The Super-Natural comes to New York

The Texas Rangers have had a lot of success at the All-Star game. The mid-season classic, an exhibition between the "best players" in the American and National leagues, has been the scene for some of the more compelling drama for this mediocre franchise. However, game winning hits (of which the Rangers have had two) or All-Star MVPs (three) seem like distant memories after the display during the home run derby by Josh Hamilton.

The home run derby pits four sluggers from each league and boils down to glorified batting practice, in which fans "ooh" and "aah" over their favorite home run hitters passing out souvenirs beyond the outfield wall. ESPN covers the home run derby. This is bad for anyone who doesn't like the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cubs. The "four-letter" network has digressed into more of an entertainment(E) show than a sports(S) one. Too often are they mired in the pomp and fluff that has come to mark TV news, and they seem more interested in controversy than covering sports.

When the Josh Hamilton express came to town (NYC), there was no need for any fluff. He knocked the fluff where it belonged...the cheap seats. Sports transcends because it presents the opportunity for full human potential to be displayed. The poor sportsmanship, the money, the resentment among fan bases, indeed, show its potential for harm too, but once in a while those things are obscured by unadulterated greatness. That wonderful July night, the world got to see, many for the first time, what most of Ranger nation had been so excited about all year. The story lines did not need elaboration this time, because Hamilton's dreams were about to come true.


Josh Hamilton brings his own pitching machine
Clay Council has thrown thousands of rounds of batting practice to boys coming through his American Legion Youth baseball teams. Josh Hamilton came through his squad in high school, and as a token of appreciation, asked Coach Council to lob meatballs up to him in Yankees Stadium in front of 30000+ fans. I am not naive. Fame has changed Josh Hamilton. It would change any of us, but that he remembers the people who in, even seemingly insignificant ways, have helped him succeed, speaks volumes of his perspective.


Josh didn't even win the HR derby
In the final round Justin Morneau outslugged Josh to take home the trophy, but to everyone there and watching on TV, it didn't matter, because in his first round from the final position, Josh clubbed TWENTY-EIGHT home runs. To put that in perspective, he hit more home runs in the that round, which includes 10 outs (an out is any ball swung at that is not a home run), than the previous four competitors hit altogether in forty outs. Josh started out slow. After 8 outs, he only had 13 homers, but with the eulogy of Yankees stadium (good riddance) as the backdrop and the greatest ballplayers in the game seated on the grass in front of each of the dugouts, Josh heated up. He went from 13 homers, already sufficient to take the lead in the competition to 28 before recording his tenth out. He even hit a dozen out between his eighth and ninth out. Again, that is twelve home runs before hitting another ball that was not a home run. Incredible.


Welcome back, Josh
When he was drafted out of high school by the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, he was proclaimed as a Ken Griffey Jr. starting kit. Predicted to have a Hall of Fame caliber career, people would not have been surprised to see the herculean center fielder dominate the home run derby. What is amazing is the path he has taken to get here. All of you know the story by now I hope, but suffice it to say, his journey back to baseball stands as the most compelling celebrity redemption epic I have ever heard. Others have come back to baseball from different struggles. Guys have survived huge injuries, even serious sickness, but not downplaying those in the least, I believe Hamilton's "There and Back Again" trumps them all. Josh's wife, Katie, stuck by him through the darkest moments of his addiction and remains his strongest supporter on his road to recovery. Her insight is compelling.

God told me he was going to give Josh baseball back, but it wasn't going to be for baseball. It was going to be for something much bigger. He was going to give Josh a platform to help others. He is the most beautiful choreographer. It's not by accident that all the things that have happened in our lives have happened.

Josh is a lucky guy...blessed, I mean, whatever.


"Why I'm here"
Josh claims when he was beginning his road back to sobriety and before he had seriously considered if returning to baseball was a possibility, he had a dream. In this dream, he claims he is standing with a female reporter in Yankee stadium after finishing a round at the home run derby. She asks him, "How did you get here? How did you do it?" Josh said he's been contemplating the answer to that question for the three years it took him to get to Yankees stadium at the Home Run Derby and have Erin Andrews ask him after the twenty eighth homer, "how did you do it?"

Josh's prowess as a ballplayer causes thousands of fans to gravitate toward him. His talent and accolades between the lines inspires awe and wonder like a god on Mt. Olympus. However, gods on far away mountains can be worshipped and lauded, but they cannot be related to. Josh's testimony of God's grace changing his life and giving him back his future, which he did everything to throw away, means that more than appreciating him for his physical gifts, thousands of people can be inspired to consider what God is capable of doing, because of what he has done already. God is a "wonderful choreographer," and he knew we could only understand and be changed by someone who became like us in every way. Joshua is an appropriate name for "The Super-Natural," because its shared by the one willingly humbled himself who came to die for sinners so we could know the transforming grace evident in Hamilton and all those who claim Jesus (Jeshua) as their Lord and Savior.

Josh says in the dream he doesn't know how many home runs he had hit before the reporter asks him the crucial question. If someone told him it was 28, I think he would have said it was physically impossible. Physically impossible? Yeah, I agree with that. Hmm, how wonderful.