New Life at the Plate (Josh Hamilton)

[Guest schotzee]

I saw Peter Gammons on ESPN last night really praisng this kid Hamilton.I hope he's the real deal.

[The Entertainer]

[quote][size=3][b]His bat hasn't skipped a beat[/b][/size]
Early success opening even Hamilton's eyes

BY JOHN FAY | JFAY@ENQUIRER.COM


TAMPA, Fla. - Let's say you're a very good golfer. You play the game every day until you're 21, and then you're forced to stop playing for some reason.

Do you think that if you took up the game again at 25, you'd be a better player?

Or would your skills have deteriorated?

With Josh Hamilton and baseball, the Reds were betting the skills would still be there - with a little more maturity added to the package.

"That's why we (acquired) him," Reds manager Jerry Narron said.

So far, the theory has worked to perfection. Hamilton has played like a star in his comeback from baseball exile, which was forced by suspensions for violating baseball's drug policy. After two hits, a sacrifice fly and two RBI on Tuesday against the New York Yankees, he is hitting .571with two doubles, a home run and six RBI. He has played flawless defense and shown great speed and a rocket arm.

The way he has hit has been most impressive.

"I know it's early in the spring, and we haven't seen a guy like (Yankee starter) Mike Mussina at his best," Jerry Narron said. "But (Hamilton) doesn't go up there like he's in any kind of hurry or rush. He looks like he's under control and knows what he's doing. And he does."

Hamilton's explanation for his success is the older-and-wiser theory.

"It's not from seeing pitches over the last four years, because I haven't seen any," he said. "Maybe it's because I'm older. I feel calmer. I don't feel like I have to do as much up there. When you're younger, you want to hit the ball out of the park every time, and your mechanics go (bad)."

"Now I try to get a base hit or hit it hard every time," Hamilton added.

Narron would not say definitely Tuesday that Hamilton had the team made.

"If he did, I wouldn't tell you," Narron said.

But given Hamilton's early success, Narron said he won't hesitate to play Hamilton if he makes the club.

Narron and his brother, Johnny, worked with Hamilton after the Reds acquired him in a Rule 5 draft trade with the Chicago Cubs. They saw that the skills, which made Hamilton the first overall pick by Tampa Bay in 1999, were still there.

"I said a lot of people would be surprised by his success," Johnny Narron said. "But I wouldn't be one of them. I thought his talent would show through."

Hamilton had struck out only three times in 30 plate appearances going into Tuesday. Again, patience is a big part of that.

"The biggest thing I see is his plate discipline," Johnny Narron said. "A lot of young hitters struggle with that. We've been pleased with the way he's handled at-bats. He's had good at-bats."

Hamilton, however, admits he didn't think he'd be this successful this soon.

"I'd be lying if I said it didn't surprise me," he said.[/quote]



[url="http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070314/SPT04/703140357/1071/SPT"]Enquirer.com[/url]

[Guest oldschooler]

[quote][size=5][b]Hamilton puts drugs in past, HRs in future[/b][/size]

BY BILL MADDEN
DAILY NEWS SPORTS COLUMNIST

Sunday, March 18th 2007, 4:00 AM

TAMPA - A bunch of veteran scouts were sitting around the table in the dining room at Legends Field the other day when the topic of conversation turned to Josh Hamilton, the one-time No. 1 draft pick whose well-chronicled battle with drugs and alcohol derailed his career and nearly killed him. After three years out of the game on baseball's restricted list because of his repeated drug offenses, the 25-year-old Hamilton is seeking to make it all the way back with the Cincinnati Reds, who purchased his contract for $100,000 from the Chicago Cubs in December after the Cubs selected him in the Rule 5 draft from his original team, the Tampa Bay Devil Days.

And it appears he is succeeding beyond anyone's wildest expectation. Entering the weekend, he was hitting .548 for 31 spring at-bats with two homers, two doubles, a triple, 26 RBI and only three strikeouts.

