The bat used by Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton during his torrid streak, which included a four homerun game against the Baltimore Orioles last week, finally broke in last night’s game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The broken bat, however, did not die a futile death, as it will be featured in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in a section honoring Hamilton’s miraculous four homer game.
Josh Hamilton is on an absolute tear to start the 2012 season, batting .402 with 18 home runs and 44 runs batted in over the Rangers’ first 32 games. Obviously, Hamilton will not maintain this crazy pace during the “dog days of summer” in the Texas heat, but if he continues to stay on a solid pace during the long stretches, it’s highly possible he could take the first Triple Crown in the American League since Boston Red Sox slugger Carl Yazstremski in 1967.
What’s even more impressive about Hamilton’s start is his constant battle with sobriety and temptation with alcohol and other vices which have been ever-present since he entered the majors as the No. 1 overall draft pick of the Tampa Bay Rays in 1999.
If Josh Hamilton continues to produce the way he has the past few seasons and can manage to keep his nose clean, the bat which was enshrined today won’t be the only item of Hamilton’s we will see in the halls at Cooperstown.
The bat, which Hamilton used for eight of his nine home runs during his historic week, went out on top as Hamilton broke it collecting a seventh-inning single.
"She went out a hero," Hamilton said.
Once the sticker went on the bat after Tuesday's game, he quit using it in batting practice but still used it during games. The bat got a little time off Sunday as Hamilton used a pink bat in his first three at-bats. He struck out in his first two but doubled off Jered Weaver in the fourth inning with it. He then went back to the historic bat.
The piece of lumber that Hamilton used to club eight of his nine home runs in the last week is headed for the Hall of Fame and its place as one of the most famous bats in baseball history.
It’s up there with Shoeless Joe Jackson’s Black Betsy, George Brett’s pine tar bat, Carlton Fisk’s World Series home-run bat and the fictional Wonderboy.
Hamilton started using the bat on the Texas Rangers’ recent road trip and agreed to donate it to Cooperstown after he hit four home runs with it Tuesday night in Baltimore. But there was an asterisk on the deal-aahe wasn’t finished swinging with it yet.
The end came in the seventh inning of the Rangers’ 13-6 victory against the Los Angeles Angels Sunday night-aait broke on a flare single to left field, of all things. Not all that dramatic, but Hamilton drove in his 44th run of the season with the hit and the crack is minor enough that it will be displayed just fine.
“She died a hero. She was tired, she was getting as little weak,” Hamilton said, with a smile.
He homered with the bat Monday night, made history Tuesday and then smashed three more homers with it in the first two games of the Angels series in Texas. Major League Baseball authenticated it with a sticker after Tuesday’s game in which he became the 16th player in big-league history to hit four homers.
Sunday, he started using a pink bat for Mother’s Day and breast cancer awareness, but switched to the historic one in the seventh.
So where does it fit among the most famous bats in history? That’s a great debate for a Monday.
Jackson used Black Betsy, which is now privately owned, throughout his career and the bat remained in the family until it was auctioned for more than a half-million dollars in 2001.
Brett donated his well-stained lumber from the famous home run against Billy Martin’s Yankees to Cooperstown.
The bat Fisk used for his 12th-inning home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series — actually teammate Rick Burleson’s bat — is part of the Hall’s FENtennial exhibit this year celebrating the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park.
