I am not supposed to be happy about what Josh Hamilton did the other night. At least, not if I read the sports blogs out there. I’m supposed to put on my shiny pretentiousness hat, given out with every .com purchase on GoDaddy, and approach Hamilton’s story with sarcasm and ridicule for the man’s faith. Maybe dismiss him as old news. Maybe put up an old mugshot from his crack-addicted days and mock him as a jackass. Maybe make some crack about how he’s going to give that worship up since he didn’t win the Home Run Derby, and that he’ll keep switching religions til he does. He just hit 35 homers, yeah, whatever.

But I’ll leave that to the commenters at Deadspin.

This article from 2006 wasn’t the first one I’d read about Josh Hamilton and his tragic tale of personal failure. Neither was this eerily similar one from 2007, or any of the other profiles out there. I can’t remember what it was. But I know it was a long time ago. Way before he never made it past A ball. Way before he ended up as one of the worst draft picks of all time (according to ESPN, number 35).

I remembered seeing a TV interview with Hamilton when he was drafted 1st overall in 1999, watching it in my college dorm and realizing he was my age - and that he looked like just a good, All-American kid - and I remember reading about how it all fell apart. How he made it all fall apart. How he blew all his money, got kicked out, driven down. How he disappeared.

I saw a picture of him in a magazine in 2003. This was the new Josh Hamilton, staring out of sullen, sunken eyes - a picture that said drug addict, bust, failure. He didn’t look like The Natural - he looked like any other Crown Royal-swilling crack addicted piece of white trash - covered in tattoos, garish and ornate, demons and patterns, his skin telling of late nights and drug fueled blackouts and lost memories. As Dave Sheinin wrote: The Devil and the Son of God, waging war.

There’s a plot twist to this one, though. The Devil lost.

It’s funny the way you start paying attention to an athlete - one who’s never played on any of my teams, or even in the same state. But for the past several years, every roto league I’ve been in, I’ve drafted Josh Hamilton. First it was just the last pick of each round - like he was a mascot or something. Then earlier. Then this year, I took him in the sixth round, knowing the eyebrows of others would rise…and at the halfway mark of the season, he’s ranked 4th in points among all Fantasy Baseball players.

He says he made the long road back out of the blackness thanks to his loving family and his Christian faith. He says it’s saved his life. And he’s not shy about it. He wants to tell everybody. He knows where he’s come from, and what a gift this second - or is it third, or fourth - chance is.

I get a lot of abuse in visiting cities, but it only bothers me when people are vulgar around kids. The rest I can handle. Some of it is even funny. In St. Louis, I was standing in rightfield when a fan yelled, “My name is Josh Hamilton, and I’m a drug addict!” I turned around and looked at him with my palms raised to the sky. “Tell me something I don’t know, dude,” I said. The whole section started laughing and cheering, and the heckler turned to them and said, “Did you hear that? He’s my new favorite player.” They cheered me from that point on.

So I’ll leave it to more jaded writers to mock how Hamilton said he’d dreamed of this moment - of stepping to the plate at Yankee Stadium, hitting in the Home Run Derby. How he’d dreamed it two years ago, when the whole thing seemed like just a fantasy, an impossibility for a former drug addict whose best hope was a minor league career and a steady paycheck. How his faith led him back from the brink - faith not in his own ability, but in something greater. They can mock. It’s what they do.

As for me, if I’d been in the park the other night, I would’ve been chanting his name with all the rest, realizing that, whatever Hamilton’s career in the big leagues turns out to be in the years ahead, for this night - in this moment - we were all witnesses to a resurrection.

>> The first two are no big deal, but trust me, you want to read number three.

>> Tom Brady says he’s a ham when looking for some roughing-the-passer sympathy. “As I’m falling, I’m kind of looking at the ref with, like, a pouty dog face, like, can you believe they just hit me late?”

Forgive me, Mighty Football Gods, for I have sinned.

