USA TODAY International Edition
Singleton attempts comeback after setback with weed use
PHOENIX – It was the anxiety. The depression. The marijuana use. The historic contract.
But really, more than anything, it was just lousy timing.
Milwaukee Brewers minor league first baseman Jon Singleton could have been a star in this game but came along nearly a decade too early.
Singleton broke into professional baseball in 2009 with the Philadelphia Phillies, and three years later with the Houston Astros he was labeled a drug addict, an athlete who simply couldn’t stop smoking weed, suspended three times by Major League Baseball.
There are 21 states along with Washington, D. C., that have legalized recreational marijuana. MLB removed marijuana from its list of banned substances in 2019 and now has a partnership with a CBD company.
But the rules were different when Singleton played. He dropped out of baseball for three years because of marijuana use, played a year in Mexico and returned to an affiliated baseball organization for the first time in five years.
Today, he is a 31- year- old minor leaguer trying to make it back to the big leagues for the first time since 2015.
“My career would have been completely different,” Singleton tells USA TODAY Sports, “it would be a complete 180 to be honest. But times were different then. People thought a different way back then. It’s strange, because everyone was so open about alcohol but had complete different feelings about weed.”
Singleton, who grew up in Long Beach, California, and said he started smoking marijuana at 14, tested positive for marijuana while in the Astros minor league system in June 2012. He tested positive six months later and spent a month in a drug rehab center.
“Honestly, because I’m from California, it was so normal to me,” Singleton says. “I didn’t notice things were different elsewhere until I got elsewhere.”
The Astros, realizing Singleton’s marijuana habit, were able to circumvent baseball’s marijuana ban by putting him on the 40- man roster. Minor league players were prohibited from smoking, but not major leaguers. Singleton was considered one of the best young prospects, ranked 27th by Baseball America. He hit 14 homers with 43 RBI in 54 games in Triple- A Oklahoma City, with a slash line of .267/. 398/. 544.
The Astros were so convinced he’d be a star that they signed him to a five- year, $ 10 million contract, the first long- term contract extension given to a player before playing a day in the majors. The deal contained options that could turn it into $ 30 million over eight years.
Singleton reached the big leagues in 2014, hit .168 with 13 homers and 44 RBI, just 19 games for the Astros the following season, and never played again in the majors. He spent the 2016 and 2017 seasons in the minors, and when he was suspended for 100 games for marijuana use in 2018, the Astros released him.
“I had a lot of anxiety and depression,” Singleton says, “and a lot of that had to do with the contract I signed. I became worried about what people were saying about me. I had such expectations of myself, I didn’t know how to deal with the anxiety or how to deal with the depression at that age. Honestly, I learned a lot about myself through smoking weed.”
Even though he couldn’t handle the pressure, Singleton says he certainly made the right decision signing the deal. “It was a guaranteed dollar amount, before I played in a single major league game,” he said. “In any situation, it was win- win, regardless of what happened. It’s life- changing money, not only for yourself, but your family.”
Singleton, married with two young children, will tell you he was carefree, immature, irresponsible and even reckless when he was drafted in the eighth round in 2009. He was surrounded by friends and fellow athletes who smoked weed, just like him, but not every day. It was no longer recreational, or even medicinal, but became an addiction.
“Now that I look back, I did have addiction issues,” Singleton says, “because I was doing it every day. ... But going to rehab and learning about the human body, that has definitely helped me, not only with just substance abuse, but overall life.”
Singleton, who played in Mexico in 2021, signed a minor league contract with the Brewers in 2022 and had such a strong season at Triple- A Nashville that he nearly was called up to the big leagues in September. He hit .219 with 24 homers and 87 RBI and drew a franchise- record 117 walks for a .375 on- base percentage.
“What he did last year was really impressive,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell says. “He had a really good season, especially having not been in affiliated baseball for those years. By the end of the year, he got his name in conversations about being called up and got to the point we thought of him highly enough to put him on the 40- man roster” this winter.
Singleton, who’s hitting .500 with a .583 on- base percentage in the first two weeks of spring training games, is putting himself back in the picture again. The Brewers already have several veteran first basemen in incumbent Rowdy Tellez, Keston Hiura, Josh VanMeter and Luke Voit, but as long as Singleton keeps knocking on the door, he believes he’ll eventually kick it in.
“You should always respect the perseverance that player’s journey has taken him on,” Counsell says. “Every player has got a unique journey, but oftentimes the game isn’t very friendly to you, and it doesn’t treat you back as nicely as you feel like you’ve treated it. But you got to keep going. You got to take ‘ No’ for an answer a lot. Disappointment is going to stare you in the face a lot.
“But you’ve got to keep going, and Jon has made the decision to keep going, a lot of credit to him for doing that.”
Singleton doesn’t know just how many players in the Brewers clubhouse are aware of his journey. He doesn’t walk around advertising his past. If someone needs to talk, he’s there.
“Honestly, this is just part of my life,” Singleton says. “This is who I am. Things that are worth it, don’t come easy. And things that are easy, aren’t worth it.”