Josh Hamilton just finished one of the greatest weeks that a baseball player has ever had. Over the 7 days he posted a .467 batting average with 9 Homers and 18 RBI’s. He crushed 4 Homers in a single game. His stock price on MVPExchange went up almost 9% last week.
Some people are saying his bat has some magic in it, a la Roy Hobbs in the Natural. Some say it his is faith in his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have been thinking about it and I believe it comes down to his strength. Obviously you need strength to hit 400 foot homers but I think JHam has a special kind of strength.
In fact I believe there are 3 different kinds of strength:
"Bring me your finest meats and cheeses, for tonight I will feast."
1. Country Strong – This was a really shitty movie starring one of the worst actresses of our time, Gwyneth Paltrow. But long before that movie I had been singing the praises of being country strong. It comes from a childhood of lifting bales of hay and working in the fields, rather than spending summers at the lake house or taking in a polo match. This type of strength has also been called “cornfed”, but the fact of the matter is that people who grow up on farms in the Midwest are comically strong. Just ask Adam Dunn.
"It's go time Seinfeld!"
2. Old Man Strength – The actual existence of this strength has long been debated, but I have seen it with my own eyes. Every time I saw my Grandpa he would shake my hand and squeeze it as hard as he possibly could. He would taunt me with comments like “Is that all you got?” or “Your sister shakes harder than you.” It wasn’t until he was about 85 years old that I could get the better of him. Then he would say sarcastically “Congratulations, you’re stronger than an 85 year old man.” I attribute these feats of strength to Old Man Strength.
Then there’s this:
"I could hit homers if they gave me a chance."
3. Crackhead Strength – This might be the least well known of all the strengths. Normal people rarely get to see it on display. It is well documented that Josh Hamilton is a former crack addict. In fact he took the drug just before his rise to stardom. I believe that Hamilton is benefiting from residual Crackhead Strength. How long it will last no one truly knows, but all I can think of when I see Hamilton crush homers is the strongest crackhead in history, Tyrone Biggums. He once threw a $400,000 crack party and is known for eating peanut butter and crack sandwiches and lifting up buses to find a nickel. Tyrone Biggums is the most similar person to Josh Hamilton, NOT Joey Votto, as BaseballReference.com would have you believe.
See for yourself:
There you have it, Residual Crackhead Strength (trademarked) is the reason for Hamilton’s success.
