Bush Has Last Chance To Make Good

DENVER—It’s been four years since Matt Bush, who will turn 30 on Feb. 8, has played a professional baseball game.

However, he can’t avoid the spotlight. Bush signed a minor league contract with the Rangers on Dec. 18—though he wasn’t extended an invite to their big league camp in the spring—and it wound up being another major story.

Bush is receiving the opportunity to return to pro ball after 51 months of incarceration following a 2011 accident in which he was driving under the influence and fled the scene after hitting a 72-year-old man who was riding a motorcycle. The incident occurred while Bush was in spring training with the Rays.

Earlier in Bush’s career, the San Diego Padres suspended him following a fight outside a Peoria, Ariz., bar during instructional league, shortly after he was the No. 1 overall selection in the 2004 Draft.

And even Bush’s selection as the top pick was controversial, instead of being cause for celebration. Bush ranked No. 8 on BA’s Top 100 draft prospects that spring. Then-Padres general manager Kevin Towers and scouting director Bill Gayton were debating between righthanders Jeff Niemann and Jered Weaver and shortstop Stephen Drew.

Former Padres owner John Moores, however, wasn’t going to pay the price agent Scott Boras wanted for either player. Instead, on the advice of a friend who had seen Bush play for Mission Bay High in San Diego, Moores decided Bush would be the No. 1 pick.

Bush wound up playing six seasons in the minors, making the conversion from shortstop to pitcher in 2007, his fourth pro season, and finally moving above the Class A level in 2011, before the legal troubles sidelined him.

Now, he gets another chance, this time with the Rangers. Given his age, given his actual lack of activity in professional baseball, it is apparent that Bush is getting one last chance to create a baseball career. And the opportunity is coming with the Rangers, a franchise that once opened its doors to a young Josh Hamilton, who missed three seasons because of alcohol and drug use.
Hamilton thrived in his time with the Rangers. Thrived to the point that when things didn’t work out with the Angels—who signed him as a free agent after the 2012 season—Hamilton happily returned to Texas.

Of the first 25 players selected in the 2004 draft, Bush and Wade Townsend, who was the eighth player taken but did not sign with Baltimore, are the only ones who have never appeared in the big leagues.

Weaver, who went No. 12 to the Angels, is 138-81 with a 3.40 ERA in his big league career, including a 20-win season in 2012 and three all-star selections. Niemann, picked third by the Rays, went 40-26, 4.08 in an injury-shortened big league career. Drew, who went No. 15 to Arizona, has spent 10 years in the big leagues, having played with Oakland, Boston and the Yankees, in addition to the Diamondbacks.

And righthander Justin Verlander, who was drafted right behind Bush at No. 2 by Detroit, was not only the 2006 Rookie of the Year, but won both the American League Cy Young and MVP awards in 2011.

Last Chance

Now it is Bush who is looking to take advantage of the Rangers opening their doors for him. The one-time shortstop is looking to make good as a pitcher. He hit .219 in those four seasons as a hitter, but the live arm was too good for a team to just give up on Bush. His pro ledger as a pitcher shows only a 7-3, 4.14 record in 53 appearances, one start. He had a live enough fastball that he struck out 77 batters in 2011, despite a 4.83 ERA in 50 innings at the Double-A level. And during a bullpen session at Globe Life Park in Arlington, the Rangers say Bush was consistently throwing in the mid-90s.

Roy Silver, who worked with Hamilton during his days with the Rangers, has known Bush since before he was even drafted. Silver is a believer in Bush, confident the one-time wunderkind will be so thankful for another chance that he won’t stub his toe and relapse. He also is confident Bush can make it as a pitcher.

Bush, however, does not return as a conquering hero. He still has to show that he deserves his last shot. He is going to have to prove himself in the minor league spring training camp—on the field and off.

He said he has been sober since that wreck in Port Charlotte, Fla. He said he wants to prove he’s not a bust. Most of all, he has to prove he turned his back on alcohol.

He will have a support group in his bid to come back. When he checks into spring training on Feb. 1, he will be accompanied by his father, Danny, who will spend the summer with his son as well.

The Rangers are giving Bush a third chance.

It’s up to him to make good on it.