I was introduced to a girl a couple of weeks ago. I met her for drinks on a Sunday, and we talked for a couple of hours. It went well. I wanted to see her again, and I asked her out. She said yes.
Our first date also went well. A bottle of wine. Delicious food. And conversation that filled another couple of hours. We talked about future dates. What we like. What we don't like. What makes us tick.
Again, going well.
A couple of days later, she comes up with an idea. Cirque du Soleil. She'd like to go - with me. A second date (third if the first meeting counts). I smile because it feels like something is building. This could be the start of something. We could look back on this, years later, and talk about our first dates. I could be living a story we would be telling for a long time. But that's a possible future- the present is too interesting to worry about it.
We go to the show. We have fun. It's nice.
I try to set up our next meeting. The first two went so well, there would have to be a third. I think back to things she said she'd like to do. Small keywords lead to grand ideas. Arboretum. Macaroni and Cheese. I'm planning. Scheming. Date three. Four. Five. Ten. Fifteen.
Silence.
No response for one day. Then a second. A phone call goes unanswered. Then the silence is broken with a statement. "I don't feel a connection. It's best to stop now."
Connection is a funny thing. When two people hold hands, a connection is made. One side feels it and the other side feels it. It's how almost every connection in the world works.
But not the heart. One side can feel a connection that the other side cannot feel. It's something that I've never really been able to understand. How can one person feel something when the other person feels nothing? How can one person cling on to something they feel is special, while the other person is comfortable letting go? How can something burn for someone with no effect on the other? How can "connection" be so one-sided?
In most ways, it's a good thing. From my experience, a quick, painful strike is much better than a slow one. And for most people, a connection cannot be created - it's there or it isn't. So if it isn't there, there is no point faking it..
But for now, it's sad. It's painful. But, mostly, it's confusing. Did I feel something? Or did I simply want to feel something? And, in the end, is there a difference?
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Josh Hamilton
Thursday October 27, 2011 - Josh Hamilton hits a 2-run home run in the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. It gives the Texas Rangers a 9-7 lead and moves them three outs away from winning the World Series.
Tuesday May 8, 2012 - Josh Hamilton hits four home runs in a game against the Baltimore Orioles. Just a month into the season, he has 14 home runs, 36 RBIs, and is batting .406. He's openly regarded as the best player in baseball, and DFW cannot say enough positive things about the free-agent-to-be future hall of famer.
Friday October 5, 2012 - In what is widely accepted as his final at-bat as a Ranger, Josh Hamilton strikes out for the second time in the AL's first Wild Card playoff matchup. In front of his home fans, Hamilton walks back to the dugout to a chorus of boos.
What happened in the last year? How could things go so horribly wrong for an athlete who should've had a blank check for the rest of his career? How does a guy who should be a World Series hero get booed off the field in a home playoff game?
It's a longer story than you would think. But the simplest answer is - "Because he's Josh Hamilton."
First of all, as we all know, the Rangers didn't win that game on October 27. Darren Oliver had two amazing things happen after Hamilton's home run - he somehow blew a save opportunity against two terrible hitters and a pitcher that had to bat - and he walked away from this experience without anyone saying a word. He blew a ridiculously easy situation and walked away without a scratch.
Which is strange because it completely altered Josh Hamilton's legacy. Not just as a Texas Ranger but as a baseball player in general. Singular moments like that don't happen very often in baseball. A home run to win a World Series. It's the stuff of legends. Josh would've been immortalized forever - not just in this town but everywhere that baseball is separated.
Darren Oliver blows it, and Josh's home run is forgotten.
Flash forward a few months, and Josh Hamilton has an incident with a "very average girl" in a Sherlock's Pub. He drank alcohol, and he allegedly had sex in the bathroom with some random woman. He apologized for his behavior, but he lost a lot of faith from fans. He was the squeaky-clean man of God who suddenly looked like a drug addict again.
But the thing that was the worst was the way he reacted. The fans tried to surround Josh with love, but he didn't really repay that love. We all figured that if there was a place that Josh Hamilton needed to be, it was Texas. It's a conservative (and mostly Christian) community that respects Josh's faith and family. We want to forgive him, and we want him to succeed. If any baseball player in the history of the world was going to give a hometown discount to a team, it was Josh.
