Josh Hamilton: It’s His Business

Josh Hamilton is a baseball player for the Texas Rangers. He was the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 2010, receiving 22 of 28 votes after posting a league-leading .359 batting average with 32 home runs and 100 RBIs despite missing 24 games with a rib injury.

Josh Hamilton is also an addict.

Hamilton was suspended from the game for 30 days in 2004 while a member of the Tampa Bay Rays for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy. His suspension was increased during that time because of multiple violations. He took time trying to get his life in order by going to rehab and didn’t play baseball again until 2007.

This is all news and public knowledge and as much as I love baseball and respect baseball players for their skills and athleticism, it’s not a part of the game I personally care to read about. I would prefer that baseball reporting be limited to on-the-field, or clubhouse, activities, as well as management and personnel rumors, and that off-the-field actions, assuming a player hasn’t broken a law, be left to the player, the team and the league.

I understand that baseball players, and all athletes, are celebrities and no different than movie and television stars, musicians, authors and politicians, and I also understand that as a nation we’re obsessed with celebrity news and celebrity’s lives, but don’t accept that. I don’t believe that just because someone is born with a natural talent, just because they work and hone that talent over a lifetime, just because they use that talent to earn a living, that their lives are suddenly sacrificed to public scrutiny, or worse, that we’re all – fans and critics – free to judge them and their lives. What’s that saying about glass houses?

So here I am. I’m sitting here and I just read this article on Yahoo! Sports and it made me mad. “Report,” the headline blasts. “Rangers’ Hamilton has relapse with alcohol”

So?

This is Josh Hamilton’s business. It’s his family’s business. It’s the team’s business. It’s his Higher Power’s business if you want to go that way. It is not our business. It is not our business to the extent of an 11 paragraph article on Yahoo!, or judgmental editorials by bloggers, people who wouldn’t know what end of a bat to hold should they ever get away from the computer long enough to pick one up, or whose closest encounter to a baseball is from a baseball card, discuss and dissect Hamilton’s relapses and recovery from the comfort of their own perfect lives.

This wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t read that Yahoo! Sports article that went beyond reporting news and listed every one of Hamilton’s relapses and went on to talk about his recovery strategy and misstate that he was suspended from Major League Baseball for three years for alcohol abuse. Maybe I’m wrong, but the last time I checked, alcohol was not listed as one of the MLB’s drugs of abuse. Maybe alcohol should be on that list – I know player arrests for DUI offenses should be cause for suspension – but alcohol’s inclusion on the drugs of abuse list is off the topic of Josh Hamilton.

My message to the media, not that they listen, or care, is to leave Josh Hamilton alone.

Sometimes it’s fun to rant!