You must understand why I doubted your existence. After so many wonderful karmic finishes, where right was rewarded and evil punished, I and so many of my fellow fans and gamblers doubted that the season would end in anything less than perfection for the New England Patriots. The injustice of it all - a team stocked with arrogant jerks, cheaters, and metrosexuals, with a coach who may be the biggest jackass of his NFL generation (and among some strong candidates, you have to admit) - attaining football immortality. The miles upon miles of bandwagon Welker jersey-wearing Pats fans shouting epithets and reveling in their triumph. The prospect of the urtard writing story after story from here til doomsday about whether Tom Brady is hotter than Larry Bird or vice versa.

I’d seen the Giants live this season. I knew their many weaknesses. I thought, in my foolishness, that only a well-balanced team, a team like the Packers, could have a chance to stop the juggernaut. And so when that second Tynes field goal went through the uprights in Lambeau, I lost all hope. Never have I longed so much for Elisha, son of Manning to attain victory, but never have I so strongly believed he would fail. 19-0 was inevitable. You could write a book.

I did not comprehend your plan - how could I have? But if I had, I would’ve seen the magnificent beauty of it. This is the greatest karma of all, the greatest punishment you could wreak upon a franchise. What would’ve been an astounding feat - a perfect regular season - is now remembered only for its shocking, unexpected ending. What would’ve been the NFL’s greatest team now goes down as one of the greatest chokes in sports history. You hit the hardest when you fall from the top of the mountain, before the largest audience in Super Bowl history. And what a wonderful fall it was, at the hands of a team of scrubs, led by Kevin Boss and David Tyree, and quarterbacked by the Elvii-eluding Elisha.

I still cannot believe it. But that is the nature of your works.

I’ve loved this game for so long out of the belief in you - that because of your unseen hands, modern day football, more than any other sport, rewards hard work, toughness, and character over flash, arrogance, and preening egos. But over the past year, my doubts had overtaken me, and I was on the cusp of becoming a non-believer.

The seeds of my doubt were planted during the Art Monk Hall of Fame fiasco. You will understand: after eight years of seeing my childhood hero denied, I saw the writing on the wall with the upcoming class of Cris Carter, Andre Reed, Tim Brown, Jerry Rice…this was the last opportunity for a wideout of the previous generation to get into the Hall. I could not believe it, but it seemed his window had closed. The season was a roller coaster of emotion, with the horrible leadership of Roger Goodell, the tragic death of Sean Taylor, and the celebration of T.O. and Randy Moss. And then, with the recent reports by John Clayton and other luminaries that Darrell Green - one of the greatest cornerbacks to ever play the game - could be denied entry into Canton as well, my heart was set.

I knew it. Karma was dead. The football gods were no more. Asgard lay empty.

How wrong I was. And so in joy and thankfulness, I beg your forgiveness. Help thou mine unbelief, oh mighty gods of the gridiron. I will not doubt thy works again.

>> The tale of Sir Norvous. “Ladanius de la Tomlinson sighs and says, “I sometimes think that all you tell me of knighthood, kingdoms, empires and islands is all windy blather and lies.”

Taylor and his fiancee, Jackie Garcia, were asleep with their 18-month-old daughter when they were awakened by noises in the house. Taylor reached for a machete or other form of knife he keeps nearby in case of emergency, Sharpstein said. He told CNN that Taylor then locked the door of the bedroom, but that an intruder kicked the door in and fired twice, striking Taylor once in the upper leg. Garcia and the child were uninjured.

“This was a deliberate attack,” said Vinny Cerrato, Redskins vice president of football operations.

In pro football, the Free Safety is the last line of Defense against the opposition. He is expected to cover ground at an incredible pace, snag key interceptions on long passes, run stride for stride with the best speed receivers in the league, and outleap the best jumpers at the endzone. He must play smart yet fearless, guard against the big play, be an exceptional open field tackler, and never give up anything. He must guard the line of the endzone.

It is not a position for the weak of heart. So Sean Taylor’s heart was huge.

