...that guy.
Are you kidding me? I know I’m probably violating all that we’ve grown to know and love about “Things I don’t understand...”© by having the same subject in two out of three entries, but good grief. Last night Josh Hamilton put on a show… the greatest show in the history of the Home Run Derby. Sure, you’re saying, but who cares about the home run derby? Honestly, most of the time, not even me, bona fide baseball fan. That’s what’s so amazing about it. Not only did I make a point to try to catch the event, but after Hamilton’s first “at bat” I received not one, but two phone calls asking me if I had seen it.
I did. If you didn’t, Hamilton hit a record 28 home runs in the first round. And they just weren’t your garden variety out of the parker. Three went over 500ft. I have no idea how many reached the 3rd deck of Yankee Stadium. It had every person in the stands and all 23 announcers ESPN enlisted for the event oohing and ahhing. Karl Ravich become so drunk over his performance that he predicted Josh would hit one out of the stadium before the night was over. (BTW, that’s never happened before.) But once again, what makes it so amazing is his story. I won’t rehash the whole thing. But if you ignore the whole almost dying because of a drug addiction thing, he was out of the game for over three years. When he left he was minor league single-A ballplayer. He returned from not hitting a pitch for all that time to hitting major league pitching, skipping both double and triple A. That’s just not done. But neither are most of the things that Josh Hamilton ends up doing.
What was remarkable about last night was that Josh Hamilton was able to take a meaningless, fake sporting event and turn it into one those “great moments” in so-and-so history. He made me lean towards the tv to get a better look at his monster shots. He gave me chills. He made me remember what I love about sports, especially baseball.
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