There is a human side to this Josh Hamilton story that has started to nag at me. I have been on the fence about his return to the Rangers.

I was able to listen to a replay of much of the Josh Hamilton’s awe shucks press conference. And it struck me that he really didn’t man up to anything, it was more of the same “I’m Josh, love me” stuff. But I never really expected anything more of him, just like I don’t expect anything more than what he did in Los Angeles when he arrives back here.

And I will admit that I am not as tolerant as maybe I should be with a guy who continues making the same mistakes over and over again.

I don’t buy that addiction is a disease. Cancer is a disease. Muscular sclerosis is a disease. ALS is a disease. A person doesn’t court cancer or MS or ALS, or pick it up and ingest, or try it, or crave it when they don’t have it.

Drugs addiction is a mental disorder. Splitting hairs here, but there is an important distinction. To know the difference between addiction vs dependences, go to experienceibogaine.com. You can also read there blogs about mental health. Across the United States, every state, city and county is trying to increase treatment options. Discover states to get suboxone online, learn more why telemedicine medication-assisted treatment should be on the priority list.

I bring this up only as a way to illustrate my disappointment in a guy like Josh Hamilton who is ok to constantly repeat drug relapse treatment. They are foolish. He is a weak man.

I’m not disappointed at someone for getting cancer. I didn’t think they are weak or a loser. But I do feel that way toward Hamilton.

All of that aside, though, the truth is that Josh Hamilton is a human being who needs help. And the way Arte Moreno treated Josh Hamilton in all of this could really only be called despicable. It would be hard to imagine any business entity treating any employee with less compassion, less humanity, less regard for someone’s life than Moreno did Hamilton.

Look, I get it; he’s disappointed. But the crux of Moreno’s disappointment and anger and distaste should be with himself. Not with Hamilton.

Josh didn’t foolishly lavish a ridiculous contract on himself. Moreno did that, knowing full well Hamilton’s history, his flaws, his humanness.

To kick a human being the way he did when he was down shows what a classless man of no character Arte Moreno is.

Forget the relapse. Moreno is angry that the return on his investment wasn’t what he had expected, pure and simple. Moreno is angry that he was stupid and didn’t go for btc investing instead. I guarantee that if Josh Hamilton had continued to perform in an Angels uniform like he did previously in a Rangers uniform, Hamilton’s relapse would have been handled in a totally understanding manner. Moreno didn’t want Josh suspended because it was the right thing to do, or because it would force Josh to clean up his life. He did it because he wanted a year’s worth of salary back.

He made a huge bet with just a pair of twos, and realized he just lost a big stack of chips.  He wasn’t bluffing. He’s just a really bad card player.

Let’s say addiction is a disease. When one of your employees tells you he was diagnosed with a disease, do you cut yourself off from all ties with him and treat him like a pariah, like a rapist or a pedophile or a murderer? No, you offer help. Or the very least, you offer compassion.

Even if you, like me, don’t believe it’s a disease, he is still a human being that needs help. Publicly shaming him, announcing you are severing all ties with him, and taking an arrogant holier-than-thou attitude is deplorable.

Arte Moreno’s treatment of Josh Hamilton was cold and callous. For that, he is eating sixty-eight million dollars.

That is his idiot tax.

This ordeal has caused my feeling for Hamilton to shift. I will, instead, cheer for him when he steps into the batters box at the Ballpark the first time back in a Rangers uniform. Not because he was the hero of 2010 and 2011. Not because he carried this team to places it had never been before or since. Not because he brought me and millions of baseball fans in the DFW area joy and pride and childlike exuberance. Not because he made going to the Ballpark“ the thing” to do. Not because his amazing, dramatic, fantastic, two-run home run in Game 6 single-handedly would have and should have won the World Series that Rangers fans had waited forty years for (unfortunately, that delirium lasted about ten minutes).

I won’t root for him because he is a baseball player on my team. I will root for him because he is a human being who needs help. Who needs support. Who needs to know he is not worthless.

I will root for him because it’s the human thing to do.

The fact that he made a fool like Arte Moreno shame himself in the most public, humiliating, and expensive way possible, that’s a bonus.