The violent death of Redskins Free Safety Sean Taylor is not something that any fanbase, any team can get over - maybe ever. Even before his death early Tuesday morning, Taylor was leading all defensive players in Pro Bowl votes, and the entire NFL in interceptions. The sudden demise of such a talented young athlete, nationally known, about to enter the prime of his career, has only one real comparison: it is as devastating to a franchise and a city as the death of Len Bias 21 years ago.

Sean Taylor was described as many things - but perhaps more often than any other term, he was held up as an example of the prototypical free safety of a new, more violent National Football League. At The U, he was a physical freak, an amazing specimen, equipped with the size and strength of a linebacker and the speed and agility of a cornerback. Taylor didn’t just cover - he hit, and he hit hard. In just his second year in the league, he became a feared slammer, tagged as “The Hitman,” “The Grim Reaper,” or by some, the term that’s now become even larger than him: “Meast.”

Sean Taylor was a human highlight reel. Footage of wide receivers being decked by Taylor in his first year turned into footage of wideouts developing alligator arms, or giving up on routes rather than risk getting pummeled by the young man from Miami. I was there for much of it - my sister, brother and I had season tickets in 2005, his first full year as a starter - and we couldn’t help but be amazed at what we were witnessing on the field. This was a game-changing old school tough, with the physical gifts to play like a wild man - a once-in-a-lifetime player. A phenom who actually surpassed his hype.

Writers said he was the next Ronnie Lott. No one laughed; a few wide receivers winced. And now he is gone.

The shock of this young man’s death extends beyond the margins of the field, to fans and non-fans alike. People who loved Taylor’s style, if not his team, mourn the loss of one of the most entertaining on-field talents in the game. People who knew him only from television and the sidelines stand and light candles in a cold, dark night as if he was a brother. And as the countless stories shared on websites over the past few hours show us, for many of the youngest Redskins fans, this marks the first confrontation with death.

Others are already locked into a debate, prompted at least in part by Chicago’s Mike Wilbon and his insensitive comments, about the role Taylor’s “association with thug life” had with his death. In reality, this is almost certainly a massive oversimplification. Taylor was the son of a Florida City Chief of Police. He has no drug record, and the 2005 DUI charge against him was tossed as soon as the judge saw the videotape (which didn’t feature a particularly positive performance by Northern Virginia’s finest). His lone standing arrest, for a run-in with the individual who stole his ATV, has been blown completely out of proportion. And even if you accept a view of Sean Taylor as an off-field thug (one wonders what this makes Pac Man Jones, Tank Johnson, or anyone else), his teammates and friends universally hold the opinion that this is a young man who had matured significantly over the past two years. He was never one to engage in public relations activity, but those who covered the team couldn’t help but notice the change, from an egotistical and proud young man to a father and soon-to-be husband.

Taylor’s experience may ultimately have more in common with the bizarre home invasion and kidnapping of the Texans’ Dunta Robinson, or the drive-by murder of Darrent Williams. They are all young, prominent black men, none of them with gang ties, none of them known for frequenting strip clubs or violent locales, all with some degree of wealth - and all of them were deliberately targeted. While there remains confusion about whether this was a burglary attempting to catch an empty house on gameday, Taylor reportedly went on a bike ride Sunday evening before he turned in, so it’s possible his attackers knew full well he’d be at home.

For a few days at least, Taylor’s death transcends sports - and stands as a terrible reminder of the astounding death rates of young black men, one more young life cut short far too soon. The sad truth is that many white commentators will sincerely nod their heads, and sigh, and speak of how tragic it all is…and, growing uncomfortable, move on to other issues they find more pressing. And the death march will go on.

The shock of this death will fade for many - but not for me, and not for those for whom Sean will always be the center of their life. I have no idea if Sean Taylor’s family can help his fiancee and daughter the way they need it at this moment, but I know Coach Joe Gibbs can help this team the way it needs it at this moment, and so do his former players. Moments like these demand the leadership of a someone who knows his Creator, and knows him well. We can only pray and hope there are similar individuals in the lives of Jackie Garcia and her young daughter, who will never know her father’s face.

It is a dark day. But when I think about the last moments of Sean Taylor’s life, I can’t help but imagine that he knew the position he was in as he stood for before the last line, and knew it well.

