Excuse me? What lies? Yeah, he tried to come back many times and succumbed to drug use. Then he changed organizations and turned his life around. I don’t see what the heck people are angry about.

“It wasn’t until he found a way off the team that he attempted to make himself better.”

That statement is bullshit, because like I said, he got re-instated WHILE STILL WITH THE RAYS. The dude wasn’t being selfish, he just had a hell of a hard time turning his life around. It’s unfortunate that it happened after he left our organization, but can’t you just be happy that he turned things around? Of course he shouldn’t be deified for getting into that stuff in the first place, but it happens, and a lot of people aren’t as lucky as Hamilton to turn things around. There’s nothing to suggest this was anything besides a one-time instance, and apparently he did the right things after(told Rangers GM Jon Daniels, etc).

My opinion on Hamilton has always been, and continues to be, none. He is a man who allowed himself to be possessed by bad habits, and whether one believes that is a method of choice, a personality disorder, or a genetic trait, it does not matter to me.

He is however, someone who has made substantial noise about how his habit affected him and how his beliefs and support group that have surrounded him allowed him to lift himself above it. He’s also been given a ton of chances already and has managed to mostly avoid criticism by the mainstream media. This, simply put, is not fair. TG#1 drew a parallel to Elijah Dukes and the number of chances he got. I do not at all agree with his POV based from that perspective. Dukes did not get in trouble for the same reasons Hamilton did, they’re not comparable situations.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with the tone of what he’s saying. It’s a whole lot easier to see what’s wrong here when you compare him to Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, or even Michael Irvin or Deion Sanders. All four of these players have had similar drug problems, all four of them ‘found god’ and all four of them relapsed. And when each one relapsed, they were individually railed upon repeatedly by the media, both local and national, with a merciless effort. In my eyes, Hamilton is the same as they are. I’m not at all surprised that people here aren’t showing sympathy to him. And I’m not surprised that the media has more or less already given him a pass on the issue. If anything, I’m happy to see how the initial reporting outlet (deadspin) refused to give him a pass on what happened and laid him out pretty good. It’s what I would expect out of good, impartial journalism.

As for the comment about new users and their perceived arrogance, it clearly works both ways when the first time a person comes on here they lay out a 1000 word fanpost telling us how stupid Joe Madden is, and how he NEEDS to be fired because he brought in Randy Choate to face a cleanup hitter with men on base. Every time I see someone mention this, I think to myself, “how nice are the people at ESPN if you go in there and say something someone doesn’t agree with? How about another popular SBN blog? The Heater? Something Awful? EBaums world? Usenet?” The fact is, the reaction is the same. If you go somewhere with an established community and spout your mouth off like an ignorant prick, nobody’s going to treat you nice. We have two new-user guides to tell people how not to be made a fool of. Anybody who is actually interested in learning from the site would read them and know not to do that kind of hostile stuff.

If he was married then he shouldn’t be out macking on 3 sexy ladies. Since he isn’t go right ahead big fella.

and I believe BA rated him the top prospect in the game. you don’t get that by “dogging it”.

and I don’t “boo Dukes”

I want him back on the team.

also , yr an idiot sometimes