JOSH HAMILTON

Baseball player

Aonce-in-a-generation-talent and the first pick of the 1999 MLB draft, Josh Hamilton had a $3.96 million signing bonus with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and a God-given ticket to stardom. In high school he’d run the 60-yard dash in 6.7 seconds and had a 97mph fastball that blew batters off their feet. But in 2001 Hamilton was in a car wreck. Four years later he was unrecognizable, a junkie turning up on his grandmother’s porch at 2am. Injuries from the wreck had sidelined him and his frustration led to drinking, bad behavior and so it went. As Hamilton told USA Today in 2006, he once deliberately burned his “magic” left hand with four lit cigarettes while in a rage. He blew his money trying “literally every drug on the street,” including smoking crack. He said, “I did it so much it was like smoking cigarettes.” The 6’ 4” 235-pounder dropped more than 40 pounds, and so when he was given permission by MLB to take a second shot in 2006, there was a lot to do. He put several suicide attempts and his shame behind him, reconnected with his wife and daughters after having been kicked out and, as the paper put it, “was scared straight.” Hamilton worked at a baseball facility in Clearwater, Florida, rising early each day to pull weeds, mow the outfield, clean toilets and take out the trash while he rediscovered his game in his spare time. It worked, and in 2007 Hamilton rejoined the big leagues. He was named to the 2008 AL All-Star team playing for the Texas Rangers and made the All Star team the next four seasons as well. The 2010 AL MVP, Hamilton’s career took on some of the shine of his original promise, including a distinguishing moment in 2012 when he became just the 16th player in MLB history to hit four home runs in one game. This August he was inducted into the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, and as Hamilton himself wrote in ThePlayersTribune, “my immediate reaction was pure gratitude—just a massive amount of gratitude and appreciation.”