Each day, as he shuffled around the clubhouse in the hours leading up to game time, Dmitri Young wore a gray T-shirt. On the back was an innocuous phrase that meant nothing to most people but everything to him: "Field 5." It was an homage to the down-the-road, no-fans-around patch of dirt and grass where Young began the 2007 season with a group of Washington Nationals minor leaguers. His days in the majors -- which began in 1996 -- seemed distant.
"I definitely questioned myself here and there," Young said.
Yesterday, Young received the final reward for following through on those days at Field 5. Major League Baseball named Young the National League's comeback player of the year, an official acknowledgment of a season in which he hit .320 and was named an all-star, one that followed a campaign lost to a laundry list of personal, legal and health problems.
"It was very humbling, to say the least," Young said. "This put the stamp on everything I've been through and what I accomplished this year from an individual standpoint. Shed some tears. Looked back, thought about my kids immediately. My parents, my brother, my sisters, all the friends that stuck with me when I was at my absolute lowest, and the people I met along the way on my way back up."
Congratulations are in order. The man's got character.
Here we are in DC.
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