Mr. Baseball

i officially have a new favorite baseball player...josh hamilton of the texas rangers. he hit 28 home runs in the home run derby tonight...in the first round alone. that was 20 more than any other player. oh, did i mention that a few years ago he was kicked out of baseball for drug and alcohol addiction? that's right, he spent 3 years completely away from the game. that is, unless you count him going to the batting cage, dropping in some tokens and smacking dimpled yellow balls off a mechanical metal arm baseball...and if you do, i have a whole jar of quarters...so, i'm a baseball player too.

josh hamilton was forced out of the game he loved because addiction overcame him. while away, he took a serious trip to rehab...and also welcomed Jesus into his life. you can hardly hear a sound bite or read a quote from hamilton without him thanking God. immedately after his historic 28 homers in the first round, hamilton said, "it's amazing over the past few years what God's done in my life, and how quickly he's done it."

one of the espn announcers said this of hamilton's performance, "i'm sort of an aficionado of this home run derby, and i think that was clearly the greatest home run derby performance ever, coupled with the amazing story of a cocaine and heroin addict who found religion, had a dream and came here to yankee stadium. it's a bad night to be an athiest!"

needless to say, i don't think i'm the only person who was blown away by both josh's performance and story. anytime a non-yankee player can bring the crown to its feet and get his name chanted by 60,000 screaming fans in yankee stadium, you know it's something special. that performace has a special place on my dvr...save until i erase!