Except that he said the complete opposite. That he didn't owe the organization anything. That if the Texas Rangers wanted to sign Josh, they were going to have to give him the big bucks just like any other team.
It wasn't what we wanted to hear, and it was so far in the other direction that it sounded like someone else. I wondered if it was the agent talking. Or maybe Josh simply isn't who we thought he was.
Josh got through it and started playing baseball. And he was the best player in baseball. The four homer night on May 8 was the pinnacle of an insane start to a season. He could do no wrong, and the Rangers looked like a dominant team. People were calling them one of the best teams ever. One of the most complete teams ever. A unanimous favorite to get back to the World Series for a third straight year.
Then the slump happened. And man did it happen. May 8 was the 30th game of the season. 132 games later, Josh ended up with 43 HRs and 128 RBIs. Incredible numbers. MVP type numbers. But nowhere near the pace he'd previously been on. And his average dropped all the way to .285. Hitting over .400 probably wasn't going to happen, but it was basically unthinkable for Josh to hit less than .300 for the season after the start he had. Slumps like that don't happen.
But this is Josh Hamilton.
Josh missed time because he drank too much caffeine and his eyes dried out. He blamed his slump on an addiction to chewing tobacco. And after a multi-month slump and a team shipwrecking, Josh made a gigantic mental error in the field in the biggest game of the season. In a 5-5 game that was going to decide the AL West championship, Josh Hamilton didn't catch a routine pop-up.
Maybe he lost it in the sun. Maybe he just wasn't focused. Maybe he was thinking about all the money he was going to make somewhere. It doesn't matter. It was a ball that every baseball player in the world could've made. And a Hall of Famer always makes. And he didn't do it.
And people were pissed. It was enough to burn through the rest of Josh's credibility in this town. And let me remind you that Josh had hit a HR less than a year earlier that should've won the World Series. If Darren Oliver finishes off the easiest save of his life, Josh Hamilton would never be booed in Arlington ever again. You don't boo heroes.
But Josh wasn't a hero anymore. In less than a year, he'd become a goat. And fans in Texas were tired of him.
I was at the game. I didn't boo Josh. But I understood why people did. For the first time in his career, Josh's effort was questioned. It wasn't the dropped ball in Oakland. Not just that, at least. Months of horrible at-bats and terrible performances had added up. And it was too much for a young fanbase that had taken too much psychological damage in the last couple of years.
They were done with their best hitter. The #3 guy in their lineup. Maybe the best player in franchise history. He was going to walk away, and they were going to let him. And they showed their displeasure in the only way they knew how.
I wish it didn't end this way. I wish Josh could've received the standing ovation that, honestly, he deserved. In five years, Josh Hamilton helped put the Rangers on the map. For forty years, the franchise did nothing. Then Josh Hamilton shows up, and the Rangers become a contender. Back-to-back trips to the World Series and favorite to win the division. One of the best teams in baseball and one of the best franchises in all of sports.
Josh Hamilton's journey in Texas should've never included boos. It definitely shouldn't have ended with them. But it was a weird journey, and it's how it ended.
Josh will go somewhere else next year. Some team will see the numbers and the highlights and pay him hundreds of millions of dollars. And at times, it will seem like a bargain. And at other times, it will be the worst contract in baseball. Never before has a baseball player been so good at times and so awful at others. But we're also talking about a player who is always one drink away from becoming an addict again. A person with such an addictive personality that he hurts his eyes with too much caffeine and an addiction to tobacco causes a year-long slump.
I wish Josh well. He's been one of the franchise's best players for a really long time. He's been a fan favorite from the second he arrived. What he's done for the Texas Rangers can never be forgotten. But, as a fan, I'm ready to see him go. I'm tired of the excuses, and I'm tired of the inconsistency. If Josh Hamilton would play to his potential every game, the sky would be the limit for the man. He could ask for almost any amount of money, and it would be very hard to overpay him.
But something keeps him from reaching that level on a regular basis. Something always happens, in or out of baseball, to distract him. To keep him from being the player he's capable of being. Which is probably why Josh's journey is always going to be a tragedy. Romeo can't end up with the girl because his destiny is not to be happy. Maybe Josh's life is just a lesson for the rest of us.
