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rows of uniforms and equipment stretching to the horizon. And me, a kid from a corner of North Carolina, coming from a high school with no special tradition of baseball, a kid who learned the game from a father who never played baseball in high school, was about to have his name announced first on the morning of the 1999 baseball draft.
    Being the guy picked “ one-one” — first player, first round — meant I would be scrutinized even more, by a far greater number of people. More than any other player in the draft, I would be subject to the instant analysis of my performance. I would be either a great pick or a bust, and it wouldn’t take long for the reviews to start coming in. I would carry a label with me forever, to the point where it seemed to affix itself to me like another first name: former number-one pick Josh Hamilton.
    It was understood that being one-one came with a certain responsibility that extended far beyond draft day. It was my responsibility to dictate whether the label would become a source of pride, or a burden.
    The Devil Rays did their homework. They scrutinized Josh Beckett just as thoroughly as they did me. They watched him pitch and spoke to his friends. They analyzed and assessed until they could predict when he would take a deep breath and when he would stand on the mound and stretch his neck. It wasn’t science, but they pretended it was.
    My parents prepared for draft day — June 2 — by planning a party at our house. People from the community, eager to get involved in an event that would attract the attention of the national media, offered their help. Pepsi donated drinks; a local pizza place donated food; a local funeral home provided big canvas canopies — normally used to cover gravesites at funerals — so everyone would have a place to escape the sun.
    This was the beginning of my life’s acceleration. Starting on this day, when the Devil Rays called my name in the morning, setting off a riot of cheers and laughter and hugs, my world became a blur.
    I walked into the front yard and held my first press conference. The mood was happy and optimistic. When I was asked how I envisioned my career, I said, “I’m thinking three years in the minors, then fifteen years in the big leagues.” I paused for a moment and said, “Then I’ll have to wait five years to get into the Hall of Fame.”
    Everyone laughed, even the reporters. It was a moment when anything and everything seemed possible, maybe even probable. Nothing seemed too outlandish, not even crazy talk of the Hall of Fame before I’d even seen a pitch in the minors.
    Still, crazy as it sounded, I was confident and eager to get started. I wouldn’t have said those words if I didn’t think they would come true. At that moment, with the world at my feet, that was exactly the way I believed my career would progress.
    The festivities ended in the early afternoon. Nearly all the newspaper reporters packed up their tape recorders and notebooks and drove off. The television people got back into their vans and went back to the stations. We started cleaning up, and as we were breaking down the funeral-home tents, the one television reporter who lingered longer than the others asked us if we needed his help.
    “Well, there is one thing,” my daddy said, and I could tell right away he was about to launch into one of his practical jokes. “You see, the funeral home lent us these canopies to use for our party today, and when they delivered them I asked the director what we could do to pay him back. He thought for a minute and said, ‘Bring me back some business.’ And well, since you’re the only one left here, I guess it’s got to be you.”
    The reporter had been listening so intently to my daddy’s story that it took a few seconds for him to realize my daddy was joking. Finally, he laughed and walked to his car with my daddy slapping him on the back the whole way.
    When the yard was clear and the house empty, Jason and I