Texas Rangers star Josh Hamilton: A true role model.

Last night the Texas Rangers completed their first playoff series win in franchise history over the Tampa Bay Rays. The ensuing clubhouse pandemonium and victorious revelry ensued as with any playoff series win. Except this celebration brought forth a strange and unexpected twist. Instead of popping open bottles galore of the bubbly, the Texas Rangers raucously gathered around their biggest star, Josh Hamilton, and doused him with bottles of Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Odd, you say? Perhaps you don't know the story behind Josh Hamilton.

In 1999, Hamilton, a budding superstar in the making, was drafted number one overall by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Expectations were high for the outfielder, and none in the baseball world could have ever imagined the dreadful downward spiral that was soon to unfold.

After two years playing in Tampa Bay's minor league system, Hamilton suffered a host of injuries in a car crash. That same year, the so called superstar to be descended into a quagmire of prolonged drug and alcohol abuse. He checked into rehab, but to no avail. In 2002, Hamilton's season was cut short due to lingering injuries from the car accident year prior.

In 2003, after reporting late to spring training on numerous occasions baseball was on hold. 2004 fared worse, with a suspension and subsequent fine for violating the MLB's drug policy. Josh Hamilton's baseball career was dead, while he lived a lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and rampant promiscuity.

In 2005, Hamilton, his life crumbling around him and nowhere else to turn, came to his grandmother, Mary Holt for help. According to Hamilton, his loving grandmother took him in, and her influence completely transformed him from a hopeless drug addict to a devout man of faith crying out to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation.

Today, Josh Hamilton has since returned to baseball. He is a 3 time all star and Home Run Derby champion and record holder with one of the most powerful swings in baseball. But his accomplishments on the field, while spectacular, pale in comparison to his exploits off the field.

Josh Hamilton regularly professes his love for Christ whenever he gets the chance, through interviews, newspaper and magazine articles, and inspirational speeches to churches and youth events. He no longer uses drugs. He is a strict non alcoholic. The song "Until the Whole World Hears" by the Christian group Casting Crowns is played whenever he steps into the batters box. And the theme song to The Natural is played when he crosses home plate after each homerun. In Texas he in known as "The Great Hambino".

Josh Hamilton represents a pure role model the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else in professional sports or pop culture for that matter. He is proof that people can turn their lives around with the help of Jesus, and inspiration to those in empty moral decay, that there is always hope! The Josh Hamilton story is unmatched, a future Hollywood blockbuster film in the making and a breath of fresh air in the tempestuous world of pro sports.

Watch Josh's testimony...


Hamilton giving an awesome performance in the 2008 Home Run Derby