| Page 4 of 5 < > |
Embracing the Momentum
First baseman Dmitri Young, who will represent the Nationals at Tuesday's All-Star Game, has had an up-and-down career.
(By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
"I didn't turn on the television," he said. "I severed all ties."
With the Tigers and, to an extent, with his family. When Dmitri Young wasn't quite 12, Larry and Bonnie Young had another boy, their third of four children, and named him Delmon. By the time Delmon was old enough to pursue baseball seriously, Dmitri was in the minors, and Larry Young had tweaked his parenting style.
"He seemed laid-back to me," Delmon said by phone. "He just wanted work every day."
Still, Delmon contributed to the Youngs' summer spent at a baseball crossroads. The first pick of the 2003 draft, he was suspended for 50 games after he tossed a bat in the direction of an umpire while at Class AAA Durham last May. At 20, his road to the majors for Tampa Bay stalled, just as Dmitri's had 11 summers earlier.
Larry Young breathed deeply.
"I had to kind of put everything in perspective," he said. "I just told myself: Neither one of them have come back from jail for killing someone. Neither one of them is in Iraq fighting the war."
Consolation, however he could find it. The military man whose sons seemed undisciplined.
"Just stay centered," Larry Young told himself.
Seizing Opportunity
Dmitri Young was throwing up blood. He had to use the men's room constantly. He was, as he said, "delusional" that night last November. His ex-wife took him to a Florida hospital. The world was racing by him, out of control, "Like when you're on the subway, and everything to the sides is blurry, rushing by," he said.
The diagnosis, finally, was diabetes. Baseball seemed over. Not because of the disease. But because with all he had been through -- self-inflicted and otherwise -- he didn't know if he could go back. Worse, he didn't know if he wanted to.
"I started talking to him about quitting," Larry Young said. "I said to him, 'If you were sitting here talking to your kids, and they told you what you just told me, how would you feel?' "
"I wouldn't feel good at all," Dmitri told his father.
