Baseball is filled with dramatic stories of comeback and redemption, but Josh Hamilton might have them all beat. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays player is currently enjoying one of his finest seasons in the pros. His power is huge and he’s putting up big numbers in almost every category.

What makes this stat line such an amazing accomplishment is that this time last year, Josh Hamilton was addicted to crack cocaine.

Once a first-round pick with a limitless future to look forward to, Hamilton became involved with drugs when coping with the pain and boredom of injury. Things spiraled out of control for Hamilton quickly, who lost 40 pounds, his ability to play and most of his friends. Drug addiction had completely taken control of his once promising life.

The USA Today reported on Hamilton at the beginning of the 2008 season and found the young man incredibly humbled by his experience:

“I’m a drug addict,”

says Hamilton, who once deliberately burned his prized left hand with four lit cigarettes in a rage. “It’s not terminal, but there is no cure. It’s hell on earth. It’s a constant struggle. And it’s going to be like that for the rest of my life.”
Hamilton was so upfront about his challenges and how grateful he was for a second chance, that he documented his experience for sports fan everywhere in a first-person article on ESPN.

Here’s to Josh Hamilton, a pro athlete that everyone should be rooting to succeed.

Heroin claims the life of star baseball player

Michael Hutts was not a young man prone to trouble.  On the contrary, he was a Dean’s List student at Georgia Tech and a star pitcher on the university’s varsity baseball team.  So when his roommate opened the door to their dorm room and found Hutts dead of a heroin overdose, the pure shock of the incident reverberated across the entire campus community.

In an Atlanta Journal Constitution article last month, Hutts’ coach Danny Hall said, “Never was there even a moment where you thought, ‘Something is going on here. We need to check on this guy. We need to watch him closely.’ That’s what has made this even more shocking.’”.   Hall’s reaction typifies the insidious nature of heroin use in this country.  In the mind of the public, heroin addiction only strikes those from urban areas and the lower-rungs of the socio-economic scale.  But the truth of the matter is anyone – from the schoolteacher down the street to the meg-watt Hollywood A-lister – can be taken down HARD by heroin use.

So how could this happen to a kid who seemingly had everything going for him?  Swap heroin for cocaine and the answer may be found in what has come to be known as the Len Bias Effect - the deadly combination of heroin’s lethal power and the hubris of a young male in the prime of his life who feels that nothing can bring him down.   (Bias was the over first pick in the NBA draft in 1986 who died of a cocaine overdose hours after his selection.)

We hope Michael Hutts did not die in vain, and that the parents of great kids will find the time and talk to them about drugs, even if they’re on the Dean’s List and can throw a 95-mile per hour fastball

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