Angels' Josh Hamilton has no regrets about saying Dallas is not a baseball town

Josh Hamilton expects to get booed in his first appearance as an Angel in Texas on April 5. (Rich Pilling/Getty Images)

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area football is king.

Los Angeles Angels center fielder Josh Hamilton ruffled some feathers this spring when he acknowledged that and said that Dallas is not a baseball town.

He isn't going to apologize for that statement and expects to get booed heavily when the Angels play the Texas Rangers in a three-game set starting this weekend.

"The truth is the truth,'' Hamilton said to USA TODAY. "And that was the truth. I don't regret anything I said. "If they booed me when I played there, "why wouldn't they boo me now?''

Hamilton dropped a fly ball in the regular-season finale against the Oakland A's which completed the Rangers' collapse down the stretch in which they blew a five-game division lead with nine games left.

Hamilton, who spent five seasons with the Rangers, eventually signed a five-year, $125 million contract with the Angels and is off to a rough start with the team after three games. He has one hit in 12 at-bats and has struck out six times this season.

"It's one of those things where Texas, especially Dallas, has always been a football town,'' Hamilton said. "So the good with the bad is they're supportive, but they also got a little spoiled at the same time, pretty quickly.''