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Little left to repair of broken promise

By GARY SHELTON
Published May 24, 2005

Into the wreckage of a career, there is a little more broken glass to deal with today.

There is a little more sadness, a little more disappointment, a little more blood on the shirt. The odds just grew a little more, the chances a little less and a happy ending a little further away.

Josh Hamilton has stumbled again.

Just like that, it becomes that much harder to imagine him upright again.

Perhaps you no longer concern yourself with Hamilton, the once-prized Devil Rays prospect. That is understandable. Long ago, Hamilton messed up often enough to push himself into the back of your minds, and the team's. He is merely another old Lotto ticket on the team's dashboard; one of these days, perhaps it will check it for value, but what's the hurry?

For most, Hamilton ceased to be a viable prospect long ago. He became just another athlete trying to scramble out of his own mess, just another reminder of how wrong things can go and how fast they can get there. These days, he is a message of warning, not of hope.

Yet, through it all, there was always something to Josh that left you hoping, despite the odds and the logic and the history of drug abusers in sports, the kid could make it back. There was something that made you want to think that, somehow, this kid was going to end up being Roy Hobbs.

Today, that is that much harder to envision. Josh has slipped again, and when you are trying to climb back up a cliff, any slip is bad news.

Here is what we know: Hamilton drank again over the weekend. He lost control of himself enough to smash two car windows, to stalk away from his wife down a highway, to cause enough of a commotion at a gas station for the police to be called.

Question: Given everything else, how bad is that?

Answer: It isn't good.

Those who deal with drug addiction will tell you this: There are no small slips. They will tell you this: You don't get a weekend pass for alcohol. They will tell you this: As much as the chemicals, the lack of control is a problem. None of this paints Hamilton in a flattering light.

He is no longer the golden child. He is no longer can't miss. He is 24 now, no longer a kid, and he has been away from professional baseball almost as long as he was in it. Even without his addiction, Hamilton is chasing a lot of yesterdays.

Today, you could argue that the Rays should just forget about Hamilton and move on. The thing is, they have pretty much done that. You hear a lot about B.J. Upton and Delmon Young and Jeff Niemann these days. When is the last time you heard a Rays official say Hamilton's name out loud? If he makes it back after all this, the Rays will be the most surprised people in the room.

There is a sadness to all this. If Hamilton indeed turns out to be a bust, it will be the largest waste of talent I have ever seen. I remember Keith McCants in college, back when he made every tackle. I remember Ryan Leaf throwing the ball so crisply it would whistle. Compared to Hamilton, their potential were miniature firecrackers in the distance.

There will come a time, when Lou Piniella and Chuck LaMar are old men, when they turn to each other and shake their heads at the memory of Hamilton's potential.

"Coulda been something," Lou will say.

"Coulda been someone," Chuck will say.

During Piniella's first camp here, before he knew the size of the beast in his path, one of the first players to catch his eye was Hamilton. No one quite filled a batter's box like Hamilton. He was big, strong, smooth, and the ball leaving his bat made the sound of bones breaking.

There was a star quality to the kid, too, as if the game left him amused. Once, third-base coach Tom Foley was going through the signs for batters. Hamilton guessed wrong at a couple, then grinned and said, "So what is the signal for the three-run homer?"

The thing is, on the other side of the tattoos, away from the nights that were beginning to claim him, you would have sworn Hamilton was a great kid in those days. That was back before the melancholy truly gripped this team, of course, back before players went missing for days on end, back before depression and anxiety problems became as hard to overcome as low payroll. These days, the franchise appears lost.

In some ways, that began at the same time as Hamilton's problems. It was as if the team and the prospect claimed each other's innocence, and neither has quite recovered from it.

There is a lesson here. It is a difficult thing to hand an 18-year-old millions of dollars and expect him to emerge, molded and mature, four years later. There are so many factors: Youth and wealth, competition and calamity, failure and injuries, temptation and success.

By now, Hamilton should have been the face of this team. He should have been hitting third, playing right in the the major league's best young outfield with Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli. He should have been a reason to go the park.

Instead, we are left to interpret another police report, another set of statements by a spokesman who would explain it all away, another night among many that went in the wrong direction.

Somewhere, in the broken shards of shattered windows, you can find the pieces of a career.

Today, it's a little harder to put them back together than it was.

[Last modified May 24, 2005, 04:39:50]