The Natural

The year was 1999. I was still in high school which meant that I was most likely spending my time writing articles for the Sider Press that nobody was going to read, hiding love letters in bottles of shampoo for my girlfriend, or trying to watch wrestling pay per views through my scrambled tv set. Meanwhile Josh Hamtilon, star of this year's Homerun Derby, was getting selected by the aptly named Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the #1 overall pick in that year's amateur draft. Aptly named because the devil within would soon find Hamilton and derail his path to the majors.

For those of you who aren't in the know the story of Josh Hamilton aka the natural is really quite amazing. Young, rich and with plenty of time on his hands while rehabbing an injury in the minor leagues he fell into a hard partying life style that nearly took his life. Suspended from baseball it looked like Hamilton was going to be the greatest bust of all time instead of the greatest player of all time like he was supposed to be.

But somehow he was able to battle all the way back, got himself reinstated into baseball after proving that he was clean, and got selected by the Cincinnatti Reds in the Rule 5 draft a couple of years ago. He made the team out of spring training, had a good season, and then got traded to the Texas Rangers in the off season. Since then he's taken the league by storm, tallying 95 rbis by the all star break, and heading into Yankee Stadium as the odds on favorite to win the HR Derby.

And while it was fairly obvious that Hamilton was going to steal the show no one could have expected him to etch his name into Yankee Stadium lore. But that's exactly what he did last Monday night. Fifty years from now when people talk about the House that Ruth Built there's a good chance that they'll still be talking about Hamilton's power display. And having witnessed that display first hand all I can say is wow.

The derby is a cool event to go to if you ever get the chance. You get to watch all the all stars from both leagues taking batting practice, there's a free mini concert (Three Doors Down), and then 8 guys hit long homeruns that you can ooh and aah over. And if that's all that had happened and Josh Hamilton had never participated I still would have went home a satisified customer.

But this was more than a cool event. This was a moment. The kind of moment where time seems to stand still. Where you actually realize that you're about to become a part of history. Where the hair on your arm stands up and you get goose bumps all over your body. That kind of moment where you think to yourself, "okay now I can die happy". Or as I thought to myself, "so this must be what sex feels like". Yea, it was that kind of moment. And words can't do it justice. No matter how hard Chris Berman surely tried.




From the House that Ruth Built to the House that Hamilton Tore Down.