Former Rangers MVP Josh Hamilton reminisces on time in Texas, his Home Run Derby and more

Former Texas Rangers outfielder and 2010 American League MVP Josh Hamilton joined The Dallas Morning News’ SportsDay Rangers podcast with longtime beat reporter Evan Grant and Rangers senior advisor and team historian John Blake.

They discussed Hamilton’s career with the Rangers, his legendary Home Run Derby moment and more.

Here are some highlights of the conversation, edited lightly for clarity.

The 2008 Home Run Derby was just such an incredible moment, I think the greatest moment in derby history. What do you remember and what sticks out about that night at Yankee Stadium?

Hamilton: It was a performance, and it was something in batting practice, from the time you’re in high school to being drafted, to going to the big leagues and making it. Batting practice, I’ve always loved to awe people, I guess you could say, or just not really focus on it, but when you’re in the cage and you leave the cage from your round, listening to people talk. You don’t go up to them when they’re talking, but they’re talking and you can hear them chatting about what just happened.

It wasn’t until I got to the big leagues with Cincinnati that I saw a former player and he was like, “Yeah, I used to come out in the minor leagues when you were playing early on and watch you take batting practice. And then the second day the whole team was out there because I asked the guys, ‘Have you seen this?’” Just to have guys come out and kind of have that experience of me doing what I was doing, but I didn’t realize I was doing what I was doing, I was just being me, was pretty fun.

You know how important a moment that was, because I’d had to dream that I was in a home run derby, and it was Yankee Stadium, and I was talking to a woman afterwards, and didn’t see how I did, but being able to share the Lord with thousands of people there and millions of people at home was the main key. It never was about winning, because he didn’t show me that I’ve won or lost or how many I hit, but it was about putting on a show and kind of getting everybody’s attention so I could share. I think it was the first official Home Run Derby in Yankee Stadium, and then it was the last year of Yankee Stadium. I don’t know if you guys noticed this, but when I’m hitting, they had a countdown on the clock on the days left out there, and it said 32 days left, home games. And so I’m like, oh, man, it’s all kind of setting up. It couldn’t be more perfect than this.

But after hitting that first one, [Ian Kinsler] is saying, “Hey hit the back wall at some point.” Then the second swing, I hit the back wall and he comes running up, happy and giddy, and I do a little hat tip to the crowd back there, I wasn’t doing it to the crowd, my mom, dad and brother and everybody was sitting back there. I couldn’t see where they were at, I just knew they were back there. After that, it was the build up of just, I think I got the eight outs and then hit 13 in a row.

It was pretty amazing. It was fun seeing all the guys on both sides jumping up and having a good time, hearing the fans in Yankee Stadium. We were there like a week or 10 days before, and the outfield’s chanting “crackhead” in unison. Then they’re chanting “Hamilton.” When we played there later in the year, a fan tried to start that “crackhead” chant, and the fans booed him. It was a pretty dramatic swing from chanting that, to chanting “Hamilton.”

You could see that you were experiencing and appreciating that moment in your eyes.

Hamilton: It was a special moment. I don’t know how many I would hit now in any format, and I don’t think guys can appreciate it as much as that other format, because you can take your time, you can take pitches, and you can really just enjoy the moment. If we’re in the format like now, you can’t do that. You can call a timeout and catch your breath, but you can’t step back and just really get the fans involved in it. They can’t enjoy watching a ball fly, because the next one’s already gone.

Poor Justin Morneau, people don’t remember he won the derby that year, he beat you in the finals.

Hamilton: I think he was the guy who was supposed to be in that moment, because he handled it with such dignity. He just was humble about the whole thing. I saw him at the hotel when we got back, we actually walked in together, and we got in the elevator, he was holding a trophy, and he had a little velvet-type sack over it. I said, “Let me look at it.” He pulled it down and I said, “That’s awesome man. Congratulations again.” He said “You too, man. That was an awesome show.”

You authored more incredible moments and had that knack for the ability in the biggest moments to deliver these incredible performances. How much did that kind of get you going?

