Devil of a Comeback: How Josh Hamilton Got Saved in Cincinnati

I've seen this show before. It's called Damn Yankees.

The Cincinnati Reds are playing the part of the Washington Senators: Jerry Narron as softhearted manager Benny Van Buren...and introducing Josh Hamilton as Joe Hardy.

This could only be better if Jackin' Josh was playing center field for the Nationals.

Before this year, you couldn't find Hamilton in the Sporting News Baseball Register or on baseball-reference.com.

Before last year, you couldn't even find him on a baseball diamond.

Given his well-documented troubles with booze and drugs, you'd most likely have found him in a stupor.

Picked number one in the nation out of Athens Drive High School in Garner, NC, by the cursed but aptly-named Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999, Hamilton was out of baseball for the 2003 through 2005 seasons. The scourge of addiction put Hamilton on the DL—which in his case might be inverted initials for lost and delirious.

Blessed with baseball talents from the gods, Hamilton's demons kept him out of the game.

But three weeks into the 2007 season, Hamilton is crushing the ball, homering almost nightly, and forcing established Reds players into new positions and to the bench. He's a one-man Big Red Machine.

Through Thursday, he had hit five homers, knocked in 11 runs, and logged a .333 batting average to go along with a .900 slugging percentage.

Hamilton was a long shot at best to make the Reds after Cincinnati acquired him from the Cubs, who'd plucked him from the Devil Rays in the Rule 5 Draft. But he slugged his way through Spring Training and made the club, then homered as a pinch hitter on April 10 before going yard again in his first start the next day.

This week he homered Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It hasn't been like this for Hamilton in a long time. An eternity, it must seem like to him.    

After four injury-filled minor league seasons in the Tampa system, Hamilton disappeared shortly after being optioned back to the minors in March 2003. Six weeks later, he showed up again and refused to talk about his absence, except to call it "personal."

Asked if he could ever be the player he was projected to be, the man with at least 26 tattoos said, "I am still that player."

But it took three years of rehab, relapse, injuries, and arrest and paternity problems before his temporary reinstatement last June. After playing 15 games, he underwent arthroscopic surgery and missed the rest of 2006.

When the Reds nabbed him from the Cubs (an irony for another day), Hamilton began meeting with Narron for twice-weekly workouts in Smithfield, NC, halfway between their hometowns. Narron told doubtful baseball reporters that he was impressed with Hamilton's talent and thought he might have an outside chance to make the team.

So far, he's pretty much made the Reds' season.

The day Hamilton was picked up by the Reds, December 7th, the noted Internet sports site Rotoworld had this to say:

"It's not very likely he'll have a career in the majors."

And there's no guarantee that he will.

After all, Old Scratch has been known to claim his prizes at the most inopportune times—and hopefully he's not on the horn with Lola.