Fast-forward a few years after Tate was drafted. The 2011 offseason.
“Up until that point, I considered myself an alcoholic,” Tate told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2015. “I loved to drink and I drank a lot. I would have drank all day, every day if I could. I drank. I smoked weed. But that offseason (in 2011), for some reason I got involved with the wrong crowd. I had never touched anything besides alcohol or weed. I had never known what that stuff was like.
“I have a very addictive personality and it caught up with me — big time. It spiraled out of control.”
That was when Tate wound up in his first treatment facility — in Tucson, of all places. His short-season manager, Pat Murphy, noticed that Tate would regularly show up to the field drunk.
Murphy, a former Arizona State and Triple-A Tucson Padres skipper, confronted Tate about his habits.
After spending 30 days in the treatment center in Tucson, Tate was ready to get his life — and career — back on track. He convinced himself he would never let things get that out of hand again.
Tate decided he could drink a little if he wanted, and that we was in control. Or so he thought.
