Evan Gattis. We’ve all heard his name in the Braves
organization for a couple of years now and this season he is making a name for
himself in the MLB. Gattis currently leads MLB Rookies in home runs and RBIs,
six and fourteen respectively, and is third in SLG % at .556. While all these
numbers are great and are helping the Braves to this fast start, it is his life
story that is getting so much coverage. It seems like you can’t sit though one
inning of a Braves game without Chip or Joe saying something about what a great
story it is or how he has come so far. Forbes.com even named Evan Gattis the, “Best
Story in Baseball’s Early Season.”
Gattis was a highly sought after high school baseball
prospect that was committed to Texas A&M but never showed up to school. He struggled
with depression as well as alcohol and drug problems, marijuana. He served a
short stint in rehab and then moved to Colorado to work as a ski lift operator,
a cart boy at a golf course, and as a janitor. He also sought out different
types of spiritual guidance which lead him back to baseball. He went on to be
drafted by the Braves after one season at a community college and the rest is
history.
His perseverance is a great story and I am rooting for the
guy to succeed. People need to hear about how he worked hard to straighten out
his life and find his true love again, baseball. However, the way this is being
portrayed is outrageous. He wasn’t addicted to hardcore drugs and alcohol like
Josh Hamilton. He didn’t fight some terrible disease as a child or even battle
cancer like Jon Lester. Gattis just went through what a majority of 18 year
olds go through. Depression is a common thing for 18 years olds graduating high
school. Moving onto college is a big step in a young person’s life and I know I
was depressed during that whole first semester at college.
Good for him to get help with the weed and alcohol problems
he thought he was developing. Lots of people have these problems and never do
anything about them so I cannot knock him for bettering himself at all.
I find it fun how people talk about his past jobs so much. It’s
like they have never worked meaningless, minimum wage jobs before in their
lives. Who hasn’t worked jobs like that before? I know I have. That’s the only
kind of work I can find. I’ve worked at a golf course; I’ve farmed in a
radioactive soil plot; I’ve cleaned ballpark bathrooms. I know plenty of people
who have moved to Colorado just to work at ski lodges so what is so bad about
that job? Sounds like fun to me. Sounds like Gattis was just living the young man’s
dream life. Granted I don’t know how serious his alcohol and drug problems
were, everything else sounds like he was just enjoying life to me. Everybody at
some point in their lives has worked a meaningless job just waiting for their
opportunity to do what they truly love.
Gattis is getting his shot to do what he loves at 25 and
good for him, but there are plenty of other people his age and older that have
not gotten they’re shot yet and you never hear about them. All I want is for
all these TV announcers and writers to put Gattis’ story into perspective. He has
overcome some hurdles, but they are not anything more than the normal 25 year
old college student goes through.
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