WORKING TO WEED OUT HIS DEMONS

Indianapolis -- Jeremy Jeffress understands the skepticism of those
who expect him to start smoking marijuana again. After all, he
insisted many times in the past he'd never do it again, only to relapse.

Now, facing the baseball version of the death penalty, the Milwaukee
Brewers' pitching prospect swears he'll stay clean. And he intends to
prove it by donning a major league uniform in the not-so-distant future.

"I understand people will say things about me," Jeffress said in a
telephone interview during baseball's winter meetings. "But, at the
end of the day, all that matters is what I want to do with my life.

"What I want to do is play major league baseball."

Jeffress lost control of his life and career by being unable to quell
his urge to smoke marijuana. In late June, a 100-game suspension was
imposed on the hard-throwing right-hander for testing positive for a
"drug of abuse," leaving him one offense away from a lifetime ban.

It was the third time the 2006 first-round draft pick tested positive
for marijuana under the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment
Program. The first offense mandates only counseling and education. The
second draws a 50-game ban, followed by 100 games and permanent expulsion.

Jeffress, 22, drew a 50-game suspension while pitching for Class A
West Virginia in 2007. That fall, while serving the suspension, he
also failed a club-administered test that resulted only in internal
sanctions.

Each time, Jeffress told the Brewers he was done with marijuana. They
believed him and worked with him to get past the problem by placing
him in rehab centers, only to be betrayed.

Accordingly, club officials are leery of yet another relapse. While
concerned for his personal well-being, the Brewers also would like a
return on the $1.65 million signing bonus they gave Jeffress after
making him the 16th player taken in the 2006 draft out of high school
in South Boston, Va.

The team's current pitching crisis, resulting in an all-out manhunt
for available arms this winter, would be a bit less dire if Jeffress
were ready to fulfill his potential as a major-league prospect.

"Our people stay in constant contact with him," said Brewers assistant
general manager Gord Ash. "They are encouraged with his dedication and
seeming interest in wanting to do it right this time.

"There are no other chances. That's the big thing. It's not only a
problem for him in terms of a lifetime ban, it's the fact that he's a
tremendous pitching prospect for us."

Jeffress seems to finally have wrapped his mind around this concept.
Since drawing the 100-game ban, which will carry nearly halfway into
the 2010 season, he has been a model citizen, beginning with an
eye-opening stay in a substance abuse program in Milwaukee last fall.

"It was awesome, the best place I've ever been to," said Jeffress, now
residing in Brevard County, Fla., where he last pitched for the
Brewers' Class A affiliate. "They helped me get my life straight and
get back on track. I would recommend it to anybody.

"It was time to get away from baseball, get away from the stress, get
away from people I shouldn't be around. I benefited from being around
people that had the same problems I had, what they were thinking.

"They didn't care about baseball. They just cared about my life and
what I could gain. Sports are great but your life is more important.
The Brewers have been great through all of this, too. They've showed
that they really care about me."

Jeffress has been asked the same question countless
times.

With so much at stake, professionally and personally, how could you
relapse and test positive for marijuana again?

Easy to ask. Not so easy to answer.

"Crack and all that stuff is a physical addiction," said Jeffress.
"Marijuana is a mental addiction. It makes you think of other things
and you visualize you can do them.

"It is a drug. It will mess up your life, just like any drug. You may
look the same outside but inside you're thinking of something totally
different from what everybody else is thinking. You're thinking you
can do anything that comes to your mind. If you think you can fly,
you're going to try to fly.

"I knew this stuff before but I didn't want to (quit). In life, there
is what do I need to do and what do I want to do. If you want to smoke
weed, you're going to smoke weed. If you want to get your life
straight, you're going to do that. That's with anything and anybody."

Beyond his family and the Brewers, Jeffress is fortunate to have the
support of his agents, Josh and Howard Kusnick of Double Diamond
Sports Management. Obviously, the Kusnicks have a financial stake in
Jeffress making it to the big leagues but they also realize the
personal demons their client has battled.

"The first thing you have to do in that situation is acknowledge you
have a problem and Jeremy has done that," said Josh Kusnick.

"The first time Jeremy went through this, I don't think anybody took
it seriously enough because it was marijuana. Obviously, with a
recurrence of it, it's a serious issue. When this suspension happened,
I told him, 'We have to take care of your life first. I couldn't care
less about baseball. We'll worry about that later.'

"I think Jeremy is taking the bull by the horns. 'I have a problem
with marijuana and I'm going to get it fixed.' He's done an
unbelievable job in a short amount of time. We're all hoping it
continues and we're pulling for him."

Jeffress can do something very few pitchers are capable of doing -
throw a baseball 100 mph. The Brewers have the radar gun readings to
prove it. He also has a wicked curveball, and when commanding both
pitches, can carve up hitters with amazing ease.

Command issues have set back Jeffress at times, however. He pitched so
miserably at Class AA Huntsville at the outset of 2009 (7.57 ERA in
eight starts, 33 walks in 27 1/3 innings), the Brewers demoted him to
Brevard in hopes of snapping him to attention.

Jeffress was 2-1 with a 2.18 ERA, including 22 walks and 36 strikeouts
in 33 innings, in six games with Brevard when his latest positive drug
test came back. Faced with the lifetime ban and doubts about quitting
marijuana, Jeffress lapsed into a state of shock.

"It's really hard to think that one more slip-up, one more mess-up and
I'm gone from the thing I love the most," he said. "The thing I've
worked hard for all my life. But I'm going to do what I have to do to
take that pressure off me. That's the only thing I can do now. This is
what I want to do."

Still undergoing regular counseling in Florida, Jeffress will remain
behind in extended spring training in Arizona at the end of March to
finish serving his suspension. He remains confident that he'll get
past this self-inflicted nightmare and fulfill his vast potential.

Jeffress says he owes it to himself, the Kusnicks and the Brewers. But
more than anything, he said he owes it to his parents, Fred and
Yolanda, back home in rural Virginia.

"Nothing is more important to me," he said. "You can't erase your
name. When you do something in life, good or bad, your parents are
No.&ensp1. You represent them. I messed their lives up and made them
get talked about.

"I need to stand up and have everybody look at me and my family like
they used to. I lost that during all of this. This will be the most
important testimony that I've ever done in my life.

"My testimony is to make it to the big leagues and do what I have to
do. I want to see smiles on my mom's and dad's faces again."