Crack! The 34.5 inch, 33 ounce brown wood bat connected with the small white ball blur, catapulting the baseball way over the centerfield wall, the sound reverberating throughout the venerable Yankee Stadium. Josh Hamilton’s 28th homerun in the first round of the 2008 Home Run Derby set the record for the most homeruns ever hit in a round, a record that will most likely remain untouched forever.
But the truly incredible story wasn’t Josh’s monumental night; it was the account of how he returned to baseball after not even picking up a ball or bat for three long, painful years.
As a six year old, Josh Hamilton, living in Raleigh, North Carolina, was so good at baseball that parents of kids on his own team wanted the young Josh kicked off the team and moved to an older age group because they were so scared of their children getting hurt by one of Josh’s throws or hard-hit balls during a practice.
Although only a first grader at the time, Josh was moved up to a fifth and sixth grade team where he still was one of the best players. This advanced baseball prowess continued all through high school for Josh where Major League scouts had been keeping an eye on him since his sophomore year.
As a five tool player, one with plus abilities in hitting for contact, hitting for power, fielding, throwing, and running, Josh was selected straight out of high school as the first overall pick in the 1999 MLB draft. Hamilton’s life was skyrocketing and his career looked extremely promising.
But then, in February 2001, Hamilton’s career took a surprising turn for the worse. Sitting in the passenger seat of his mom’s car, he and his mom were involved in an accident when the driver of a truck ran a red light and collided with them. Josh suffered a back injury that was never quite diagnosed correctly and it sidelined him from baseball for a couple months.
In his down time, since he couldn’t play baseball, Josh started hanging out in a tattoo parlor with the wrong crowd and eventually started smoking weed and snorting coke. Shortly after he was cleared to play again, Josh was drug tested and he failed.
Major League Baseball suspended Josh and required him to attend a rehab program. After eight more rehab programs and two more MLB suspensions, his career in jeopardy, Josh all-together quit baseball, becoming a drug fiend and waking up in random trailers not knowing how he got there.
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back is a “miraculous” story of “an individual trying to rein in something that was out of control” (James Morris, rotorob.com).Whether you like baseball or not, this autobiography is “an excellent read and…an easy 5 out of 5” (Daniel Breedlove, cornerofficebooks.com).
This book teaches that family is the single most important thing a person can have. Josh Hamilton’s tale of redemption is one of inspiration and salvation and it is definitely “well worth a read” (Larry Brown, larrybrownsports.com).
As the Texas Rangers enter the World Series for the second straight year, let none of us forget the reigning AL MVP and all the trials he went through to get to this point.
