Rooting for flawed hero Hamilton becomes new addiction

Had the drugs and alcohol not gotten to him, Dwight Gooden would be able to walk down the street today and people would look and they would say, "There goes Doc Gooden, the best there ever was in this game." As it is, after spending most of 2006 in prison, Gooden is lucky just to walk down the street in 2007 -- period.

Josh Hamilton's comeback is going well -- keep your fingers crossed. (US Presswire)

Darryl Strawberry wasn't as good as Gooden, but had drugs and alcohol not gotten to him, Strawberry would have been a first ballot Hall of Famer instead of a first ballot flop, removed from Hall consideration after getting a meager seven votes in 2005.

Which brings us to the Cincinnati Reds' Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton could have been Dwight Gooden, and he could have been Darryl Strawberry. In high school Hamilton had a golden arm that threw a baseball 95 miles an hour. He had a golden swing that transported a baseball 500 feet. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as an outfielder, but his left arm was so good that he could have been drafted No. 1 overall as a pitcher.

Josh Hamilton was the natural.

But then he did become Gooden. He did become Strawberry. The drugs and alcohol got to Josh Hamilton, too -- and if it's possible, they got to him with more ferocity than they got to Gooden or Strawberry. Hamilton went from alcohol to cocaine to crack. He was in and out of rehab centers eight times. He was suspended from baseball, out of the game for almost four years. He lost 55 pounds, burned himself with cigarettes and tried suicide four or five times, the haze of addiction making him unsure of the exact number.

But now Hamilton's back, putting the rest of us in an unfamiliar position. We've rooted for athletes like Gooden and Strawberry, like basketball's David "Skywalker" Thompson and tennis' Jennifer Capriati, fabulous physical specimens who reached the apex of their sports before succumbing to addiction -- and then tried to return to the apex. We rooted for their returns, but of that foursome, only Capriati came close to getting there.

We've never rooted for anyone like Hamilton, a gifted physical specimen with Hall of Fame potential but zero production. When he succumbed to addiction, Hamilton was still in Single A, his career slowed by injury in 2000 and a car accident in 2001 before being completely derailed by drugs in 2002.

If you want a comparison, the best I can come up with is 6-foot-11 center Chris Washburn, the No. 3 overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft who lasted just two years and 72 games before snorting his NBA career up his nose. But that's an imperfect comparison. Washburn threw away his career before it got rolling, but pre-addiction he had been a second-team All-ACC player at North Carolina State. And he did have those two years in the NBA.

Before his addiction, Hamilton was a low-level minor-leaguer in the Devils Rays' system. Hardcore baseball fans knew who he was, but the rest of the world has only discovered him now. And what a discovery he has been. In his first nine major league games, he has hit .318 with three home runs and seven RBI. He has played brilliantly on defense, earning a reputation for having one of the game's most dangerous outfield arms. This is after Hamilton, a Rule 5 pick-up, hit .403 this spring to earn a spot on the Reds.

So here he is -- this drug addict, this $3.96 million bonus baby gone bad, this loser. And I like him. I mean, I really like him. I'm rooting for him like I've never rooted for a ballplayer. The last athlete who meant this much to me was Billy Sims when he was winning the Heisman Trophy for my hometown Oklahoma Sooners. That was 1978.

This is different. Scarier. Even at age 8, I knew Billy Sims was going to get his 150 yards and Oklahoma was going to win and life in Norman, Okla., was going to be good. At age 36, I know nothing is guaranteed for Josh Hamilton. He's an addict, and will always be one. He can't look ahead to next year or even next week. All he has is today, and he has to fight like hell to make it to tomorrow.

As long as he stays sober, though, Hamilton's a hero. He could do for recovering addicts what cyclist Lance Armstrong did for cancer survivors, giving hope to the hopeless. There's not an addict out there who can play baseball like Hamilton, but that's OK. He's only doing what he was capable of doing before his addiction. For all the other addicts out there, whatever they were doing before the drugs -- dentistry or data entry or whatever -- they can do it again if they get sober. That's the message of Josh Hamilton.

That's the big picture here. That's the forest. Me, I want to see some trees. I want to see Hamilton fulfill his superstar prophecy. I want to see him put up .300 batting averages and 30-homer, 30-steal seasons. I want to see Gold Gloves.

When he was drafted in 1999, he was said to be the most talented position player since Alex Rodriguez in 1993. Hamilton was that special. Maybe he still is.

He could be in the Hall of Fame in 20 years. He could be dead tomorrow. This is a story no one has ever seen before. One day at a time, Josh Hamilton will write it.