The story we are told today is that when he heard the noise, he took a blade he kept under the bed for emergencies - he still never owned a gun - and locked the bedroom door. He stood in front of it, doubtlessly focused as he gripped the handle, standing at the ready, his wife and young daughter in the room behind him. He could not know what would come, but he had to know, as any young father does, that whoever it was would never pass by him.

Sean Taylor would guard the line to the end. Let them find the man who did it better.

R.I.P.

[tags]Sean Taylor, NFL, Redskins[/tags]

To An Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

-A.E. Housman

 

 RIP Original Meast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[tags]Sean Taylor, NFL, Redskins[/tags]

Growing up in the South without a hometown team, I never had strong loyalties to a baseball franchise. I liked players, not teams. I went to minor league games, not the big stadiums. I loved the guys I learned about from the older fans - I loved Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente, and as I got older, Andy Pettitte and Jim Thome.

After a decade of living in the DC area, my family finally got the Nationals, but now that I’m down here in Texas, I have to root for Zimmerman from a distance. Ah well - I’ll make it up for opening day in the new ballpark, at least.

One thing’s stayed constant through it all: I’ve always hated the Boston Red Sox.

It’s not their players - hey, Curt Schilling is cool, I’ll admit that at least, and Manny probably smells…interesting. It’s not their management - though I do think the whole “last to integrate” thing was karma. It’s their fans, and the overall media obsession with said fans and the Northeastern rivalry as a whole. And it’s only gotten worse since they actually won and suddenly all these bandwagon fans woke up and bought gear - nearly as bad as Cowboys fans in the 90s. Think ten times worse than Bill Simmons represents them to be, and a hundred times worse than the worst Patriot fan you know. Yeah. It’s bad.

With very few exceptions, the relationships I have with Red Sox fans are constantly on edge during the season. I suspect it makes it worse for them that I’m not some Yankee fan - there’s no hateful comeback that my friends can make about rooting for the tanks in Tiananmen, and I readily concede that the Nationals are going to be lovable, scrappy losers for a long time, but we expect that out of one of the smallest budgets in the Majors. They’ll be playing spoiler for a long time, just like they did to the Mets this season - and that’s fine by me. And our fans won’t be pompous jackasses, which is also fine by me.

So to recap: It’s nothing personal. I just hope the Red Sox always lose. And I hope, somewhere, that makes Jimmy Fallon cry tears of unfathomable sadness.

This brings us to this year, and to a friendly wager on the Red Sox’ prospects for the postseason with The Red Sox Republican. We have a history of these kind of wagers, and I’ve come out on top. We’ll see who takes it this time.

He takes the Sox, who at the time I wrote this were rated 3-1 by Vegas to win the World Series. I take anybody but the Sox.

I’m pretty confident. How confident? Well: I’m playing for this. He’s playing for this.

I’m counting on you, J.D. Drew. Play ball.

(Oh, and yes - remember, folks, Drew and Jimmy hugging on the field, that’s the first thing you saw when the Sox won. You saw it - you can’t unsee it!)

It sounds ludicrous, I know. How can a quarterback as lauded as Brett Favre - ESPN darling, king of the endorsement scene (well, til Manning came along), John Madden’s numero uno mancrush - actually be an underrated quarterback?

Well, that’s easy. With Favre about to set the all-time touchdown passing record, every talking head is getting into the ranking game, and other than the eloquent piece by Len Pasquarelli, few are giving Favre the credit he deserves for his career. The other day, Ron Jaworski stopped stroking Donovan McNabb’s ego long enough to tell ESPN viewers that Brett Favre isn’t even in his top six, and Dan Marino isn’t in his top eight. And even those experts at Yahoo and Fox Sports who rank Favre highly put him barely in their top five, if at all.

