There is no joy in the news that Josh Hamilton is facing suspension for relapsing into cocaine use.

Josh Hamilton was the most polarizing Ranger I can ever remember, mostly of his own doing. But if you are honest about it, and you overlook his foolishness when he left and his indifference at the end of his time in Texas, you will admit that his bat and his talents took the Rangers to wonderful places they never went, or never would have gone, without him. And haven’t returned without him.

You have to admit that. And you have to appreciate that. But that is where the admiration ends for me.

The man is seriously flawed.

This morning it was reported that Hamilton won’t be getting a lifetime ban because he didn’t fail a drug test, he voluntarily came forward and confessed on his own. He will merely be put into the same disciplinary process of a first-time offender. There are also reports that his earlier suspensions will be taken into consideration. If you looking for details on these disciplinary processes, the right page is here. They vary quite bit since they are usually individual cases, but that’s the right way to do it.

The reports are conflicting. But, then again, everything about Hamilton is conflicting. He’s a million-dollar talent with a ten-cent brain. He’s a money hungry, drug abusing man of God.

Whether he is penalized as such, he is not a first-time offender. And this will not be the last time.

Josh Hamilton is this generation’s Steve Howe. Howe was a sad, pathetic pitcher who could not control his demons, himself, or his cocaine use. He was suspended seven times. Yet he was still allowed to run up a seventeen-year career.

Howe died while driving full of meth and losing control of his truck and rolling it. He was just forty-eight.

Josh Hamilton is thirty-three. His story, and his life, will not end well either.

It’s sad.

It’s sad to see a human being being so human. It’s sad to see a man flush away his life. But I don’t feel any sadness about it. Just pity.

I’m conflicted.

Right now, all I can think of is, so long, Josh Hamilton. We have baseball to play. And it will be played just fine without you.