I wish Oliver had finished that game out. I wish Josh would've been carried on the shoulders of this city for the rest of his life. I wish we would've poured so much love onto the man that the franchise would've been forced to pay him whatever he wanted. I wish the idea that letting Josh go would've been so laughable that we wouldn't even bring it up. I wish the story of Josh and the Texas Rangers would've had a happy ending. Everything was in place for it to happen.
But it didn't. Less than a year from his should've-been-epic home run, Josh finally ran out of his fans' patience. And his time here is done. No ring, no love, no glory. Three strikes and he's out.
And it's weird to say it, but I'm okay with it. Almost 50,000 fans tonight were okay with it. Most Ranger fans are okay with it. He's still 31, coming of a year where he put up MVP numbers. With no replacement in site - possibly no replacement existing at all.
But we're okay with it.
Goodbye, Josh. I'm sorry, but this is the way it had to end.
Tuesday May 8, 2012 - Josh Hamilton hits four home runs in a game against the Baltimore Orioles. Just a month into the season, he has 14 home runs, 36 RBIs, and is batting .406. He's openly regarded as the best player in baseball, and DFW cannot say enough positive things about the free-agent-to-be future hall of famer.
Friday October 5, 2012 - In what is widely accepted as his final at-bat as a Ranger, Josh Hamilton strikes out for the second time in the AL's first Wild Card playoff matchup. In front of his home fans, Hamilton walks back to the dugout to a chorus of boos.
What happened in the last year? How could things go so horribly wrong for an athlete who should've had a blank check for the rest of his career? How does a guy who should be a World Series hero get booed off the field in a home playoff game?
It's a longer story than you would think. But the simplest answer is - "Because he's Josh Hamilton."
First of all, as we all know, the Rangers didn't win that game on October 27. Darren Oliver had two amazing things happen after Hamilton's home run - he somehow blew a save opportunity against two terrible hitters and a pitcher that had to bat - and he walked away from this experience without anyone saying a word. He blew a ridiculously easy situation and walked away without a scratch.
Which is strange because it completely altered Josh Hamilton's legacy. Not just as a Texas Ranger but as a baseball player in general. Singular moments like that don't happen very often in baseball. A home run to win a World Series. It's the stuff of legends. Josh would've been immortalized forever - not just in this town but everywhere that baseball is separated.
Darren Oliver blows it, and Josh's home run is forgotten.
Flash forward a few months, and Josh Hamilton has an incident with a "very average girl" in a Sherlock's Pub. He drank alcohol, and he allegedly had sex in the bathroom with some random woman. He apologized for his behavior, but he lost a lot of faith from fans. He was the squeaky-clean man of God who suddenly looked like a drug addict again.
But the thing that was the worst was the way he reacted. The fans tried to surround Josh with love, but he didn't really repay that love. We all figured that if there was a place that Josh Hamilton needed to be, it was Texas. It's a conservative (and mostly Christian) community that respects Josh's faith and family. We want to forgive him, and we want him to succeed. If any baseball player in the history of the world was going to give a hometown discount to a team, it was Josh.
Except that he said the complete opposite. That he didn't owe the organization anything. That if the Texas Rangers wanted to sign Josh, they were going to have to give him the big bucks just like any other team.
It wasn't what we wanted to hear, and it was so far in the other direction that it sounded like someone else. I wondered if it was the agent talking. Or maybe Josh simply isn't who we thought he was.
Josh got through it and started playing baseball. And he was the best player in baseball. The four homer night on May 8 was the pinnacle of an insane start to a season. He could do no wrong, and the Rangers looked like a dominant team. People were calling them one of the best teams ever. One of the most complete teams ever. A unanimous favorite to get back to the World Series for a third straight year.
Then the slump happened. And man did it happen. May 8 was the 30th game of the season. 132 games later, Josh ended up with 43 HRs and 128 RBIs. Incredible numbers. MVP type numbers. But nowhere near the pace he'd previously been on. And his average dropped all the way to .285. Hitting over .400 probably wasn't going to happen, but it was basically unthinkable for Josh to hit less than .300 for the season after the start he had. Slumps like that don't happen.
