"I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American Game." -- Walt Whitman

Check out this story on Josh Hamilton

So, for the past few days I have had baseball on my mind, I know I know…big shocker.

With the anticipation of the All-Star break I was starting feel pangs of sadness because the wonderful midsummer classic, shows that we are just that, mid-summer. In reality we are closer to 2/3 through summer, which means that there isn’t very much of the baseball season left.

So, as I was thinking of why baseball is so great and why this summer, the summer that I have been getting paid to watch baseball, was one of the best times in my life.

On Monday night I sat in the press box, with my sub-par chicken parmesan compliments of the suite catering staff and the LHMSE cooks, I looked over at the TV to watch the Home Run Derby, and who was up? None other than Mr. Josh Hamilton himself.

So I will write about what makes Josh Hamilton’s single-round 28 home runs as amazing and unforgettable as they were.

For a sport that has been clouded by the use of illegal substances and was forever changed, it was refreshing to witness a moment when the beauty of the human spirit could shine through the darkness that clouds the sport.

Everyone acknowledges that Hamilton’s story is just a hop, skip and a jump away from a Hollywood hit, because it was his personal strength that overcame something that I have seen consume the lives of others, and it is his personal perseverance that keeps this miraculous story going.

For those of you who are unaware, Hamilton was the overall first draft pick out of high school and received a $4 million signing bonus, which was squandered away to feed his drug addiction. Hamilton was banned from baseball because of his drug habit and was so consumed by the addiction that most people thought he would never break out of it.

But the young Hamilton made a complete 180 degree turn in his life and straightened out. He attributes so much of what he was able to do to the Lord’s help and blessings, which is incredibly refreshing to see someone so talented with humility.

I’m not going to get into a lot of the details because I don’t know all of them and because you can read about them, as they are all over the media right now.

What I want to acknowledge is that, who Josh Hamilton is, and what he has done is what makes sports so great. He made poor choices and he almost lost his life, but he fought through it and he has become the kind of person that I want my eight year old little brother to look up to.

Hamilton has become a hero, and the kind of hero that is worth looking up to. It is no longer the juiced-up players who can hit the long ball, yet spend their time in the courts.

Josh Hamilton has just done something amazing for baseball.