Matt Keough has always been a master of the comeback.

It started early in his baseball career, when the Pomona, CA native -- son of major league outfielder Marty Keough -- hit .210 at the Class AA minor league level and clearly demonstrated that he was no longer the heir apparent to A's third base star Sal Bando. So the team converted him to a pitcher, and he was in the major leagues a year later.

In 1978, Keough made the American League All-Star team despite an 8-14 record. The next year, he lost his first 14 games -- tying a major league record for futility -- before finishing 2-17. But that only proved the setup for his 1980 punch-line, a 16-13 season that earned him Comeback of the Year honors.

Keough peaked in 1981, pitching his team in the post-season playoffs. The next year, he was 11-18, leading the league in earned runs and home runs allowed.

Nevertheless, Keough extended his time in baseball for almost another decade, including a stint pitching for the Hanshin Tigers in the Japanese league. It took a foul ball off the bat of the San Francisco Giants' John Patterson to finally force him into retirement, the ball caroming off his temple as he sat in the Los Angeles Angels' dugout and nearly killing him.

After a few weeks in the hospital, Keough made another comeback. He wound up working in the A's front office as an assistant to Billy Beane, author of the much-acclaimed book "Moneyball." Married to a former Playboy Playmate, Jeana Tomasina, he watched one of his three children, Shane, blossom as a baseball star in his own right.

Jeana wound up being selected as one of the women placed under the TV microscope in the Bravo Network's "The Real Housewives of Orange County," which dragged Matt, Shane, Kara and Colton into the limelight, as well.

Then, in 2005, Matt was arrested after rear-ending another car at a stoplight, his blood alcohol double the legal limit.

While that case was dragging through the courts, Keough checked himself into the Betty Ford Center and pronounced himself whole again.

"Whether it's once a year or once every five years," he said, "alcohol and I just don't mix."

On the third season on "Real Housewives," Jeana announced that she and Matt were splitting up. For Matt Keough, that took some of the joy out of seeing Shane drafted by the A's.

Soon after the separation, Keough violated his parole by drinking in a bar, a slip that earned him a few months of jail time. Once again, he emerged chastened and optimistic, but only until yet another DUI arrest in August of this year. This time, the police said his blood alcohol was triple the legal limit.