HBT: Ryan says Hamilton stopped dipping too soon

Nolan Ryan spoke with ESPN Dallas about Josh Hamilton?s late season struggles. ?Ryan beat back the notion that Josh Hamilton somehow quit on the team ? which should go without saying, but whatever ? and noted that to the extent he had issues late, it was because he was simply in an unfamiliar situation and didn?t quite know how to respond.

That seems reasonable. This, less so:

?His timing on quitting smokeless tobacco couldn?t have been worse. You would?ve liked to have thought that if he was going to do that that he would?ve done it in the offseason or waited until this offseason to do it. So the drastic effect that it had on him and the year that he was having up to that point in time that he did quit, you?d have liked that he would?ve taken a different approach to that. So those issues caused unrest, and it?s unfortunate that it happened and the timing was such as it was.?

He may be right that quitting affected Hamilton adversely, but given that Major League Baseball is trying to get players to stop using smokeless tobacco right now, banning it in the minors and fining guys who use it conspicuously in the bigs, someone at the league office probably won?t care too much for this sentiment.

Seems to me that there?s never a bad time to quit a bad habit. If the baseball suffers, it suffers. Life and health is more important.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/10/nolan-ryan-says-josh-hamilton-picked-the-wrong-time-to-stop-dipping/related/

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