By Julie Buehler
Someone made a phone call or sent an email to get the Angels’ newly acquired outfielder, Josh Hamilton, a locker all set up.
Someone sent some correspondence to erect a 5-story mural of the slugger who had been signed to a fully guaranteed, 5-year, $125 million dollar deal.
Someone sent the order into the merchandise manufacturer to get an extra shipment of #32 jerseys for the new Halo’s superstar.
And someone surely should have known there was a possibility of Hamilton’s dark, well-documented past of drug and alcohol addiction would resurface while he played at Angels Stadium.
And now, someone had to have made a phone call or sent an email to the equipment manager and have Josh Hamilton’s locker removed.
Someone had to have sent correspondence to the promotions department to have them take down that same 5-story mural. And someone had to have called the merchandising shop and directed them to remove all the #32 jerseys from the sales racks.
The exact identity of that “someone” or those “someones” remains unclear and in the words of Angels manager Mike Scioscia, ‘it gets foggier and foggier’ every day, but what’s very clear is that the same people who welcomed Josh Hamilton with open arms, celebrating one of baseball’s purest talents willfully ignored one of its player’s most tainted pasts, showered him with money and adulation and have now deserted him.
The situation begs questions like: Why’d the Angels invest so much money if they were willing to invest support for a player facing obstacles? Why just 2 years into a 5-year deal can a team eradicate a players presence in the clubhouse, promotional materials, merchandising and more when they’re going to have another 3 years to face his physical presence? And why didn’t they know better? Are the Angels trying to convince the public that they were in the dark about Hamilton’s issues? Or are they trying to save money from a bad deal they never should have made by selling Hamilton down the river? Is this their thinly-veiled attempt to somehow void the rest of Hamilton contracts? And are the other players right, would the Angels be more than willing to welcome Hamilton back if he were performing at a high level?
All questions that need to be answered directly, but can be analyzed based on the current information we have.
But before we do that, this column isn’t about feeling badly for Josh Hamilton. It’s well substantiated and Hamilton has been admitted that he has problems. And like anyone who struggles with addiction, IF they want to overcome it, it can be overcome and Hamilton certainly has the resources to do so.
So he does bare responsibility in this situation. When he signed a $125 million dollar contract, every penny of which is guaranteed, he took on a great responsibility to perform at his highest levels and stay clean. He’s failed in both capacities. And that’s on his shoulders.
So I don’t feel badly for Hamilton as a baseball player, I do wish him the best in recovery and most of all, the best for his family.
But baseball is a business, we needn’t be naïve to that fact and if you had a partner that was underperforming and THEN you discovered there was drug and alcohol use that could explain that, you might pull the plug on that partnership as the Angels are attempting to do so with Hamilton.
The main difference is baseball contracts are FULLY GUARANTEED. As in, there’s no pulling the plug. Baseball teams just have to live with the contracts they signe. But for some reason, while the Angels have signed many REALLY bad contracts that they’ve had to live with for years, this is the first time we’ve seen them willfully sully a player’s name in order to get out of a contract. It’s as though they’re acting like they’ve been duped.
But they weren’t.
When Hamilton was signed, there were multiple reports and questions raised about whether he could handle the temptation in Southern California and even more reports offered that outlined how his former team, the Texas Rangers, helped him navigate the rough waters of addiction.
For whatever reason, the Angels chose either to not heed those reports, not pay attention to those ideas or simply got lazy.
Regardless of the reasons, Hamilton deserves better, even if he bares some responsibility in this.
Someone knew exactly what they were getting when they signed him to a $125 million dollar deal, and that someone is still in the building acting like they were in the dark.
Julie Buehler hosts the Coachella Valley’s most popular sports talk radio show, “Buehler’s Day Off” every day from 1-4 on 1010 KXPS, the valley’s all sports station. She can also be seen every morning between 6-7am on KMIR sharing the coolest stories in sports. She’s an avid gym rat, slightly sarcastic and more likely to recite Steve Young’s career passing stats than American Idol winners. Tune in M-F 1-4 pst at www.team1010.com or watch “Buehler’s Day Off” on Ustream and KMIR.com for her sports reports.