As if their bias toward the present - instead of ranking a career - could be any clearer, many are putting Favre below Tom Brady. Let’s nip this in the bud: Brady has won three Super Bowls, each time on a team with a fantastic defense (Favre hasn’t had a top five defense since 1998), each time with a lead achieved by a Hall of Fame clutch kicker, each time under a coach who - cheater or not - is certainly in the top tier of NFL coaches, something which can’t be said of Favre’s signal callers (let’s be honest: together, Rhodes, Sherman, and McCarthy couldn’t hold Belichick’s jock). Brady has the rings, yes - but are you really going to say Trent Dilfer, Mark Rypien, and Brad Johnson are better quarterbacks than Marino? Or if the number of rings matter, that Aikman and Bradshaw are better than Favre or Elway? That’s just not an argument you can make with a straight face, or unless you’re a total homer for your team of choice.

Placing Favre out of the top five quarterbacks of all time club ignores his consistent statistical success when compared to others. I’m fed up with it. So maybe it’s time for a little refresher course, culled from the wonderful folks at Pro Football Reference.

Brett Favre: Top Five Quarterback

• Favre is the all time leader in wins, with 150, despite playing one fewer year than Elway and two fewer than Marino. The only active QB with a shot to catch him is Peyton Manning, with 94 regular season wins, which should allow him to pass Favre when Manning is 37. Adding postseason wins allows Tom Brady (82 regular and postseason wins) a hope of catching Favre, but as it also increases Favre’s total to 161 wins, Brady would likely have to play until he is 38 or 39 to match it.
• Favre is the all time leader in completions, and the only QB in NFL history to pass the 5,000 completion mark. The only active QB with a shot to catch him is Peyton Manning. If Favre retired tomorrow, and Manning’s average completions per season doesn’t dip at all, Peyton would still have to play until he was 38 to catch Favre, and 37 to match his consecutive 300+ completion seasons (Favre has 15).
• Eight of Favre’s single season completion totals rank in the top 50 all time in terms of completions per season, higher than any other QB and stretching from 1994 to 2005.
• Favre is second in the all time list of passing yards, exactly 3,000 yards behind Dan Marino. If Favre returns for a 17th season - remembering that Marino played 18 - he will pass Marino. Again, the only active QB with a shot to catch him is Peyton Manning. If Favre retired tomorrow, and Manning maintains his average for yards per season with no drop off, he’d still have to play until he was 37 to catch Favre.
• Favre has scored more points than any other Quarterback in NFL history (2,598 at the start of the season). While Manning will almost certainly catch this, he will almost certainly not match Favre in consecutive seasons with 30 or more touchdown passes - Favre has five, while only 5 Quarterbacks in NFL history have even managed two. Manning has never had back to back seasons with 30 or more touchdowns.
• As an iron-man quarterback, Favre is unmatched, with 241 consecutive starts this Sunday (261 including the postseason). Only one player in NFL history, defensive end Jim Marshall, has more - and it’s much easier to get that record at a position other than QB. Favre will pass Marshall’s total later this year, assuming he stays healthy. He will also pass Fran Tarkenton (244) for most career games as a quarterback.
• Finally, as we all know, Favre is one touchdown away from passing Dan Marino on the all time list for touchdown passes. But in terms of total touchdowns, he’s already four ahead of Marino - including rushing touchdowns and quarterback sneaks.

For what it’s worth, here’s my personal list:

1. Johnny Unitas
2. Joe Montana
3. Brett Favre
4. Dan Marino
5. John Elway

I feel pretty confident about this, as it dovetails well with the Sporting News list from a few years back that was Unitas, Montana, Elway, Favre. And yes, Manning will move up this list, and deserves to. But he isn’t yet in this tier statistically, and while we all know how consistent he is, we can’t put him there yet.

Assuming Manning has as long a career as these fellows had, he will eventually pass Elway, Marino, and Favre, though the top two will be hard to break through - Unitas because he accomplished so much in an era when the forward pass was a newfangled invention, and even moreso because he played in the era of shortened seasons, and has fewer games played than any others on this list, Montana because he has come to symbolize the ideal clutch QB in NFL history. Brady will have to keep up the pace of the first three games of the 2007 season from here on out if he’s ever going to have the statistics to be considered in this company.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this: As this season began, since the moment when Brett Favre took the field replacing Don Majkowski on September 20, 1992, no NFL team has won more games than the Green Bay Packers. Considering the era we’re in, when franchises rise and fall quickly, and the talent pool Favre has had to work with for the past several years, that’s simply astounding, and it’s the mark of a truly exceptional leader.

