Beyond Belief (26 page)
My excitement over being in the big leagues was tempered by our team’s performance. Our pitching, especially the bullpen, went through some terrible stretches. By mid-June, we were way down in the standings and the inevitable happened: Everyone started talking about whether Jerry Narron’s job was on the line.
Everyone expected more out of us. We had a lineup with Adam Dunn, Brandon Phillips, Ken Griffey Jr., and Edwin Encarnacion. We had one of the best starting pitchers in baseball in Aaron Harang. Griffey was counting down to six hundred homers, adding excitement to our games. Despite being a flawed team — bullpen, starting pitching depth — we were expected to be closer to the top of the standings than the bottom.
I became an unwitting part of the discussion regarding the manager’s job status. Since Johnny was Jerry’s brother, and since he was on the staff because of me, Johnny and I were in the middle of the speculation. Would the Reds fire Jerry and keep Johnny? Would Johnny want to stay employed by a team that fired his brother? And if Johnny left, what would happen to me?
We hit the All- Star break with a record of 31–51 and Jerry was fired. I think he was the scapegoat for our poor performance, but that’s been the story of the major-league manager since they invented the position. They don’t play, but they’re held responsible for how we play.
In the aftermath of Jerry’s firing, our second baseman, Brandon Phillips, made some comments that created an uproar in Cincinnati. Asked to comment, Phillips said, “We had a good year with Jerry last year [2006], but we had new guys come to the scene this year. He tried to adjust with the new players this year, but it was all about certain players. Ken Griffey and his home-run chase, Josh Hamilton and his comeback season, everybody got caught up in that instead of winning.”
I knew there was some resentment about me, and Johnny, but this was the first time it had been expressed publicly. Some players evidently felt I was getting special treatment. It was true; not everybody had a special-assignment coach who occupied an adjacent room on road trips and lived in his apartment whenever his family wasn’t around. I got it, but I also went out of my way to make sure I didn’t flaunt the arrangement or keep Johnny from helping someone else.
I was also conscious of the media attention I was receiving. The volume of requests made it necessary for me to hold a mini–press conference before the first game of every road series. With the help of the Reds’ media-relations staff, it was always smooth and low-stress. I made sure I didn’t inconvenience my teammates by holding big sessions in the clubhouse, where my teammates would have to tiptoe around a clump of reporters. We held the interviews in the dugout or a separate interview room. The people pay our salaries, and the people were interested in my story, so I looked upon it as part of my job.
There’s another important factor: The media helps keep me honest. Whenever I say this to reporters, they always laugh a little and look away, like I’m trying to manipulate them or suck up. That’s not what I’m doing. The truth is, speaking to the media helps remind me of the bigger picture — why I’m here, what my mission is, the platform I’ve been provided by God.
It’s a version of therapy for me, answering questions honestly and openly. I know I’m being watched. I know I’m being held to a higher standard because of my past. I accept that. I welcome that. If I did something I shouldn’t be doing, everyone would know about it almost immediately. I’d be a hypocrite, and all the work I’ve done to repair my soul would be wasted.
So I read Phillips’s comments and decided to let it slide. I didn’t confront him or even discuss it with him. I understood the frustration, even if I didn’t understand the resentment. I realized I’d been through worse, and I had a job to do regardless of what they thought. I continued to spend time with the fans, and I didn’t turn down interviews if people wanted to know about my story. I just went on with my business and let the other stuff slide.
And when the discussion drifted to Johnny’s status, I made it clear that I needed him. At this point in my career, just half a season into my first year as a big-leaguer and less than two years into sobriety, I needed Johnny. In addition, Katie needed Johnny for the peace of mind it gave her when she couldn’t be with me.
I had to look out for myself. I am motivated by making good decisions and becoming a better man. It’s also why my life is God, family, and baseball. I go from the ballpark to home to the ballpark to home.
Pretty boring, maybe, but I’ve grown accustomed to boring. In fact, I kind of like it. For me, boring works.
BASEBALL HAS ALWAYS had an uneasy relationship with Christianity. The old-school, tough-guy mentality of the game has sometimes been at odds with the growing number of players who are open about their faith. It shouldn’t be a factor, but some people believe players who make it a point to speak out about their faith are somehow less competitive, or less concerned about wins and losses.
I was created to have an intimate relationship with God and to spread the word. The illogic of my life can be explained only through God — it’s a God thing, remember? — and I believe I have an obligation to be open about my faith and the ways in which it delivered me out of darkness.
My obligation is to speak to people who need help, and to spread the word to those who find themselves in situations that seem hopeless. Nobody was more hopeless than me, nobody more aimless or tortured or imprisoned by his own bad choices. Through the mercy and grace of God, I made it out of my own terrible darkness and into this bright and beautiful light. It would be irresponsible and arrogant of me to keep that to myself.
However, I understand there is a fine line between testifying for the Lord and proselytizing. I am open about my faith when I am asked, but I try not to force my beliefs on anybody. During the season, we had chapel every Sunday morning at ten. In a very nonthreatening way, I walked through the Reds’ clubhouse and tapped my teammates on the shoulder and said, “Chapel in ten minutes.” I moved on, leaving it at that.
It was usually the same people in chapel every Sunday, but one morning about six weeks into the season I turned around during chapel and saw a first-time attendee. It was a teammate I had tapped on the shoulder every Sunday and never expected to see inside the room. He was sitting in the back, by himself, listening. I smiled inside but said nothing.
Small victories.
I’m drug-tested three times a week. I don’t expect that to change any time soon. During the season, wherever I am, testers from the company show up and test me on those same three days. They show up at the ballpark or at my in-season home, their kits at the ready.
When I returned to North Carolina after my rookie season, my buddy Dale from the company contracted by Major League Baseball brought his kit to my house, watched me pee, and then marked and sealed the samples to be tested later. Katie and I joked that Dale was part of the family; Sierra and Julia greeted him by name every time he arrived, and he asked them about school and their friends. Dale showed up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, no matter where I was. If I was at my in-laws’ house, I called Dale and he showed up there. If I was at my parents’ house, I called Dale and he met me there.
I know it might seem like an intrusion, maybe even an invasion of privacy, but I welcome it. The testing is mandatory, of course — a missed test is the same as a failed test. I find no shame in the process. In fact, the ritual is liberating to me. I have nothing to hide, and I couldn’t hide it if I wanted to. It keeps me honest and allows me to answer every question. Hey, I’m an open book — you don’t have to ask me if I’m clean, because the testing makes it obvious. They know what’s in my body.
It’s the ultimate defense — three days a week they test for everything: narcotics, alcohol, steroids. They send each result to Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association. If a test came up dirty, within minutes the news would be running across the crawl at the bottom of an ESPN screen near you.
As time passed during my rookie season, I thought about using less and less. The feeling I got waking up every morning with a clear head and a clear conscience was winning the battle. There were still remnants of the bad old days, however — mostly at night. One night after a game in St. Louis, Johnny and I were walking back from the ballpark to the hotel. I was quiet but agitated, and Johnny could tell right away something wasn’t right.
“Something wrong, Josh?” he asked.
I had been having thoughts about using again, thoughts sparked by a series of dreams I’d had. In the dreams, I would be putting all the stuff together — the rosebud vase, the Chore Boy, the crack. It was so real I even started to smell it in my dreams. I’d get right to the point where I’d be ready to put the pipe to my mouth and I’d stop. Sometimes I’d look to the side and see the pee-test guy standing there. At this point, I’d always wake up, always before I made the decision to use.
I didn’t tell Johnny about the dreams at that moment, but I said, “I need to do a devotional.”
Johnny didn’t ask why. We went to his room and discussed what was on our minds, then we read from Scripture. I don’t remember exactly what passage we discussed that night, but it was exactly what I needed at the time.
