Peter Gammons is one of the more respected reporters that has followed the game of baseball for what seems to be half a century. We were all impressed by Josh Hamilton’s impressive performance at the home run derby and his incredible story of returning to the game from drug and alcohol addiction.

Gammons however used the opportunity on Monday night and again in his ESPN column on Tuesday morning to go all political in the process in attacking former first lady Nancy Reagan. During the frantic excitement of the derby Gammons dropped this line:

“This is not Nancy Reagan country, this is a place with reality.”

Pete is partially right but to totally dismiss Reagan and the 80’s ‘Just Say No’ campaign is pure political sniping. ‘Just Say No’ was a campaign that people clearly remember 25 years later and one that parents still use in educating kids on the dangers of drug use. Regardless of how one feels about it, Peter was out of line to bring it up during the home run derby.

And if one swipe at the widowed 87-year old Reagan wasn’t enough he made sure to give her another slap to the face in his online ESPN column.

Oh, it’s easy to give it a Nancy Reagan “he made a choice” and so on and so on and so on and so on, but the fact is that millions of people in this country get addicted to drugs and ruin their lives. Hamilton beat his demons and is a hero for millions trying to fight back.

I have great respect for Gammons. He took time to talk to me for several minutes during the 1998 Winter Baseball Meetings that took place that year in Nashville, Tennessee when I was a young college student. He gave me insight into Kevin Brown’s massive contract he was signing that winter even before it had been aired on TV or in print.

For some kids the Nancy Reagan approach worked and still does. For others, the example of Josh Hamilton’s throwing himself down on a crack needle time and again hoping to die, only to recover, get sober, and return to baseball glory can work just as well or better.

An argument could be made that Peter doesn’t have the connections or inside sources in the game that he use to and that he is just trying to stay relevant in a day in age of the internet when hundreds more are privy to the same info Peter used to get famous on.

I don’t care that Peter might be left-leaning or right-leaning. I just believe he should talk baseball. Pete is a baseball insider and writer, not a journalist on ‘Meet the Press’ or columnist for Politico.com. Let sport be sport and let politics be politics.