"Josh Hamilton," proclaimed longtime Baltimore Orioles advance scout Deacon Jones, "is the story of this spring training. This guy is not to be believed. I saw him the other night, with that power, that bat speed, that plate discipline and then that throwing arm and I said: ‘Whoaaaa. What is this? This guy might be the best I've ever seen.' At one point, I got up and yelled to him: ‘This game ain't this damn easy!' I never saw him before, but now I know why he was the No. 1 pick in '99. This guy's a real player."

Yankee VP of scouting Gene Michael, sitting across the table from Jones, nodded in agreement.

"He's legitimate five tools," Michael said. "It's all there and he hasn't lost anything from what I've seen. The Reds got themselves a tremendous player, but it's always going to be a question. The drugs are always going to be there, waiting to get to him again."

Michael knows what he's talking about, having been the point man in the Yankees' reclamation projects of drug-troubled Steve Howe (1991) and Darryl Strawberry (1995). But Hamilton's story is far more harrowing than even theirs - culminating with his arrival on the doorstep of the Raleigh, N.C., home of his 75-year-old grandmother, Mary Holt in October 2005. Sweating profusely, his eyes glazed and some 40 pounds underweight, the gaunt, disheveled Hamilton was barely recognizable to her. So powerful was the hold crack cocaine had on him that, on one occasion, he reportedly burned his left (throwing) hand with five lit cigarettes. A few days earlier, he'd tried to commit suicide - for the fourth or fifth time, by his count - by overdosing with pills. "I'd let so many people down," he said, "I didn't want to live anymore."

But at the urging of his appalled grandmother, he checked himself yet again into rehab and, finally, last year MLB agreed to lift his suspension and allow him to play the last three weeks of the season for D-Rays' New York-Penn League team in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. You would think that after all the investment in time, money (over $4 million) and patience, the D-Rays would have made certain that they would be the ones to benefit from any comeback by Hamilton.

Nevertheless, they elected not to put him on the 40-man roster last winter, leaving him exposed to the Rule 5 Draft. GM Andrew Friedman explained later they didn't think any team would take a chance on him. Making it look even worse for the D-Rays was the fact that a few days after losing Hamilton in the draft, they non-tendered outfielder Damon Hollins, who then wound up signing in Japan. So not only did they waste a roster spot that could have been Hamilton's on a player they knew they weren't going to keep, they didn't even get any compensation for him.

"They told me they never dreamed anyone would take me," Hamilton said. "I understand. That's the business of baseball. It was a call they had to make. (His wife) Katy and I just looked at it as God put me here with the Reds."

As Michael pointed out, however, the demons within are a constant threat to rise up and strike Hamilton out again, although the Reds feel they may have the best protective environment for him. Reds manager Jerry Narron's brother Johnny coached Hamilton when he was 15 in the Raleigh youth league and the plan is to have Johnny Narron travel with the Reds this year and room with the fragile prodigy.

"I feel I have a comfort zone with Johnny and Jerry," Hamilton said. "God's been good to me. There's no reason why I should be here and back playing baseball on this level. If I came in here worried about what might happen, it might not happen. I didn't have any reservations, but I haven't held anything back either. Every day, something is going to cause me to stop in my tracks, making me realize how lucky I am."

"He knows he's made some bad choices and that he's accountable to a lot of people," Jerry Narron said of Hamilton. "It's funny. When (Reds GM) Wayne (Krivsky) came to me last December to run it by me, what he was thinking of doing, he had no idea I'd known Josh since he was 15."

About the only tool Hamilton has so far been unable to showcase for the awed scouts is his foot speed on the bases and in the outfield, as he's been playing with a case of shin splints. But it certainly hasn't hindered his hitting and, barring a major injury, it's safe to say he's made the club. The question is, with all this previously untapped talent, how can the Reds keep him out of the everyday lineup?

"What's impressed me most is his plate discipline," Narron said. "He uses all fields and he sure doesn't look like a guy who's been off three years. I kind of liken him to those players who went away to World War II and came back and were just as successful. The reason was they had outstanding ability. So does Josh. The difference is, he's never even been to the big leagues." Say hello to a real life Roy Hobbs.[/quote]



[url="http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2007/03/18/2007-03-18_clean_machine.html"]http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball...an_machine.html[/url]