After a Web site published photos of him drunkenly cavorting with scantily clad women in a bar last January, Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton admitted to relapsing. He said before January, he hadn’t drank since October 6, 2005.
Hamilton made headlines last season when he emerged from the depths of drug and alcohol addiction to lead the major leagues in RBIs. He also nearly won the Home Run Derby. But he made headlines again this week when dozens of photos surfaced of him taking shots and dancing with several young women.
Before his last game, he told about a dozen reporters how much he regretted what happened at a bar in Tempe, Arizona in January 2009. “I always knew there would be a chance it would come out,” said Hamilton, who has three daughters. “I believe I got to the point where if you have alcohol in your system, your inhibitions go out the window. The details don’t matter—what kind of drink it was. It just put me in a bad situation.”
Hamilton said he had gone out to eat when he decided to have a drink. “I’m embarrassed about it for my wife Katie, for my kids, and for the organization,” he said. “I’m not perfect. It’s an ongoing struggle, and it’s real. It’s amazing how these things can creep back in. But I am human and I have struggles.”
When the Rangers acquired Hamilton from the Cincinnati Reds in December 2007, they knew about his problems with alcohol and came out with a “zero-tolerance” policy regarding his drinking.
“If I think I can have one drink, I think I can have two, and then it snowballs to 10 or 12,” Hamilton said. “As soon as it happened, I called my support staff—Katie, the organization, and MLB—and told them what happened. I was open and honest about it. People with an addiction can make a mistake.”
The Rangers’ general manager Jon Daniels spoke with Hamilton before they addressed the media, and later said the tone of their conversation had a different kind of emotion than the conversation in January because of the time Hamilton had to think about it.
“I’d hesitate to say it’s something we’re going to put behind us, but we’re not going to allow this to become a distraction the rest of the season and we’ll try to move on as best we can,” Daniels said.
Daniels also said Hamilton will not take a leave of absence. “That would be counterproductive,” Daniels said. “We knew that going in when we acquired Josh. We know the risks of dealing with someone with substance abuse problems. Ultimately, he’s a grown man and he has to make his own decisions. Nobody’s here to babysit him, but we should help him make the right decisions and help him get through this.”
When asked whether he will make a formal apology to his teammates in private, Hamilton said, “More than likely. I don’t necessarily know when it would be, but I won’t let it linger too long. What I do off the field affects my teammates and the name of this organization. They know who I am and what I want to accomplish.”
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