Josh Hamilton's Gone Off The Wagon

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I guess I'd hit the sauce again if my homerun was about to win the World Series and twice my team was one strike away from getting it done and it didn't happen. Yeah, that could drive a man to drink. But seriously, what a shame. Hopefully he can come back from it again. Baseball did a great job of framing his triumphs over his addictions into such a feel good story that you can't help but like root for the guy...even if he does play on the Rangers.

Report: Josh Hamilton had a relapse with alcohol | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports

[livnxxxl]

I never really could understand why the first thing people want to do when things get rough for them is start abusing alcohol. Like that really helps things. It only makes things worse and their original problems STILL have not gone away.

[toys2cool]

I don't think it was not winning the world series that pushed him over, I think it was because of the guy who died after he threw him a foul ball

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Hamilton seemed at peace with that incident after a time and the son of the guy that died (Shannon Stone) even wrote him a letter asking him to continue to throw balls into the stands. The media kind of misrepresented what had happened too. The guy actually died of a heart attack on the way to the hospital and not a head injury. Although the fall probably had something to do with it, its not like he died on impact. The Rangers did a nice job honoring Stone too all during the World Series. Here he is taking the tumble as it aired on TV with the announcers chuckling at him for trying to get a foul ball and falling to his eventual death incase you haven't seen it. I remember thinking at the time it happened that of all the ballplayers in Major League Baseball it had to happen to Hamilton. The guy had been through so much already. About the only way it could have been worse is if had been A-Rod who flipped a ball into the stands that killed a man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGLZTvkVevE