The jeering Josh Hamilton will face at his next at-bat in Texas is going to be even worse than what he heard during his last trip to the plate there. That came on Oct. 5, when Hamilton—with a man on second and his team trailing 3–1—struck out on three pitches in the eighth inning of the 2012 American League wild card game against Baltimore, dealing another blow to the Rangers’ fading hopes.
The frustration of an entire fan base focused on a slugger who had carried his team for long stretches but was now at the epicentre of its collapse. Texas coughed up the AL West crown to Oakland by going 2-7 in its final nine games, a stretch that saw Hamilton whiff 17 times without hitting a single homer. Now add the fact that he’s switched allegiances—to the loathed Los Angeles Angels, no less—and things could get ugly when the Angels visit Arlington for the Rangers’ home opener.
“He’s going to be public enemy No. 1,” says Drew Davison, who covers Texas for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Hamilton’s off-season defection upped the ante on a rivalry that already had plenty of powder and star power. The Angels now slot Hamilton into a lineup that features masher Albert Pujols and all-around weapon Mike Trout, while the Rangers will continue to rack up wins behind ace Yu Darvish, hard-swinging Adrian Beltre and emerging shortshop Elvis Andrus.
There’s basically no head-to-head difference between the clubs during the past five seasons, with Texas holding a slim 49–46 advantage. L.A. may be favoured to turn the tables this year, but all we know for sure is that 2013 offers 19 more glorious grudge matches between oil country and Orange County.
A number of factors make the battle between the Rangers and Angels intriguing. They include players who can be labelled traitors by fans; owners with deep pockets; a desperate need to beat the other guy that keeps each side reaching higher; and further evidence that, in sports, imitation isn’t about flattery, it’s about flattening the road block that impedes your progress.
Copying for the purpose of conquering was exactly what Ron Washington had on his mind in 2009. While chatting with Kevin Baxter, who covers baseball for the L.A. Times, the Texas manager praised the Angels for the way they carried themselves in winning the American League West five times between 2003 and 2009.
“They acted like they were the champions, then they went out and played like they were the champions,” says Baxter, recalling Washington’s words.
Appropriating that attitude—in conjunction, of course, with yeoman’s work by GM Jon Daniels and his baseball operations staff—helped the Rangers wrest the division from the Angels in 2010 and again in 2011, when Texas became just the third team in the past 21 years to win back-to-back AL pennants.
Along the way, off-seasons took on a heightened significance, with L.A. GM Jerry Dipoto shelling out huge bucks to sign southpaw and So Cal native C.J. Wilson away from the Rangers in December of 2011 as part of a spending surge that included inking Pujols. The Angels were also said to be flirting with Darvish that winter, but the Rangers went all out to make sure they landed the Japanese phenom, parting with just over $110 million—including a record posting bid of $51.7 million. Texas also reached deep to re-sign Beltre for six years and $96 million in January 2012, ensuring the third baseman’s big bat would remain in its arsenal.
The temperature was turned up another notch last December when, after five years in Texas, Hamilton left the organization that developed his talents and stood by him through two highly publicized relapses in his fight against alcoholism in favour of the Pacific coast.
His five-year, $125-million contract meant that, over the past two winters, L.A. has cut cheques totalling a little more than $456 million to add Hamilton, Wilson and Pujols. If everything is bigger in Texas, somebody forgot to tell the Angels.
Hamilton’s decision likely came down to dollars and cents—his former club balked at giving him a significant term—but the treatment he received from Rangers backers during his final weeks in Texas couldn’t have helped.
“I think that left a sour taste in his mouth,” says Davison. “I think some part of him feels betrayed by the Rangers fans, because without Josh Hamilton, who knows if they make two World Series runs?”
If there was any question about the fractured relationship, they were answered when the 31-year-old—upon landing at spring training with the Angels—said his old home contained genuine baseball fans, but added, “It’s not a true baseball town,” while also noting Rangers spectators were “supportive, but also got spoiled pretty quickly.”
Washington begged off getting into a war of words with his former star, but noted that 3.5 million fans—the third most in baseball—walked through the turnstiles at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington in 2012. “That answers it right there,” he said.
With off-season drama consistently augmenting the on-field confrontations, there’s only one question left: How much more fun can this rivalry get?
This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine’s MLB Preview issue:
