Texas Rangers to hire ‘accountability’ partner for Josh Hamilton – MLB News
The Texas Rangers’ general manager Jon Daniels has stated that the club intends to hire an accountability partner for Josh Hamilton, as the player was surrounded by yet another controversy for the past few days.
The reports last week that he had consumed alcohol last Monday came as a startling revelation as the player’s career had remained marred due to alcohol consumption. Reports had it that he is undergoing recovery from alcohol addiction.
Hamilton attracted enormous media attention back in 2003 when he was found out to be a drug and alcohol addict. It was so serious a matter that once it was proven, the player was suspended from the game for over three years.
Josh Hamilton took all those years to go for rehabilitation and counselling. That seemed to have worked somewhat as he did not attract any negative attention due to his issues again. However, in 2009, he was once again surrounded by another controversy.
Nonetheless, last week’s revelation has resulted in making the whole club spring into action including the player himself who came up with an apology on Friday for his reprehensible behaviour.
The team manager general manager Jon Daniels now has seriously mulled over hiring an accountability partner for the player.
“We're close to that,” Daniels said. “I expect we'll have an announcement on that sometime next week. There are a number of emotions that you go through in something like this. We've talked about how we view ourselves as a family. Well, when somebody in
the family makes a mistake and screws up, there are a lot of emotions. One is we're disappointed, but the overriding concern is for Josh and his family.”
What is important for both the player and the club at this stage is the contract extension talks that are being discussed. If such an incident is to occur again, it will effectively put an end to any expectation that the Rangers might be interested in having
a deal with the player again.
It is in this light that the Rangers are focused on the matter ever more and are trying hard to find a permanent solution to the problem before the upcoming 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
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