Bored on a Wednesday Night

As you can probably guess from my title, I have nothing to do this evening so I've decided to update my lovely sports opinion blog rather than pack it in at 9:00, what self respecting college student thinks of that...probably the kind who's roommate goes downstairs to watch a movie with a girl...wait a second???

Anyway, today's topic: Josh Hamilton

Anyone closely following baseball knows by now that the Texas Rangers have clinched the American League West with plenty of time to spare. Anyone who has ever seen a sports highlight show knows how the night ends after a team clinches a playoff birth...the team goes back into the locker room and pops $3.00 a bottle champagne from the closest wal-mart and showers beer all over everyone and their mother...or father, I don't judge. Personally I've always wondered how rookie phenoms who are under the age of 21 are allowed to take part in these sorts of celebrations...this is America and we follow the law, most of the times, ok sometimes, ok...almost never when it comes to those that Moses and his Ten Commandments didn't address.

But I digress, when the Texas Rangers clinched, Josh Hamilton stayed away from his teams celebration because he has a history of alchohol abuse that derailed his major league career once before. It takes some pretty strong character to not take fun in something that you've never experianced before, Hamilton's never made the playoffs, he doesn't know what that feels like. His bat is a big part of how the Rangers made the playoffs in the first place, and yet he stayed strong to his lifetime rehabilitation program and abstained from the drinking.

While I personally have never battled substance abuse of any kind, everyone knows someone who has been affected by someone who has a substance abuse problem. So everyone knows that straying from the path once can lead to a hard crash from a partially climbed ladder, and that temptation is something recovering addicts battle every single day. So while Josh Hamilton's post game celebration may not have been ideal, it was the right decision and I applaud him for doig so.