Josh Hamilton

Last night my wife and I went to see Josh Hamilton and his wife speak at Hope Community Church. It was really more like an interview than him speaking the whole time. He was not feeling well so his wife spoke more than half of the time. It was pretty amazing to hear of his wife standing behind him through all of his drug addiction problems, which he finally overcame two years ago. My wife bought me his autobiography Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back. I opened it at 10am this morning and read it straight through, until I finished it at 4pm this afternoon. Having read a couple of books by ex-drug addicts, I must say that this is my favorite one. It is one thing to overcome addictions and it is another to thrive and do something useful with your life.

I am not really a huge fan of baseball as it was my least favorite sport when I was growing up. In my first job out of college, my best friend was a huge Houston Astros fan, so I would often watch games with him when they were on TV. Other than that I seldom watch baseball on TV now or even read about it in the newspaper. A couple of years ago when the Astros made it to the playoffs, I watched with my youngest son just for old times sake. The real reason I wanted to go see Josh Hamilton was that I had read parts of his story in the local newspaper. Also one of his early little league coaches worked with me by testing the code I wrote for work purposes. He would tell me stories of Josh's greatness as he saw him in his youth. Another reason to see him was that I had heard he had fallen for a drug addiction for many years and finally gotten out of it the last couple of years. During lunch at work one day, I heard about his great home run derby feat during all star weekend this year, so it was a great transformation that had taken place.