But this is Josh Hamilton.
Josh missed time because he drank too much caffeine and his eyes dried out. He blamed his slump on an addiction to chewing tobacco. And after a multi-month slump and a team shipwrecking, Josh made a gigantic mental error in the field in the biggest game of the season. In a 5-5 game that was going to decide the AL West championship, Josh Hamilton didn't catch a routine pop-up.
Maybe he lost it in the sun. Maybe he just wasn't focused. Maybe he was thinking about all the money he was going to make somewhere. It doesn't matter. It was a ball that every baseball player in the world could've made. And a Hall of Famer always makes. And he didn't do it.
And people were pissed. It was enough to burn through the rest of Josh's credibility in this town. And let me remind you that Josh had hit a HR less than a year earlier that should've won the World Series. If Darren Oliver finishes off the easiest save of his life, Josh Hamilton would never be booed in Arlington ever again. You don't boo heroes.
But Josh wasn't a hero anymore. In less than a year, he'd become a goat. And fans in Texas were tired of him.
I was at the game. I didn't boo Josh. But I understood why people did. For the first time in his career, Josh's effort was questioned. It wasn't the dropped ball in Oakland. Not just that, at least. Months of horrible at-bats and terrible performances had added up. And it was too much for a young fanbase that had taken too much psychological damage in the last couple of years.
They were done with their best hitter. The #3 guy in their lineup. Maybe the best player in franchise history. He was going to walk away, and they were going to let him. And they showed their displeasure in the only way they knew how.
I wish it didn't end this way. I wish Josh could've received the standing ovation that, honestly, he deserved. In five years, Josh Hamilton helped put the Rangers on the map. For forty years, the franchise did nothing. Then Josh Hamilton shows up, and the Rangers become a contender. Back-to-back trips to the World Series and favorite to win the division. One of the best teams in baseball and one of the best franchises in all of sports.
Josh Hamilton's journey in Texas should've never included boos. It definitely shouldn't have ended with them. But it was a weird journey, and it's how it ended.
Josh will go somewhere else next year. Some team will see the numbers and the highlights and pay him hundreds of millions of dollars. And at times, it will seem like a bargain. And at other times, it will be the worst contract in baseball. Never before has a baseball player been so good at times and so awful at others. But we're also talking about a player who is always one drink away from becoming an addict again. A person with such an addictive personality that he hurts his eyes with too much caffeine and an addiction to tobacco causes a year-long slump.
I wish Josh well. He's been one of the franchise's best players for a really long time. He's been a fan favorite from the second he arrived. What he's done for the Texas Rangers can never be forgotten. But, as a fan, I'm ready to see him go. I'm tired of the excuses, and I'm tired of the inconsistency. If Josh Hamilton would play to his potential every game, the sky would be the limit for the man. He could ask for almost any amount of money, and it would be very hard to overpay him.
But something keeps him from reaching that level on a regular basis. Something always happens, in or out of baseball, to distract him. To keep him from being the player he's capable of being. Which is probably why Josh's journey is always going to be a tragedy. Romeo can't end up with the girl because his destiny is not to be happy. Maybe Josh's life is just a lesson for the rest of us.
I wish Oliver had finished that game out. I wish Josh would've been carried on the shoulders of this city for the rest of his life. I wish we would've poured so much love onto the man that the franchise would've been forced to pay him whatever he wanted. I wish the idea that letting Josh go would've been so laughable that we wouldn't even bring it up. I wish the story of Josh and the Texas Rangers would've had a happy ending. Everything was in place for it to happen.
But it didn't. Less than a year from his should've-been-epic home run, Josh finally ran out of his fans' patience. And his time here is done. No ring, no love, no glory. Three strikes and he's out.
And it's weird to say it, but I'm okay with it. Almost 50,000 fans tonight were okay with it. Most Ranger fans are okay with it. He's still 31, coming of a year where he put up MVP numbers. With no replacement in site - possibly no replacement existing at all.
But we're okay with it.
Goodbye, Josh. I'm sorry, but this is the way it had to end.
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