The Josh Hamilton Story...

Not too long ago, Josh Hamilton was a crack-addicted ex-phenom who'd lost everything. He had been banned from Major League Baseball, lost his wife, his kids - everything. Last year, he went to Yankee Stadium as one of the leading vote getters for the MLB All-Star Game. Tonight at 7 p.m. on ESPN, Hamilton tells his story to award-winning sports journalist Rick Reilly.

Here's what Reilly wrote about his interview with Hamilton:

I've been covering sports for 31 years, but I've never come across a comeback story like baseball slugger Josh Hamilton's.

I write the words but I still can't imagine living them. Superstar high school player. Drafted No. 1 overall by the Tampa Bay Rays. Minor League Player of the Year in his first season. Then an injury. Then his first sip of alcohol. Then his first line of coke. Then baggies full of it. Then his first hit of crack. Then a willingness to sell out everything he loved -- including his career, his wife, his kids, his friends and his parents -- to keep smoking it. Sleeping on the floor of crack houses. Banned from his own home, his parents' home, his friends' homes. Banned from baseball -- indefinitely. Knocks on the door of the last place that will take him in -- his grandmother's quaint, white house -- and is somehow saved, soup spoon by soup spoon, Bible verse by Bible verse, tunneling his way through the ache and the grit and the cold sweat with a strength that must've come from somewhere even he couldn't imagine. Then trying baseball again. Cleaning toilets to play it again. Getting his chance again. Making it all the way back to the major leagues again. Coming to Yankee Stadium as the leading AL outfield vote-getter. Entering the Home Run Derby. And then hitting 28 home runs in a row to places even Yankees have never hit the ball. And as the fans chanted Ham-il-ton, it hit you that the man had made a journey you just never see -- from glory to gutter to glory again.

And so, in front of a crowd of 1,500 in his old high school in Raleigh, N.C., I asked him about all of that on "Homecoming." And he never ducked a question. He let me flay him open like a fish on the rocks. No, that's wrong. He didn't just let me, he invited me. He wanted it all out there, forever, maybe so there was no going back. And as his beautiful wife sat there with his gorgeous daughters and his tearful parents, I realized I had to ask him the question. We hadn't rehearsed it, but I had to ask it. "Everybody you disappointed, everybody you hurt, everybody you stole from, is right in front of you right now," I think I said. "Is there something you'd like to say to them?" And I heard my producer "gulp" in my ear. And I saw him stare at me for a second and swallow. And you could've driven a Mack truck through the silence, but then he said "yes" and slowly swiveled his chair toward them. And he pulled his chest up and apologized to all of them, to all 1,500 of them, for what he'd done. And he thanked them for helping him make it back.

I don't know how long we'll make "Homecoming" or how many lives we'll celebrate, but it will be hard to top a moment like that.

What caused this astounding change in a guy who - by all statistical odds - should either be dead or in jail? What caused the most dramatic turn-around that celebrated columnist Rick Reilly has ever seen?

Well, according to Hamilton, it was Jesus.

Hamilton was a guy who needed a Savior. Thankfully, he found one.

Religion Spectators
I don't know what your views are of Jesus. Or what your views are of people who talk about Jesus.

But here's something I know: most people are spectators when it comes to religion.

I live in an area of the world where most people would describe themselves as decidedly non-religious. Sunday is a day for washing one’s car, or gardening, or simply reading the New York Times while sipping coffee as morning turns to late morning.

For the vast majority of people where I live, religion is something they’ve most definitely thought about. Maybe even argued about. Certainly it’s something they’ve had encounters with, usually in the form of some abrasive blowhard on some network news show (where does FOX News get these people?). Some are recovering Catholics who get into arguments with their devout mothers when they decide to hold their wedding outside, instead of in the cathedral. Some have even been wounded by cruel religious people.

But they’re still spectators when it comes to religion.

Seeing as how this is the most educated area in the world, most have read books about the history of religion. Like my father-in-law. He engages in macro-philosophy. Many people in this area do. All religions, they say to me (some smugly), say pretty much the same thing. Be nice. Don’t kill. Try hard to be good. God will reward you if you do this.

When they encounter people who are deeply religious, they say things like, “You say that your path is the only way to the top. But if you could just get some perspective, you’d see that your path up the mountain is winding toward the same pinnacle as this other religion over here, and this other religion over here.”

But there’s a real arrogance in that sentiment. It assumes that they’re not even part of the journey. They’re not on the mountain with everyone else. They’re in a plane or a zeppelin somewhere miles above, circling the mountain as they watch their human colleagues trudge through life while they observe from afar – from the true perspective.

Spectators.

But.

But.

There’s a danger in being a spectator.

There are some things in life in which inaction and indecision is simply not a legitimate choice.

Switzerland might be famed for its neutrality, but when Nazis are burning children, now is not the time to consider the effect of choosing sides on your ability to be an effective world banker.

And for Josh Hamilton, the question of religion - the question of Jesus - wasn't one that was an academic or philosophical dilemma.

This was his life in the balance.

Josh Hamilton couldn't afford to be a spectator on the issue of God. He had a choice. Despair and Addiction for the rest of his life - or believe Jesus when he says that God is like a Father who is not only active in the world, but literally dying to help you live the best possible life.

For Hamilton, religion isn't a spectator sport.

And that's why I respect the guy.

And the thing is, he might seem uncommon, but really, I've seen his story a thousand times in my life. I see it played out before me almost every week. Hamilton's story is incredibly similar to my story, to my wife's story, to my best friend's story - it's basically the same story I've seen lived out hundreds of times.

"Taste and see that the Lord is good," the psalmist says. "If you are thirsty," Jesus says, "I will give you water so that you will never thirst again."

Big promise.

Big invitation.