Seriously, will this ever stop?
4:19 PM Wed, Jun 04, 2008 | Permalink
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June 2008
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Seriously, will this ever stop? ESPN never fails to make up a good headline Horse racing doesn't need a Saturday tragedy Looking at the preseason predictions Someone swat at NFL owners with a rolled up newspaper Brian Estridge, please stop. You're embarrassing yourself Categories
DentonRC.com blogs
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As a huge Star Wars fan (what American boy born in the 70s or early 80s isn't?), this photo struck me as, well, pretty awesome. Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton is no longer an under-the-radar type guy. In fact, despite his horrible showing last night -- going 1-for-4 from the plate with a home run in his fourth straight game -- Hamilton is still leading the American League in two of the three Triple Crown categories (batting average, home runs, RBIs). His average dropped to .329 after last night, three points behind New York's Hideki Matsui. He still leads the league in home runs (17) and all of Major League Baseball in RBIs (67), 17 ahead of his closest AL competitor and 12 more than former Ranger and current Padre Adrian Gonzalez. Sixty-seven RBIs on June 4? Are you kidding me? We're more than a month away from the All-Star break and Hamilton could very well be over 100 at the halfway point. It's been 41 years since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski won the baseball's last Triple Crown and for a good while, it seemed it would never happen again. In fact, no one's been in such good position this late in the season since Manny Ramirez did it at the beginning of the decade, but he fell off -- as Hamilton most likely will. What Hamilton is doing this season is really transcending Rangers baseball. Texas hasn't had such a lethal weapon since Alex Rodriguez, who wasn't much of a fan favorite and was one of those feared "clubhouse cancers", and even A-Rod couldn't lay claim to winning AL Player of the Month in April and May like Hamilton did this year. In fact, no AL player in history can lay claim to that feat. By now, everyone knows Hamilton's back story, which involves serious drug addiction that nearly cost him his life. In case you don't, check out this story from ESPN.com that ran back in 2004. He went from being the No. 1 pick in the MLB draft by Tampa Bay in 1999 to falling to 180 pounds to trying to get back into baseball and falling off the wagon again before signing up with Cincinnati. Then, as we all know, the Rangers acquired Hamilton from the Reds in the offseason for pitcher Edinson Volquez, who's now the top pitcher in the National League. If this keeps up, I think I'd take Hamilton. |
