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Rays/MLB

Comeback is hard not to root for

By JOHN ROMANO
Published June 2, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - For weeks, Josh Hamilton told his wife Katie that the call might be coming. For weeks, she told him not to get his hopes too high.

So when the telephone rang in their Raleigh, N.C., home Wednesday and Josh saw the area code on his caller ID, he paused before answering.

This is it, Josh said aloud.

Please God, let this be it, Katie prayed silently.

On the other end of the line was Devil Rays vice president Andrew Friedman, and he sounded serious. Much too serious, Josh thought.

"Are you sitting down?" Friedman asked.

"Is it that bad?" Hamilton winced.

"It's that good," Friedman replied.

"When he said that, I broke down," Hamilton said. "I got the biggest chill in my body and I started crying. I was smiling and crying at the same time. Then Katie and I were crying and hugging."

It wasn't that the pain of recent years was gone. That the days in drug rehab were no longer real, or that he still didn't have fears and regrets.

It was just that, for the first time in four years, Josh Hamilton had been reintroduced to hope.

By allowing him to put a uniform on his back, Major League Baseball has provided Hamilton a way to cover up the shame he has been shouldering.

Yes, he is a long way from the majors. Truth to be told, the odds of him completing a comeback are probably still tilting in the wrong direction.

But at least he is back in the game. At least his future is in his hands. Once, he was a schoolboy legend. The best baseball prospect in the land. Then he was a disappointment. The greatest bust of our generation.

Today, neither characterization fits well. This morning, as you watch Hamilton walk out of the clubhouse at the Rays spring training complex, you should understand his is a story still waiting to be finished.

"It has a good start, and a rocky middle," Hamilton said. "Maybe I can still have a good ending."

This is not a second chance. That came and went some time ago. It could be a third chance, or perhaps even a fourth.

All we know for sure is it feels like a final chance.

Major League Baseball is bending its rules for Hamilton and, you should know, that does not often happen. Based on his history of relapses, Hamilton should remain on the suspended list for the rest of this baseball season.

But the commissioner's office has cracked a door here. It has given Hamilton a chance to prove he deserves special consideration. Should he behave the next two weeks in extended spring training, the expectation is that he will be given a little more slack to work with a minor-league team.

"Honestly, I never thought I'd get back," Hamilton said. "It's awesome that Major League Baseball is being this flexible for me."

He has been sober for a little more than seven months, which is not long when compared with the number of days he wasted in a haze of cocaine and beer.

But MLB officials have apparently taken notice of Hamilton's effort. They have listened to doctors and Rays officials who have suggested his recovery might be aided by allowing him to get a taste of the game he once loved.

They have considered the weeks he spent doing field maintenance and janitorial work in exchange for some time on the ballfield and in the batting cages at the Winning Inning baseball academy in Clearwater earlier this year.

They have discovered compassion might have a place in his recovery.

"The beauty of this society is people are willing to forgive," said academy co-owner Roy Silver, a former Rays minor-league manager. "Josh still has a lot of people who love and care about him. I don't know anybody who isn't pulling for him because of the type of person he is."

Ah, but there will be skeptics. Those who do not believe the rules should be bent for Hamilton. Those who do not think he has the courage to stand up to the demons that dance on his tongue and tickle his nose.

I cannot say with any certainty that they are wrong. Anyone who has seen Doc Gooden led out of a courtroom in shackles would understand.

And maybe it is just the hope in my heart, but this time Hamilton sounds different. This time, it seems as if he has a little more understanding of what he is facing. This time he is talking of the impact his decisions have on his 9-month-old daughter and 5-year-old stepdaughter.

Of the scars that cannot be seen, yet never forgotten.

"I always worried if I wasn't involved in baseball, I'd never get through what I was going through," Hamilton said. "I finally had to take a step back and look at myself. I had to learn that, whether baseball is there or not, I had to live my life the way I'm supposed to. If I didn't, I wouldn't ever be good at anything. And I wouldn't be good for anyone.

"I love baseball, but I love my wife and kids even more. I had to do this for them and for myself, and worry about baseball later."

If you have ever met him, it is impossible not to wish for better days for Hamilton. Even when shaking your head at the ways he tried to ruin his life, you couldn't help but recall the boyishness that once made him so endearing.

He may have messed up his own life, but he never intentionally hurt anyone around him.

"He's always had such a sweet heart, a wonderful heart," Katie said. "The people who know and love Josh always knew that about him. Some of that goodness was covered up when he was going through what he went through but, deep down, it was still in there.

"We're glad to have the old Josh back, and have that other part out of his life."

He is no longer a kid. He is not an innocent and he is not a victim. He is not the best prospect in the land, and his comeback is not without risk.

But, today, he is a ballplayer again.

And he is sober.

For now, that's good enough.

[Last modified June 2, 2006, 06:55:03]