Long road for All-Star

WASHINGTON – During the past year, Dmitri Young was arrested, finalized a divorce, was treated for alcoholism, lost his job, trimmed shrubbery, endured a four-day hospital stay, thought he was going to die, believed he would never play baseball again after being released by the Detroit Tigers, won a starter’s spot at first base for the Washington Nationals, hit .341 and was named an all-star.

“You don’t have enough paper,” Dmitri said recently, staring at a reporter’s notebook, one waiting to be filled with the whole story.

The whole story, it turns out, begins in a batting cage where Larry Young, a Vietnam veteran and former F-14 pilot in the U.S. Navy, bought his eldest son 200 swings a day.

“What time do you want to practice today?” Larry would ask.

“I don’t,” Dmitri would say.

“OK,” the father would shoot back. “We’ll leave in five minutes.”

Larry will be in the stands Tuesday night at AT&T Park in San Francisco, where his boy will be an all-star 16 years after he was drafted, some 25 years after those relentless hours in the cage.

At times, Dmitri would take 100 swings or so, then complain about being tired.

“We got 100 more swings,” Larry would say. “You better get on the other side.”

So Dmitri became a switch hitter. He is to this day. He enters the All-Star Game hitting .365 from the right side, .330 from the left.

“He was a masher from both sides of the plate,” said Robert Fick, a Nationals teammate now, an opponent in high school then. “Just an absolute stud.”

The pain of his son’s unrealized potential first hit Larry in the years after the St. Louis Cardinals made Dmitri the fourth pick in the 1991 draft. He was supposed to rocket to the majors. Instead, he rose slowly.

“I questioned whether I’d make it,” Dmitri said. “I wasn’t exactly taking the game serious, not really working out or trying to be in baseball shape.”

Dmitri was married for nine years and had three children. When the marriage began to unravel in 2005, Dmitri’s life spun away from him. Too much alcohol. Some drugs. The charges. A trip to the disabled list to deal with the problems. A stint at a Malibu, Calif., rehabilitation center. A return to the Tigers that was, ultimately, embarrassing, because he hit .292 but was released anyway, his team less than a month from clinching a playoff berth. For 30 days, he had to stay in Detroit.

As part of his probation, along with daily sobriety tests, he was required to perform labor in the Detroit suburbs. The Tigers beat the Yankees in the playoffs. Dmitri trimmed hedges. They won the pennant on a walk-off homer. Dmitri mowed grass.

“I didn’t turn on the television,” he said. “I severed all ties.”

There was but one call all winter. The Nationals, with first baseman Nick Johnson out with a broken leg, were willing to give Young a chance, albeit with a minor league contract. He would be stuck down the road from the big league complex, working with 18-year-olds in the Florida outpost of Viera.

“It was an opportunity to see if I had any love for the game,” Dmitri said. “I questioned that. Big-time.”

For anyone in the Nationals’ clubhouse now, that seems unlikely, foreign. There is no more dominant personality, no one who draws more amusement. “I just love his smile,” Bowden said.

The story isn’t over, not by a long shot. But the smile is there, the love is back.