This Day in Texas Rangers History: Josh Hamilton's Four-Home Run Game
Former Texas Rangers star Josh Hamilton is an enigma.
The first-overall pick in the 1999 MLB Draft wouldn't make his Major League debut until 2007 because of drug and alcohol abuse. After one season in Cincinnati, Hamilton was traded to the Rangers and became one of the best players in baseball during his five initial seasons in Texas from 2008-2012.
Hamilton captivated millions with his record-setting Home Run Derby performance in 2008, catapulting himself into superstardom and becoming one of the greatest underdog stories in baseball since the turn of the millennium. He then further cemented his legacy when he was named the American League's Most Valuable Player in 2010.
On May 8, 2012, Josh Hamilton recorded arguably the greatest single-game offensive performance in Rangers history when he became the 16th person in MLB history to hit four home runs in a single game. In the Rangers' 10-3 defeat of the Orioles, Hamilton went 5-for-5 on the night, hitting four two-run homers and a double. His 18 total bases is still the American League single-game record.
The first two home runs came off of a young Jake Arrieta. Hamilton clobbered a first-pitch breaking ball in the top of the first inning, then belted a 2-0 fastball to the opposite field for his second dinger.
After hitting a double in the fifth inning, Hamilton smoked another hanging breaking ball out of the ballpark, this time off of reliever Zach Phillips. In the top of the eighth inning, former-Rangers reliever Darren O'Day left an 0-2 offspeed pitch in the zone, which Hamilton quickly sent over the center field wall for his fourth home run.
The Baltimore crowd donning the traditional orange and black at Camden Yards couldn't help but rise to their feet and give Hamilton a standing ovation.
In case you were wondering how rare four-home run games are, there are more perfect games in MLB history (23) than four-homer games (18).
What's interesting is Hamilton's feat came just 17 days after Chicago White Sox pitcher Philip Humber threw the 21st perfect game in MLB history. Two more perfect games were later thrown in 2012 by San Francisco's Matt Cain and Seattle's Felix Hernandez. The latter is the most recent perfect game in MLB.
The rise and fall of Josh Hamilton will forever be one of the most polarizing topics among baseball fans for years to come. For any fans of the baseball movie The Natural, Hamilton was as close to a real-life Roy Hobbs as you can get. After an unfortunate past that kept him out of baseball, the left-handed slugger rose to superstardom in a short-lived career. And now, Hamilton's enshrinement in Rangers glory may be even more short-lived after being indicted last month for a felony injury to a child charge.
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