On this date in Texas Rangers history, the Rangers made a trade for one of the building blocks of their back-to-back World Series teams in 2010 and 2011: outfielder Josh Hamilton.
The trade occurred on Dec. 21, 2007, and it was a gamble on the part of the Rangers, who parted with two pitchers: Edinson Volquez, a highly-valued prospect at the time, and Danny Ray Herrera
Hamilton came to Texas with a well-publicized history of drug and alcohol abuse. But during his time in Texas, Hamilton remained mostly clean and produced at the levels that many thought he would after the Tampa Bay Rays took him No. 1 overall in the 1999 MLB Draft.
In five seasons with the Rangers, he went to the All-Star Game five times, won the 2010 American League Most Valuable Player award and earned the 2010 American League Championship Series MVP. He was a three-time Silver Slugger, the 2010 AL batting champion, the 2008 AL RBI leader and became one of the few players in Major League history to hit four home runs in one game, coming on May 8, 2012.
Plus, Hamilton delivered one of the most memorable baseball performances of all-time in the 2008 All-Star Game Home Run Derby, in which he hit 28 home runs in one round.
Hamilton left the Rangers after the 2012 season, signing a huge free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. By then, he had already had one off-field relapse with alcohol. But the move to the Angels didn’t agree with him. After two seasons of average numbers, an AC joint injury and another relapse in his off-field drug addiction, the Angels traded him back to the Rangers on April 27, 2015.
Hamilton was never really healthy again. But he did have one final great moment with the Rangers in his first games back with the team. From May 28-31, 2015, Hamilton looked like the player of old, which included a multi-home run game on May 29 and a pinch-hit RBI walk-off double.
Despite his off-field troubles before Texas, and the precipitous drop in his play after leaving the Rangers, he’s remembered fondly by Rangers fans for those few, incredible years as one of the best sluggers and outfielders in the game. He’s a member of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, inducted in 2019.
That memory, however, could still be tainted. In April 2020, Hamilton was indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury on one count of injury to a child with intentional bodily injury. The charge is a third-degree felony.
Oddly enough, Volquez found his way back to the Rangers at the end of his career, pitching for the Rangers in 2019 and 2020, going 2-1 in 18 appearances.
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