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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)
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"Well," Larry said, "that's the way I feel."
"It seemed," Larry Young says now, "like he was defeated, like he had conceded to everything. 'No one wants me.' "
Delmon, by that point, had put his suspension behind, had made a successful big league debut. He pressed his older brother.
"I told him not to give it up," Delmon said. "All he needed was an opportunity."
That, though, was tricky. There was but one call all winter. The Nationals, with first baseman Nick Johnson out indefinitely with a broken leg, were willing to give Young a chance, albeit with a minor league contract. He would be stuck down the road from the big league complex, working with 18-year-olds in the Florida outpost of Viera. General Manager Jim Bowden, for whom Young had hit .300 for four consecutive seasons in Cincinnati, was offering yet another troubled player yet another second chance.
"It was an opportunity to see if I had any love for the game," Young said. "I questioned that. Big-time."
For anyone in the Nationals' clubhouse now, that seems unlikely, foreign. There is no more dominant personality, no one who draws more amusement by resting his oversize shades atop his puffed-out Afro, watching Owen and Damon wreak havoc with his teammates.
"I just love his smile," Bowden said.
The whole story is not over, not by a long shot. But the smile is there, the love is back. Today, Dmitri Young will play his final game before the all-star break.
"I'm put in a situation where people actually look up to me," Young said. "Think about that. I'm an open book to them. They know what went on with me. I got a second lease on life. Not just baseball. Life. And now, I just have to do more with it."
