{"id":609,"date":"2013-02-20T07:21:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T12:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=609"},"modified":"2013-02-20T15:12:30","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T20:12:30","slug":"tuesday-teabag-february-19-2013-josh-hamilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=609","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Teabag – February 19, 2013 – Josh Hamilton"},"content":{"rendered":"

With football over, it\u2019s time to focus on the misgivings of other athletes (for the counterpoint to the Teabag, check out our BOB<\/a>).\u00a0 This week, it\u2019s none other than Josh Hamilton, the can\u2019t miss\/can\u2019t miss a bar\/found Jesus\/loves the rock\/doesn\u2019t love the rock\/just a matter of time before he falls off the wagon (again) kid.\u00a0 You can say Josh had a pretty good offseason, signing a five year, $125 million dollar contract with the Angels.\u00a0 But this goes to show you\u2026even gobs of money won\u2019t stop you from acting like a fool.<\/p>\n

Josh, not content with looking at his bank account, found time to throw his old team, the Texas Rangers, and their fans, under the bus.\u00a0 Josh complained that Dallas really wasn\u2019t a baseball town, and that the fans are spoiled.\u00a0 Now, these comments alone aren\u2019t really eye-raising.\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019re dickish, but sometimes it\u2019s ok to be dickish to your former employer.\u00a0 However, there are rules for doing so.<\/p>\n

If you were shunned and\/or pushed out by your former club, then it\u2019s ok.\u00a0 No one gives Kevin Youkilis shit for ragging on the Red Sox.\u00a0 Also, if your former Manager was Bobby Valentine, you get a lifetime pass.\u00a0 But in Josh\u2019s case, it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n

Josh was once the number one overall pick in the 1999 MLB draft for Tampa Bay.\u00a0 However, he never realized his potential, primarily because he smoked and drank everything within a ten mile radius of the clubhouse.\u00a0 Out of baseball, Josh returned in 2007 for one year with Cincinnati, and then parlayed that into five solid years with Texas\u2026getting to two World Series and winning the AL MVP in 2010.\u00a0 Sure, he had a couple of missteps (read: relapses) during those five years, but the Rangers stuck with him.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why he should kiss the ground they (and their fans) walk on.<\/p>\n

Josh is just another example of talent trumping character\u2026but even that has its limits.\u00a0 Josh became a hero in Dallas because they stuck with him and waited for him to realize his potential\u2026that, and averaging more than 28 homers and 101 RBI will do it.\u00a0 We\u2019re suckers for a feel good story of perseverance and conquering addictions.\u00a0 Texas could have easily cut him during one of his mini-benders and no one would\u2019ve batted an eye.\u00a0 Sure, someone else would\u2019ve given him (another) chance, but not to the tune of five years, $125 million.<\/p>\n

No one should be thanking their old team more than Josh.\u00a0 Seriously, for his introductory press conference in LA, he should\u2019ve worn a throwback Nolan Ryan Angels \u00a0jersey and thanked his old boss for giving him the chance to become a star.\u00a0 Instead, he shows his true colors by immediately turning his back on those who supported him the most.\u00a0 After his comments went viral, Josh (read: his publicist) was quick to issue the \u201ctaken out of context\u201d line the next day, but The Machine\u2019s not buying that.\u00a0 Query: \u00a0has the \u201ctaken out of context\u201d line ever worked?\u00a0\u00a0The Machine’s willing to bet\u00a0it’s as successful as the “I didn’t realize that was your sister” line.<\/p>\n

The Rangers already had a bad taste in their mouth from you based on your 0-4 (with two strikeouts) performance in the wildcard game last season (your last game with Texas).\u00a0 This just pours salt over the wounds.<\/p>\n

Without the Rangers, he\u2019s likely tits up in some seedy motel getting tatted (again) or worse.\u00a0 We\u2019re hoping he has a solid support system in LA (Dr. Drew\u2019s close by) and stays off the sauce.\u00a0 We\u2019re also hoping he learns some humility.<\/p>\n

Step 1 is denial.\u00a0 Step 2 is a teabag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With football over, it\u2019s time to focus on the misgivings of other athletes (for the counterpoint to the Teabag, check out our BOB).\u00a0 This week, it\u2019s none other than Josh Hamilton, the can\u2019t miss\/can\u2019t miss a bar\/found Jesus\/loves the rock\/doesn\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-9P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}