Jeff Allison, who walked out of Marlins’ spring training in 2006, has been reinstated from the restricted list. The road to redemption the 22-year-od faces is longer than that of Josh Hamilton, and doubly so seeing as he’s a pitcher. Our High School Player of the Year in 2003, Allison was selected 16th overall by the Marlins that year out of a Peabody, Mass., high school. His career got off to an inauspicious start when Allison reported a month late to his first spring training in 2004. He suffered two heroin overdoses and an addiction to the painkiller OxyContin, as detailed in this excellent feature, and hasn’t pitched professionally since 2005, which he spent with low Class A Greensboro.
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