Rangers' Matt Bush: Drinking alcohol is not negotiable
Matt Bush has gotten his fair share of chances to shape up and become a civilized major leaguer, and the Texas Rangers are giving him one more chance to prove he's gotten over his personal battles, a lot of which had to do with alcohol.
"We know there are no guarantees. We know there's risk associated with this," Rangers general manager Jon Daniels told Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News. "We're not naive about this."
The Rangers signed the former first overall pick to a minor-league contract two months after he was released from prison. Bush's three-plus-year jail stint was the result of a drunk driving accident in Florida that left an elderly man in critical condition.
Along with the accident, Bush had other run-ins with the law including a nightclub arrest two weeks after he was named the No. 1 pick in the 2004 draft, two other DUIs, and an altercation with a woman where he threw a baseball at her head while drunk.
Daniels is willing to take the risk on Bush because he believes the 30-year-old - who claims to have been sober since 2012 - still has something left to offer and that he truly is beyond his days of alcohol abuse.
"He hasn't hid behind any lawyers. He's not denying anything. He literally served three years in jail, and he has taken steps to stay clean through AA meetings," Daniels explained. "When we talked about having a zero-tolerance policy with him, he stopped us and said, 'Driving and alcohol. I can't do any of either one. It's not negotiable.' There is no gray area there for him."
Bush - who was selected ahead of players such as Justin Verlander, Neil Walker, and Jered Weaver in the '04 draft - told The Associated Press after his signing that he's looking forward to finally proving himself.
"I want to be a player, be a part of the game, be a role model and show everybody that I can make something out of the opportunity which I was given a long time ago, and really just make things right for myself, my family, and the Texas Rangers."
Bush has never pitched in the majors, and last appeared for Double-A Montgomery in the Tampa Bay Rays' organization in 2011, posting a 4.83 ERA, while striking out 13.8 hitters per nine innings.