As the NFL season returns to us after the longest offseason in professional sports, let’s stop to give credit to the players in tonight’s opener not named Manning, Bush, Harrison, Brees, Wayne or Freeney.

Let’s hear it for Ross Tucker, an undrafted offensive lineman whose career opened and closed with the Washington Redskins, writes his story for Sports Illustrated. He feels lucky, but more than that - read it yourself.

It just occurred to me as I write this how fortunate I am to have a supportive wife who is happily married to an unemployed, overweight, and slightly balding 28-year-old man. I will definitely be able to get a job and lose some weight now that I am done playing, but there is not much I can do about the balding part.

Although all but a few of the cut players attended college, I’m sure more than half have no idea what they’re going to do now. Most of these young men are facing failure and rejection for the first time. Getting cut from a team or being anything less than the star has never even been a consideration for them until this point…I consider myself very fortunate in the sense that I have been preparing for this moment from the time my career started. When I first made the Redskins as an undrafted rookie in 2001, I realized that might be my only year, so I invested the money, continued driving my 1990 Jeep Cherokee, and began thinking about what I would want to do when football was over. I was keenly aware that football was just a temp job. I have a couple of business interests, such as www.gobigrecruiting.com, that will occupy my time, and I am more than excited about the possibility of writing or talking about football for a living. I figure if I can’t play anymore, that would be the next best thing.

But it is not the same as playing. Nothing else in life can replicate the feeling of running into another man in front of 90,000 people and hitting him as hard as you possibly can. My mom will probably hate reading this, but more than the paycheck or the camaraderie of the locker room, I will really miss the violence. It is just an amazing and pure primal feeling that you really don’t understand if you have never had the chance to do it.

It is hard to know when it will hit me the hardest that my time has come. It could be on Sundays when it is hard for me to watch the TV and see the guys I know playing. It is more likely that it will sink in when I sit in the stands of a random high school football game on a Friday night and my eyes fill up as they play the National Anthem…

Life goes on. And yes: I still love football.

Let’s hear it for the Ross Tuckers of football. Let’s hear it for the linemen who brutalize each other on every play with more energy than the overhyped and delicate wideouts and cornerbacks who yearn for the closeup and the highlight reel.

Let’s hear it for the undrafted and the irrelevant, for the men who never dreamed they’d make it this far, who give it all because they don’t have anything to lose - for seventh rounders and arena league castoffs, for Division I-AA players who beat out draft picks, and for grocery store clerks who hoist the Lombardi because they forgot they weren’t supposed to be any good.

Let’s hear if for the guys who don’t need big contracts, don’t need hot rides, don’t need their names on ESPN, don’t even need helmets - they just want the chance to play, to compete, to win, to have one small moment of victory.

Let’s hear it for the players who will never be on the cover of a video game, whose name will never be worn on jerseys across a stadium, who may not even be recognized when they’re seen in public.

Let’s hear it for the kids who’ll go to a stadium this weekend for the first time, who cheer as their team takes the field, and feel the whisper of that magical connection that comes with a hundred years of gridiron competition, who may not know or recognize Rice, Payton, Brown, Graham, Butkus, Nitschke, Lott, Greene, Huff, Thorpe, Unitas, Nagurski, Baugh, or Deacon Jones…but soon, they will.

Because the gridiron doesn’t care where you were drafted. It doesn’t care about your sponsorships or your forty time. It doesn’t care about your name, your faith, the color of your skin, the country of your birth. It doesn’t care if you are tired, or hurt, your body screaming against everything your mind is ordering it to do.

The gods of football care only about who wants it more. Who will see that moment as it comes, and seize it with all their might.

Game on.

I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.

-Vince Lombardi

(Originally posted by Ben on September 6, 2007)