Hamilton: It did. As a player, you should want to be in those moments. You think back to the playing in the yard as a kid, wiffleball, whatever, you say these crazy moments out loud. I think sometimes guys forget that they grew up that way. Sometimes they get overwhelmed by just pressure, I guess, in general, the atmosphere. Because nothing changes in the game. Everything’s the same between the lines, from the time we were tee ball, to the big leagues, the only thing that changes is your surroundings, how big the stadiums are, how many people are watching. So if you can focus on that moment, and I had moments where I was putting pressure situations where maybe I was in a slump, or maybe things weren’t going the way I wanted them to go, but was still able to clear the mechanism. Everything just kind of drowns out.

I remember before that All-Star Game in ‘08, I was in right field that night, and, man, I was struggling. I hadn’t hit a home run in quite a while. I felt like the enemy was telling me, I mean the man downstairs, that I wasn’t good enough, and I couldn’t do this. All these things were running through my mind. It’s exactly what I tell my girls now, when they tell me, “Hey, I can’t do it,” or whatever they’re doing, they’re failing at it. So I use this simple, three little liner. “I can because I have done it before. I can do it because I have done it before, and I will do it again.” So you can’t let what’s going on right now in this moment, your failure, define your future efforts and your future goals and dreams. And that’s kind of the mentality you have to have, and that’s the great thing about baseball, especially as you get to a higher level, you do it so much, the day before, it doesn’t matter, because it’s gone and over with, you got a new chance at it today. So that’s why I was able to do what I did, because I had a memory like a goldfish

What were those 2010, 2011 and 2012 teams like? What was it like playing with that group of guys and all that chemistry?

Hamilton: It was special. I think about it a lot, too. When you talk about sports teams, you can have all the talent in the world on a team, but if they don’t buy into it together, and they don’t love each other and have each other’s back, they’re not going to succeed like they’re capable of. And those three years, the guys we had and the guys we added bought into it, and it didn’t matter if you were a starter every night, or the guy that came off the bench, everybody was equal. If a guy came off the bench, all the starters were cheering for him wholeheartedly, and meant it. Everybody was engaged and being able to come up with some stupid, funny claw and antlers and all that stuff, and getting the fans involved in it.

It was fun to see. Fans, if it was the seventh inning and we were down by five, fans would start trickling out, and then you got the end of ‘09 to ’10 to ’11, those fans, if we were down by six with two outs in the ninth, it was still packed. They just had that feeling of belief, like, “Hey, we’ve seen it before, and these guys can do it, so we’re not going to miss it.” That’s the feeling we had too as players, like, it’s not over until the last out’s made. And that’s the mentality we had.

It wasn’t about one individual player, we cut up with each other, we love each other, we had each other’s back and we knew we had the ability to win, and that’s what we did.

One thing that worked so well for those teams, is that everybody did have each other’s backs. There was a level of communication. Did that happen organically?

Hamilton: It really does start with coaching staff. I mean, when you put guys together and have the talent and play the game, we police ourselves to a certain point, but you have to have the leader in a coach, a bench coach, first base coach. I mean, everything has to work together, because we interact with the coaches just as much as we do each other. And so if we feel like those guys have our back, it takes pressure off us as players to just be who we are and to put the work in, and to want to put the work in, because you want to put the work in if you want to play for somebody.

Ron Washington inspired that, I’m assuming?

Hamilton: Yeah I mean, just all those guys, when the coaches work well together, it’s just like when parents parent together. The kids are going to get what they need in a home environment, and when you got good coaching staffs, that’s what they’re doing. We’re grown men, but we’re still playing a kid’s game and for them to figure out how to put it all together and run the lineups out there every night and give guys days off when they need them, and still win ball games. It was an amazing group.

You came back to the Rangers in 2015 in the trade with the Angels. You had a lot of injuries, but you got to play and contribute to a team that did win the American League West title on the last game of the season against the Angels. What was it like to come back and finish your career in Texas?

Hamilton: It was fun and painful. I had a lot of injuries. If I could only been injury-free and played 20 years, who knows what I’ve done? You can’t think that way. But getting back to to Texas, I was very, very happy about being able to come back to Texas to a new core group of guys and stuff. [Adrian] Beltre was still there, and Prince [Fielder] was there, but they welcomed me in. It’s one of those things where I wasn’t the the guy anymore, and I was okay with that, but I wanted to help the team as much as I possibly could, be the best I could be. Being able to come back in that situation, and then it was like, at some point there the switch flipped, and we started getting after it. We had that reminiscence of the old 2010, ‘11, ‘12 team of just cutting up with each other, playing hard, whoever stepped in for whoever got the job done and played for the team and played for the city.

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