None But Ourselves Can Free Our Mind.

I used to love baseball more than just about anything. From first grade until middle school (which started in seventh grade, the way it should be) I collected baseball cards, played baseball games in the field behind my house with the guys (all 4 of us) and I took batting practice about four times a week (with myself as the pitcher and the batter. The physics are mind-boggling). I was obsessed with baseball. No, no. I was possessed by baseball. I was a boy possessed.

Baseball was exorcised from my life, little-by-little, whenever a favorite player was banned for gambling or whenever a favorite player was suspended for drugs, but also when I learned how to play music. As a child, I wanted to be a baseball player and this seemed fairly realistic to me until I started playing music and I wanted to be a professional musician. I wanted to be for the tuba what Caruso was for tenors or what Rostropovich was for cellists, a dream that has proven unattainable, if not because of my talent level than for my lack of desire and work ethic. A dream, though, that was certainly more attainable than being a ball player. It wasn't a bad thing. It just...was.

In college, I fell out of love with playing music and in love, passionately, with film and literature. That is where my loyalties are and perhaps where they always have been. In sixth grade, I wrote a short mystery about a wrongly-diagnosed patient and the doctor who was trying to kill him. I found this story the other day (when everything seems to happen) and can honestly report that while I showed few signs of becoming the next James Patterson, the plot was pretty sophisticated for a sixth grader. Sixth grade was kind of rough because my teacher seemed to be phoning in the entire year. Whenever I aspired for something other than the status quo, my teacher (Ms. Mikus) did her best to stifle my creativity, which may be why I took to music so well; I wasn't ever scolded for writing things inappropriate for my age: I was always pushed and challenged to play beyond my age. Well, I'm proud to say Ms. Mikus couldn't keep me down. I'm back where I have always wanted to be.

But sometimes those old desires creep back. Like whenever I hear a band play or like last night. I don't usually care so much about the MLB Home Run Derby and I've only followed this season of baseball from afar. I'm happy that the Orioles are doing better than they have in a decade. I'm even happier that the Nationals are foundering so immensely. But last night, before I started watching The Ruins, a movie that I was pleasantly surprised by, I turned on the Home Run Derby.

I stopped religiously watching the Home Run Derby almost entirely because of Chris Berman, which is another post entirely, but this year, for no reason, I watched Josh Hamilton step up to the plate. I was interested in him specifically because I feel a sort of bond with him. Hamilton was drafted first overall by the Tampa Bay Rays back in 1999 and signed a contract with them, which immediately put 4 million dollars in his bank account. For reasons that don't really matter, he started experimenting with drugs. Unfortunately, Hamilton's amazing talent couldn't keep him from falling into the dark expanses of addiction and he progressed from pot to coke to heroin. By 2002 Hamilton had pretty much gone and ruined his dream of playing professional baseball.

He wasn't discouraged for very long, though. He got back on his horse (not heroin horse, but the metaphorical one), found Jesus (as most recovering addicts seem to do) and started working out. Soon enough he was re-drafted by the Cincinnati Reds and playing everyday for them. This winter he was traded to the Texas Rangers and was voted as a starter to the American League All Star Team. Last night he batted last in his first (and probably not last) Home Run Derby. Hamilton has been through much more than I have and his struggles have been much more difficult to overcome, but I can't help but feel a kinship to someone like him. Someone who had high expectations thrust upon him and failed to live up to them. Someone who has, no doubt, suffered more from disappointing himself than others. I'm hard on myself like Hamilton must have been. All I have to learn is how to drag myself up from the abyss that I've flung myself into. Hamilton makes me think that it's not only possible, but probable. I love him for making me feel that way.

The pitcher, also Hamilton's little league and high school coach, lobbed fastballs to him. He watch each go by until the perfect pitch was presented to him on a platter and then one, two, three four five home runs later, everybody was on their feet cheering the former addict on. Hamilton ended up hitting 28 home runs in the first round which is a new record, but more impressive was how far he was hitting the balls. Sometimes he'd just barely make it over the fence, but the majority sailed into the crowd with no trouble. In the end Hamilton didn't win, but what he did transcended winning or losing. He captured our hearts and minds, if only for a couple of hours.

That's when my old obsession with baseball came back to me, if only for a short time. I love baseball because ever-present is the possibility of greatness. Even an ex-junkie who didn't pick up a bat for 3 years can have a moment of glory. If only life was like the All Star Game Home Run Derby: we could swing at the perfect pitches and let the bad ones go by. Sometimes we'd swing at the bad ones with mixed results, sometimes sending the ball just over the fence, sometimes missing all together. But in baseball, we can just smash the next pitch out of the park and bask in the adulation the fans pour onto us. In baseball, we can go from zero to hero. That's why I'll always love baseball, if only for seconds at a time and if only in the deepest recess of my mind. In baseball, redemption is just a swing away.