ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -In two weeks, Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton turned Yankee Stadium taunts of “Josh smokes crack” into awe-struck cries of “Ham-il-ton.”
The former No. 1 pick with the remarkable story of recovery from drug addiction did it with a dazzling display of power during the All-Star Home Run Derby. He lapped the field nearly four times in the first round with a record 28 homers Monday night.
Long before hitting 500-foot exhibition blasts or taking 95 RBIs into the All-Star break, Hamilton had just this sort of conversion in mind. He was prepared to tell his story – frequently, without growing weary of the questions – when he emerged from a three-year fog of drug and alcohol abuse.
It was one of the first things he and general manager Jon Daniels talked about a few days before last Christmas, when the Rangers were completing a trade with Cincinnati.
“He said, ‘Hey, I get it. I know the better I do and the better the team does, the bigger platform I’m going to have to deliver the message,”’ Daniels said.
The message: God spared him from self-destruction and gave him a second chance to prove that the Tampa Bay Rays weren’t crazy when they gave a high school kid a record signing bonus of more than $3.5 million in 1999.
Hamilton never played for Tampa, eventually getting banned from baseball for two years while he fought addiction and burned through all that cash. He emerged last year in Cincinnati, a $50,000 Rule 5 pickup who made the team by hitting .403 in spring training. After a solid 90-game season with the Reds, he came to Texas for pitcher Edinson Volquez, another first-time All-Star this year.
Two weeks before the All-Star break, Hamilton made his Yankee Stadium debut in right field for the Rangers, the perfect target for a tough crowd that spares no one. The sudden transformation this week illustrated just how big his platform could get.
“Obviously the better you are, the more people are going to listen. That’s the way the world is,” Hamilton said. “At the same time, if I wasn’t doing well, I’d still be talking about what God’s done in my life.”
Hamilton has told his story in each of his home stadiums in the major leagues. He did it last year in Cincinnati the day the Christian band Mercy Me played a concert at a Reds game.
Last month at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, the focus was completely on him and his wife, Katie, after a game against Oakland. About 1,000 fans sat in the lower home run porch in right field, the same place where many of them wait for home runs from the left-handed Hamilton during games.
Facing the crowd from a chair in the Rangers bullpen, Hamilton chronicled the basics: the life of a typical ballplaying teenager in Raleigh, N.C.; losing the stewardship of his parents in the minor leagues because his mom was hurt in a car wreck; getting injured himself, then starting to hang out at a tattoo parlor (he has 26 he’d like to get rid of).
His wife told of the helplessness trying to reverse Hamilton’s spiral, the separation she initiated because she feared for the safety of her and their daughter, the slow process of getting over the anger and frustration and learning to trust him again.
The turning point for Hamilton came in October 2005, after his grandmother confronted him in much the same way his wife and parents had before. It was different coming from her, and now he’s counting down to his three-year anniversary of sobriety.
“Everything I heard, she said again,” Hamilton told the crowd. “For some reason, God allowed my heart to open up that night and see my grandmother’s eyes cry and see that in her face. That’s what it took.”
ve a question. He just wanted to say he was a recovering addict inspired by Hamilton’s story.
“Where I’m coming from is no different than a lot of people that have gone through the same struggles,” Hamilton said after the man spoke. “It’s just that I’ve got the platform to be able to share what I’ve been through and how God brought me through it to hopefully inspire people that are going through the same things.”
His testimony seems to be resonating. A Dallas-area pastor referenced Hamilton’s saga in a sermon. A rock radio station deejay told his afternoon listeners about Hamilton – hours before the grand home run display in New York.
Dave Czesniuk, director of operations for Northeastern University’s Sport in Society in Boston, said one of his high school peer groups mentioned Hamilton as a role model in a discussion about ways to cut down steroid use and cheating in sports.
Imagine that. Hamilton as a role model.
“I think people are genuinely pulling for him,” said Jim Johnson, the pastor who used Hamilton to illustrate a biblical message of God delivering his people to freedom. “After my message, I got an e-mail from a guy who just hearing that message really confronted his own addiction and how he’s getting help. He came clean with his family and is now on his own road to recovery.”
The Rangers want to facilitate this rare combination of potential superstar and spokesman for addicts. Now they’re talking about bringing groups in for weekly sessions when Texas is at home after the All-Star break. Team president Nolan Ryan said part of the thinking is to manage the mounting requests for Hamilton’s time.
“He’s very strongly committed to sharing his word with people, but he has to do it around the other demands on his time and his schedule, so it’s a balancing act,” said Ryan, a Hall of Fame pitcher who is baseball’s leader in no-hitters and strikeouts.
Hamilton is entering his most challenging stretch professionally. He’s already played the most games of his career, and his 90-game run with the Reds last year came after playing just 15 games in four seasons. His home run production is off (outside the Home Run Derby, of course), and he says he hasn’t been happy with his swing for a month.
The 27-year-old father of two, with another child on the way, is undeterred when it comes to telling his story.
“Every day I get to do this,” he says, “I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
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AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report.
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