing bonus was over $3 million. In 2001, after two years progressing through the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' minor league system, Hamilton and his parents were in a car crash, and all of them were injured. Many argue that the accident was the start of Hamilton's addiction issues. Without going too far into details, Hamilton began using drugs and drinking heavily  When I say drugs, I mean real drugs. Heroine, cocaine, crack. All the shit that is way over the "maybe I'll try that for fun one day" line. This was a star athlete, who had millions of dollars, suddenly injured and unable to do his job or really anything else for that matter. That is no excuse, I'm sure Hamilton would say, but if you cannot see the dangerous possibilities there I don't know what to tell you.

He was in and out of rehab from 2001 to 2005.  In that time he was, by all accounts, a drug addict and an alcoholic. The only thing separating this former #1 pick and your average homeless person was the fact that he had a house. The accident-related injury didn't keep him out of the game long, but he was repeatedly fined and disciplined for violating baseball's substance abuse and personal conduct policies. By the end of 2005, he had been suspended for a total of three seasons. Then something clicked for Hamilton in October of 2005, and he was able to beat addiction enough to the point that he was finally was able to emerge and return to baseball. Now he was in the Cincinnati Reds' system. He stayed clean and worked hard, and by 2007 he was making his first appearance in the Big Show, having to wait 22 seconds for the standing ovation to end before he stepped into the box.

Sports fans love an underdog story. Underdogs who win are the Kobe beef of sports stories, the "best sex I've ever had" of sports stories. It is what we all seem to want to happen, all the time (unless that underdog is playing against your home team. Then, fuck the underdog.). America went bananas for Hamilton, who almost immediately was put on the Disabled List several times and was unable to mount any real momentum in 2007. But hey, he was clean and playing in the major leagues. I'd settle for either one of those things.

The next year Hamilton truly captured the American consciousness. He played an outstanding first half of the 2008 season, now with the Texas Rangers. By the All-Star break, he was statistically among the league's top hitters in almost every category. But being awesome at baseball during the regular season is not how you get everyone to watch and care.

This is how you get that done.

You need a big event, something that people who normally don't care about sports are watching. You need the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Olympics, the All-Star game. Josh Hamilton found himself in the perfect storm of national exposure when he hulked-out at the 2008 Home Run Derby. The Home Run Derby is baseball distilled to the part that non-fans want to see: huge guys hitting the ball as far as humans possibly can. Hamilton shattered the record by hitting 28 home runs in the first round. Sure, he only hit 8 more that day (36 home runs, aka 18 times the amount of home runs I hit in 15 years of playing organized baseball) and didn't win the Home Run Derby, but who really cares who win when Hamilton put on the best show? At one point he hit home runs on 13 consecutive swings. That's like scoring 13 goals on 13 consecutive shot attempts in hockey, or birdieing (seriously, how do you spell that?) 13 straight holes in golf. You're not on a roll, you're on the roll, and everyone else better stop what they're doing and watch. 7 of his 28 home runs flew more than 500 feet, while the average home run in baseball goes 396.3 ft.

He went on to lead the league in runs batted in (RBI) that year, and finished 7th in MVP balloting. He had a strong 2009 despite having a relapse involving alcohol, then in 2010 he had his best year yet at the age of 28, and was named American League MVP. It was a story that gave people fighting addiction everywhere hope. In 2010 and 2011, Hamilton led the Rangers to the World Series (losing to the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals, respectively). The team celebrated their significant wins by spraying the locker room with ginger ale rather than champagne out of respect for Hamilton's struggle. He is tested for drugs three times a week as part of a contract that he signed off on. The Rangers created the job of "accountability partner," which was a great euphemism for someone who was Josh's constant addiction coach and support system. It really was all so nice.

Then he had the 2009 relapse, drinking like a college freshman in Tempe, Arizone (whyyy?). Then, just yesterday, he slipped again. Jerry Narron, his accountability partner, had left for the Milwaukee Brewers by this point, and Hamilton was seen drinking in a bar in Texas. And it seems America may be souring on him. 

I know I'm just a smoker, but I wish my relapses looked like this.

 USA Today has wondered openly whether or not this relapse will cost Hamilton his ability to attract a long-term contract when he becomes a free agent after the 2012 season. His body is considered "high-mileage." My local radio talk show hosts took some shots, a few giving some version of the following statement: "I have no sympathy for the guy because this isn't the first time he's done this and why does he keep putting himself in these situations?" Well, unnamed talking heads, if you haven't been addicted to something (chocolate doesn't count) you need to hush. 

I'm not going to defend what Josh Hamilton did. I am, however, going to defend Josh Hamilton as a person. The man was alternately and/or concurrently addicted to heroin, crack, coke and booze. That is a hardcore addictive personality, and some serious ACTUAL addiction. Like beyond what people who are smokers can comprehend, beyond what even people who simply do a little blow at parties can understand.  That's four of the big five (if you told me he'd tried meth too, I wouldn't be surprised) addiction-boogeymen. Those are drugs that even most drug users consider bad news. 

When you are an addict, it is not something as simple as not doing what you're addicted to. Your brain becomes rewired to demand that you do that thing, smoke that cigarette, shoot up that smack. If you're Tiger Woods or David Duchovny, it demands you fuck a billion women just like any other rich man would. It makes you. You chemically need to do it, and there is simply no way around that other than using 100% of your strength NOT to. 

As a smoker, I don't need to engage the smoke-free engines 100% all the time. I do in those moments we know as cravings, but that's only a few times a day. Keeping in mind all of the stuff that Josh was addicted to is both more damaging and more physically addictive, I think two relapses in the 7 years since he re-emerged from his initial addictions is simply Hamilton being human. I have been smoke free for the past 12 days, but this isn't the first time. I've gone a week, a month and half a year without smoking, only to find myself lighting up at the slightest provocation. Even people who have kicked things like alcohol, like the internet humorist behind this link, have trouble quitting smoking on the first try. This is a fact that people accept. When I asked my doctor about one of those cessation pills that were originally anti-depressants, she wrote me a prescription, but not before she said "You know, it takes most people 5 or 6 tries to quit, so don't be hard on yourself if you relapse. It happens. You just gotta get back on the horse." My doctor said that to me. Quit smoking, but hey, if you fail once or twice, that's fine. You're human.

This motherfucker has no excuse. But also: that's adorable.

It is unreasonable and downright idiotic for us to expect our athletes to be anything but human beings, because...well...they're human beings. They happen to be bigger, stronger, faster or straight up more genetically gifted than the rest of us. But that doesn't maker their brains better at fighting addiction.

People can sit from on high (or on radio) and judge Josh Hamilton. They will, because he's a public figure who happens to have what is clearly a crippling addiction. It's easy to do that, and I would imagine it makes people feel better about themselves for having never become addicted to anything (besides internet porn, which is a universal male addiction). 

I don't think anyone would say they aren't rooting for Hamilton to get and stay sober, but part of what makes people go back to their vices is pressure and stress. The last time I quit smoking, I went a week then was told I had to leave Canada (where I'd been living for the better part of a decade) immediately. Bam, no more quitting. Hamilton already lives in a world of constant high stress and pressure. He is in an industry where he can lose his job if he stops performing, where he's constantly being evaluated by inferiors and superiors alike, where millions of people every day post on message boards about his merits as a ballplayer as if they have any idea whatsoever.

You want him to stay clean? Leave him alone.

Watch him play ball, cheer for him (unless you hate the Rangers, like me) and by all means, follow his story. I get why the media talks about it, but it's definitely not helping. Don't talk about it, don't bother him about it, don't bring it up. 

Love the game. Leave the player the fuck alone.