Another time, in Philadelphia, Johnny’s wife, Gail, was on the trip. It was past midnight after a game, and I was restless. I had thoughts about going out, and even though I knew I wasn’t going to act on them I needed some reassurance. I called Johnny, reluctantly, and asked him if they wanted to get something to eat.
He knew food had nothing to do with it, of course, and within a few minutes the three of us were sitting in a booth at a Wendy’s in downtown Philadelphia. We didn’t stay long, but the restlessness left me and I slept soundly.
By all accounts, my rookie year with the Reds was a success. I hit .292 with 19 homers. My low RBI total — 47 — was mostly a result of hitting leadoff most of the season. I was thrilled to be back in the game and especially thrilled — and stunned — to be in the major leagues, but I knew I had just scratched the surface of my potential.
At some point during the season, each of the papers in the Tampa area sent someone out to talk to me about my success and the wild turns of events in my life. In one of them, Devil Rays’ GM Andrew Friedman — the man who had been on the other end of the best phone call of my life — said I would have started the season in Class A if I had remained with Tampa Bay. I give Andrew high marks for honesty, but to me that was yet another indication that everything in my life was happening for a reason that nobody could adequately explain.
I developed a reputation around the league as someone who was fun to watch during batting practice. As I had in my days in the minor leagues, I enjoyed watching other players’ reactions when I took batting practice. Early in the season before a game in Cincinnati against the Braves I was hitting rockets all over the place, and the Braves were looking up from their stretching. It went from one guy to the next, and pretty soon they were all watching.
On my last swing, I hit one onto the fake riverboat behind center field at Great American Ballpark. It was a bomb, probably five hundred feet, and I heard a couple of the Braves as they were walking out of the cage saying, “Did you see where he hit that ball?”
Still, my expectations for the season were higher. For one, I was disappointed in how we played as a team, finishing 72–90, ahead of only the Pirates in the NL Central. For another, I was disappointed that I played in just ninety games. I went into the off-season determined to get myself in shape to make it through an entire 162-game season.
I wanted to get rid of the nagging stuff that cost me so many games — sixteen games with gastroenteritis, twenty-nine games with a sprained right wrist, and the last seventeen games of the year with a hamstring strain.
During the off-season, I started hearing the first faint whispers of trade rumor. The Reds needed to revamp their team, and they took the first step by hiring Dusty Baker to replace interim manager Pete Mackanin. The next item on their agenda was to improve their pitching, which really dragged down the team.
The Reds needed a young, quality starting pitcher. The Reds had too many good outfielders. Naturally, they identified the teams that had a need in the outfield, and they quickly settled on the Rangers, a team that needed a center fielder and had a few good arms in the minors the Reds liked.
In baseball, very little happens by accident. Trades and free-agent signings are researched and re-researched, and as soon as it became known the Reds might be interested in trading me, the Rangers went to work. They sent scouts to watch me speak to church groups. They talked to drug counselors and psychologists and anybody else who could shed light on addiction and recovery. They liked what they heard. General manager Jon Daniels kept hearing the same reports: Addicts who rely on faith-based recovery have far better success rates than those who don’t.
I didn’t give much thought to the trade talk. Instead, I was intent on getting my body in the kind of shape that would last for 162 games. Instead of doing a lot of baseball work, I went to Pilates three or four times a week and worked out with college football players from North Carolina State and the University of North Carolina who were preparing for the draft at a training center in Raleigh. I rocked my weight up to about 245 and got both stronger and faster.
I had never been timed in the forty-yard dash, and I clocked a 4.5. I had never had my vertical leap measured, and it was thirty-two. I no longer felt I was making up for lost time. This time around, instead of pushing myself to get ready for my last best chance, I was laying a foundation for a career.
And then, on December 21, 2007, I got a call informing me the Reds had traded me to the Rangers for minor- league pitchers Edinson Volquez and Danny Herrera. Volquez was the prime target of the Reds, and right away the Rangers committed to playing me in center field every day.
