Pic of the Week

Josh Hamilton signs the back of Drew Hooker, 6 months,
before a minor league game in Nashville, Tennessee.
Hamilton is on a rehab assignment with the Round Rock
Express, the Rangers' Triple A affiliate.

What makes this photo for me is the bemused expression on the kid's face.

Notes, quotes and comment

Josh Hamilton on Angels owner Arte Moreno:
 "He knew what the deal was when he signed me, hands down.
He knew what he was getting. He knew what the risks were.
 He knew all those things."

It's official: The Angels shipped Josh Hamilton to Texas for a player to be named or cash considerations. My assumption is that there will be no player, and the cash consideration is the Rangers' willingness to absorb a fraction of Hamilton's contract.

I've sounded off on the subject here and here, and see no need to repeat myself. But I will add this: Even through commissioner Rob Manfred has shown no interest in investigating the leak about Hamilton's relapse -- a leak that appears to have originated with the Angels -- the Angels are getting punished for it.

All they accomplished with the leak (and again, I assume it came from them, but that is not established) and their subsequent on-the-record statements denouncing Hamilton was destroy his potential trade value.

In the end, the Rangers get whatever Hamilton has left for a mere $6 million, and the Angels will have paid Hamilton $110 million for two seasons in Anaheim. Signing Hamilton wasn't bright; being surprised that he hasn't fully shaken his addictions is even less so. But saying good-bye to him didn't have to be that expensive.

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Two winters ago the Twins were linked to free agent catchers A.J. Pierzynski and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. They signed with Boston and Miami respectively, and the Twins settled for Kurt Suzuki.

The Red Sox released Pierzynski last summer. The Marlins on Monday designated Saltalamacchia for assignment; he hit .209 in one season plus a month.  The Fish have 10 days to trade or release him, and there probably won't be anybody eager to absorb almost two years of his contract.

Sometimes -- I dare say most of the time -- you're better off not signing the free agents you covet.

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The Baltimore Orioles game (against the White Sox) Monday night was postponed because of the civic unrest over the death of a black man in police custody. There are many more significant ramifications than a baseball game or two from this crisis, but it does create an intersection between politics and sports.

In that light, this quasi-statement from John Angelos, the son of the Orioles owner and the team chief operating officer, is fascinating reading. It was assembled by USA Today Monday from a series of tweets Angelos issued in response to a tweet from a local radio host after fans were kept from leaving the stadium because of the unrest Sunday.

Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy, investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible. 

That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state. 

The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.

That is a manifesto one would not expect from somebody in Angelos' position.

Resolving the Josh Hamilton dispute

Reports Friday had it that the Texas Rangers are about to welcome back former MVP Josh Hamilton, resolving one of the uglier team-player disputes since George Steinbrenner roamed the earth.

While the pending trade won't resolve the larger issue of guaranteed contracts and the owners' desire to break them (which I went into in the Monday print column), it will resolve this specific one.

The Angels will apparently pay Hamilton some $68 million not to play for them the next three years. Texas will pick up just $5 million a year on the outfielder, which is less than the Twins are paying Mike Pelfrey. That's a high price to pay to appease the owner's snit. I guess Arte Moreno can afford it.

Hamilton is probably not the player he was in his first go-around with the Rangers, and it would be foolish to expect that. (It was foolish for the Angels to expect that when they signed him after the 2012 season.) He put up a .255 batting average in his two seasons with the Halos and set, in separate years, career lows in on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Even so, he was, by OPS+, a better-than-average hitter in both seasons. This is a useful gamble by the Rangers. I hope Hamilton embarrasses the Angels when the division rivals meet. More than that, I hope the return to an environment where he has had success helps him in his struggle for sobriety.

The Josh Hamilton issue

Josh Hamilton, faded superstar and drug addict, is reportedly the subject of a heated debate over how to handle his apparent relapse. Should he be suspended for as much as the entire season or not? Should he be required to enter rehab? Supposedly the four-member panel has split evenly on what to do.

I can't pretend to know what outcome here is best for Hamilton. I do think this: The primary goal of a drug program should be the employee's sobriety and safety. I hope that the reported split on the panel is the result of honest disagreement over what is best for Hamilton, not a labor-management split over money.

The panel ought not be concerned with protecting the Angels from the consequences of their five-year, $125 million contract with the outfielder. The Angels doubtless regret the deal; it was a foolish contract even without Hamilton's well-known history of substance abuse. But they went into the deal knowing that he was into his decline years, knowing that he was leaving one of baseball's most hitter-friendly parks, knowing that his sobriety was hard-won and never secure. None of that was any sort of secret.

I have the same attitude on this as I do on the Yankees' desire to be out from under the Alex Rodriguez contract. You made this bed, fool. Lie in it.

Josh Hamilton's relapse

Josh Hamilton on Friday admitted that he had gone drinking
on Monday: "It was just wrong."

Word got out late Thursday that 2010 AL MVP Josh Hamilton had been seen drinking at a bar in the Dallas-Fort Worth area earlier in the week. Since Hamilton is baseball's most notorious recovering addict, it was big news — big enough to prompt a Hamilton mea culpa press conference on Friday.

It's not Hamilton's first relapse since his return from the abyss, but it certainly came at a sensitive time: The outfielder is going into his walk year, and contract talks between his agent and the Texas Rangers were broken off in the immediate wake of his relapse.

I find myself wondering, however, not so much about what this latest slip means for Hamilton the ballplayer as what it suggests about his post-baseball future. Both this and his previous relapse, after all, came in January — in the heart of the offseason, in a time when the structure of the season isn't available. Also, there are a lot of people around him (again, particularly during the season) who want, if only for selfish reasons, to keep him sober and productive.

He has a support system, frayed as it may be, in place — but it has a lot to do with baseball. And baseball is only a part of life, even for a talent as magnificent as Hamilton.

Someday his playing days are going to end. The financial incentive for others to help him stay in line will vanish. The lure of tomorrow's game won't be there.

If he struggles to stay sober in the offseason, what awaits him when his permanent offseason arrives? For an addict, sobriety is always a daunting notion, but in Hamilton's case, it seems even more difficult.