NBC 5 sports anchor Newy Scruggs blogs on sports and other subjects.
I will be at the Parks Mall for the 6PM sportscast. I will be at the Barnes and Noble where Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton will be signing copies of his book Beyond Belief.
I have read the book and Josh goes into serious and disturbing detail of his cocaine use and his comeback to baseball and finding Jesus Christ.
The title is perfect and his story is very inspiring.
Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton was voted by his peers as the American League Outstanding Player in 2008
in the Players Choice Awards.
This could be a lead up to Hamilton possibly winning the A.L. MVP after the season.
“This guy must be crazy”, Josh Hamilton said about Milton Bradley before he met him.
Be honest, you probably thought the same thing from the ESPN clips on TV.
Today, Hamilton, a recovering drug addict, and Bradley are All Stars for the Texas Rangers. The New York Times has great read about their road to Yankee Stadium for the Midsummer Classic.
The guys call themselves the “Risk Brothers”. Hambone has become a media darling, a feel good story. Bradley is still seen as the angry black guy according to the Times:
He has become the heir to Dick Allen, Albert Belle and Barry Bonds as baseball’s brooding Public Enemy No. 1.
It is not lost on several Rangers that players like the former Yankee Paul O’Neill and managers like Earl Weaver, Billy Martin and Lou Piniella— all of whom are white — were labeled “fiery” and “intense” and celebrated for their tempestuousness. Piniella, who has disputed that image, nonetheless cashed in last year with a commercial in which he argues with an umpire and throws a base.
Several Rangers noted that Bradley was generally described as “volatile,” a pejorative they contend is used primarily with black players, rather than “fiery,” a compliment they say is often reserved for white men.
“If it was a white guy in his situation, what would they be saying?” Hamilton said. Reliever Eddie Guardado said, “We all know it’s there.”
Young added: “It’d be silly for anybody to say that race doesn’t play an issue. It would be a naïve outlook.”
This is a darn good story and I recommend you read it and watch the sitdown interview both players did. Click here.
Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton has a lot of fans back in Tampa. Despite letting the organization down with his admitted use of crack cocaine, he was never looked at as a bad guy.
Tonigtht he returns to Tropican Field in St. Pete, Florida. Hamilton was drafted #1 overall by the Rays in 1999. Former teammate Carl Crawford is happy to see him tearing it up in a Rangers uniform.
The Tampa Tribune picks it up from here:
ST. PETERSBURG – Tampa Bay LF Carl Crawford and Texas Rangers OF Josh Hamilton are forever linked in Rays history as the franchise’s top two picks in the 1999 draft.
Hamilton, the No. 1 overall pick, is set to play today against the Rays for the first time since he was selected by the Cubs and traded to the Reds in the 2006 Rule 5 draft. It will be Hamilton’s first game as a major-leaguer at Tropicana Field.
Crawford, the Rays’ second-round pick in ’99, is glad to see Hamilton, 27, excel after an offseason trade sent him to Texas. Having apparently overcome the drug and alcohol problems that cost him most of the 2002-06 seasons, Hamilton leads the majors in RBIs with 53 and is among the AL leaders in batting average at .333 and home runs with 12.
“It’s refreshing to see,” Crawford said. “Everybody’s happy for him. Wish he was over here.”
Crawford and Hamilton were minor-league teammates from 1999-01 at rookie ball Princeton, Single-A Charleston and Double-A Orlando. Injuries and the aforementioned substance-abuse problems derailed Hamilton, even as Crawford became a major-league All-Star and the face of the Rays franchise.
Still, Crawford said he’s not entirely surprised Hamilton has begun to fulfill the massive potential he showed in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
“I didn’t never really count him out, because I knew the talent that he had,” Crawford said. “I figured if he could ever get clean, if there was a person that could do it, he definitely was the one that you think could get it done, that could do it. You just always said that if he could get clean, who knows what could happen?”
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