Josh Hamilton's Relapse is Not the End of the World

Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton admits to a drunken night this past January. 

What next?

I haven't actually been able to read many of the responses to Hamilton's recent admission that he became drunk one evening and was compromised in lewd photographs with women who were not his wife. I did come across an interesting question, however.

How come Josh Hamilton is not being treated with the same disdain that players such as the recently implicated David Ortiz?

The issue of race was postulated as a possible reason.

The fact that the most recent stars to have been named as using PEDs happen to be three Dominicans (Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, and Alex Rodriguez, who is basically a white guy anyway) is merely coincidental. I think the fact that Big Mac can't get into the Hall of Fame, despite the fact that he hasn't admitted to anything, speaks for itself.

Instead I suggest this: It's not the same thing. Groundbreaking, I know.

The legions of players who used performance-enhancing drugs did it to give themselves an advantage. They made the playing field uneven and gained stardom over some players who simply did it the right way.

It was shameful and terrible for baseball, and most of all it was unfair. It was done with selfish goals in mind without regard for any other player.

Josh Hamilton hurt himself. 

Josh Hamilton became addicted to drugs and alcohol before battling his way back to the big leagues, finding God and becoming sober in the process. Then, right when he had achieved Nirvana in baseball, he did what human beings tend to do—he messed up.

But he didn't play the game unfairly. He made the game more difficult for himself, not easier. So why are we acting like he acted out of the same self-centeredness that people like Barry Bonds did?

Josh Hamilton showed us that you can go from being a crack head—literally, addicted to crack—and not only salvage your life, but become a star.

It is so incredibly difficult to even recover from an addiction like that even when you're just going to go back to everyday activities. And it is so incredibly difficult to become a major leaguer, even when you have great natural abilities.

Yet Hamilton did both of those things, one after the other, and he managed to not only make it to the majors, but he managed to excel. Such amazing perseverance was worthy of our admiration. The entire nation agreed.

So how does this change that?

He still did what he did. He never, ever claimed that he would be forever sober—I once read an interview with him that said he still brought a buddy around to make sure he behaved.

Obviously Hamilton knew that after everything, he still couldn't be trusted. He was man enough to admit that he wasn't the Superman that we all made him out to be. He admitted that he could make mistakes, and he eventually did. 

And he made one mistake, and he immediately called upon his support system and his team, to alert them of his slip up. He has since said that he "wished it didn't happen." And he is beginning to play baseball at a high level of performance again.

To argue that Hamilton's behavior this winter affected his poor performance this season would simply be sophomoric—there is no logical way to draw a correlation there.

We can fault Hamilton for not sticking to his sobriety, because it truly is a shame. But he is not proud of it, and he owned up to his mistakes, unlike many of the players who tested positive for PEDs. 

And to argue that the general abuse of alcohol and the womanizing puts the same shameful taint on baseball as using performance enhancers is also ridiculous. Baseball has long, long had players who drank too much and even cheated on their wives regularly—and we still adored them.

And they came from an age in which the game of baseball itself was more pure and was something we wish we could emulate now.

We shouldn't be proud of these players' behaviors. I'm not. I do practice abstinence from drugs and alcohol.

Yet my favorite baseball player of all time is Mickey Mantle, who is very guilty of both of the vices I mentioned above.

From this day forward, Josh Hamilton is going to try to be sober again—and he may succeed or fail. But he never claimed to be anything he wouldn't be. He still accomplished something incredible. And he certainly shouldn't be treated as if he cheated the game we love.

I'll continue to wear my Josh Hamilton shirt.

I never needed him to be Superman, but he continues to inspire me anyway.