The Swing That Almost Never Was

In 1999, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays made Josh Hamilton the number one overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft. Scouts called his swing the purest they had seen in a generation. The future seemed limitless.

By 2004, Hamilton was broke, addicted to crack cocaine, and suspended from the game. He later described those years as a descent into total darkness — waking in strange places, covered in tattoos he couldn't remember choosing, cut off from everyone who had ever believed in him.

But the Almighty was not finished with Josh Hamilton.

Through faith, recovery, and the stubborn love of his grandmother who never stopped praying, Hamilton fought his way back. The Cincinnati Reds gave him another chance in 2007, and by the summer of 2008, he stood at home plate in old Yankee Stadium during the Home Run Derby and launched twenty-eight home runs in a single round — a display so breathtaking the entire stadium rose to its feet for a man most of them had never heard of a year before.

Two years later, he was the American League's Most Valuable Player.

Hamilton never took credit. "It's not about me," he told reporters. "God gave me a second chance."

That is the gospel in cleats. Our Redeemer does not wait for us to clean ourselves up before reaching down. He finds us in the wreckage, calls us by name, and hands us back a future we did everything in our power to destroy.