I happened to be at the game late in spring training when Matt Bush made his spring debut for the Texas Rangers in a major league game. The Rangers were rewarding him for following all the rules and conditions they had given the troubled former No. 1 overall pick before agreeing to give him one final chance at reaching the majors, after Bush spent 39 months in prison.

His first three pitches that day: 96, 97 and 97 mph. He retired the side on 10 pitches, nine for strikes, and then pitched a second scoreless inning, also showing off a sharp-breaking, swing-and-miss breaking ball.

Just like that, Bush went from long shot to prospect, if a 30-year-old former shortstop drafted 12 years ago can still be called a prospect. After that outing, Rangers manager Jeff Banister admitted it was the best stuff he'd seen in camp all spring. "He's had one outing," Banister cautioned. "He's been on the back fields. He knows how far he's come and how far he has to go."

Now Bush has completed a 12-year odyssey to the majors, with the Rangers calling him up when they sent Delino DeShields Jr. to the minors. Quite the story for a guy who the Rangers gave a tryout to in the parking lot of a Golden Corral, where Bush was working after his release from prison. As ESPN The Magazine's Eli Saslow wrote last month:

When he was released to a Jacksonville halfway house in February of last year, there were no scouts, no phone calls, no sign of acknowledgment whatsoever from the world of professional baseball. There was only one interested employer, so Bush went for the interview. He won the job, signed the paperwork, changed into his uniform and started working as a baker at Golden Corral.

He had nine months in the halfway house to re-establish comfort and routine in the free world, and nothing was more normal to him than playing catch. He had thrown a baseball every day during his childhood in San Diego with his brothers and his dad. "That's when I've always felt most relaxed," he says. So his father mailed two baseball gloves and three balls to Jacksonville, and Bush recruited a friend and fellow inmate named Travis to catch for him. Travis couldn't handle curveballs, or changeups, or fastballs thrown with much heat. His return throws often went over Bush's head and into a drainage pond.

"It was pretty obvious that wasn't the straight path back into the major leagues," Bush says.

Roy Silver, a former minor league manager and player adviser for the Rangers who also worked with Josh Hamilton, visited Bush at the halfway house. The two would play catch outside the restaurant. Silver contacted the Rangers and two top executives eventually watched Bush throw in the parking lot -- he was wearing sweatpants and sneakers -- and he threw 95 mph. They signed him.

In 17 innings for Double-A Frisco, Bush posted a 2.65 ERA, with just nine hits allowed, 18 strikeouts and four walks. The stuff is major league caliber. And the Rangers could use him. A bullpen that was supposed to be a strength has a 4.94 ERA, 29th in the majors. While setup men Sam Dyson and Jake Diekman have been solid and closer Shawn Tolleson has bounced back after a five-run outing in his second appearance of the season, Keone Kela has been on the disabled list since mid-April with bone spurs in his elbow and some of the other back-end guys haven't produced, giving Bush his chance.

Saslow's story details Bush's fall, his fights and his drinking. He had last played in the minors in 2011, and has been sober since 2012. That came only after he hit rock bottom:

"I was so depressed. I was going to kill myself or die or do something," he says. "When I was the first pick and I wasn't performing the way a first pick should have, I couldn't handle it. I felt like a failure. I hated myself at practice or during the game until the end of the day, when I could grab my keys and hop into my nice expensive car and feel like somebody. Those were my devils: money, fame and expectations. I was hollow inside."

It bottomed out with one more joyride in 2012, one in which Bush crashed three times in just hours: He backed into a car on an illegal U-turn, then hit a light pole and fled the scene. The third, and by far the most devastating, knocked 72-year-old Anthony Tufano from his motorcycle and left him unconscious on the asphalt, his brain hemorrhaging, his lung collapsed, his face fractured, his ribs cracked and eight vertebrae broken.

That landed Bush in prison. The Padres had already given up on him, and now the Rays had to, as well. This was Bush's third chance.

After that spring training debut, Bush met with reporters in a hallway outside the major league clubhouse -- as a call-up from minor league camp, he didn't have a locker in the big league clubhouse. He was soft-spoken and reserved. He was asked about his chances of reaching the majors.

"It's always my dream. I always visualize it," he said. "I wonder what it would be like to throw in a regular-season game. It would be a dream come true."