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Evan Gattis Battles Demons to Win World Series

These past few days have been momentous for the Houston Astros, but there is one player who has had a tumultuous path to the World Series.  Astros catcher Evan Gattis dreamed of winning the championship as a kid.

In high school he was considered one of the top catcher for high school baseball. He seemed to be on path to the major leagues. After high school, Gattis became catcher for Texas A&M, but his dreams were quickly put on hold when he was forced to check himself into a drug and alcohol rehab clinic for anxiety and substance abuse.

Gattis told his father that he was done with baseball and for the moment it seemed that he was. He traveled the U.S. earning money through various entry level jobs before ending up in New York begging for food on the street. Finally, he drove to California in hopes of turning his life around.  On his way back from California, Gattis got in touch with his stepbrother, then a pitcher at the University of Texas-Permian Basin. He wanted to get back into baseball.


Unlikely as it was, Gattis was able to make the comeback he needed. He played for a while in the minor leagues before being drafted to the Atlanta Braves in 2010. As a catcher for the Braves in 2013, Gattis told USA Today about how he in the summer of 2007 thought about ending his life.

“I was in a mental hospital. I couldn’t sleep for an entire week, and I knew something was wrong with me. So I got admitted. I was so depressed, all I could think about was killing myself. I wanted to kill myself for a long time.” He found himself on that trip to California and knew that the only thing he could turn to was baseball.

Gattis was traded to the Astros in 2015. From the looks of it, it seems that Gattis has his life back on track.