Beltre Regrets Being Behind Hamilton

There's a laundry list of mind-blowing facts and numbers about Tuesday night's effort from Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past day, you know by now that Hamilton made MLB history on Tuesday when he became the 16th player in the game's history to hit four home runs in one game. Thanks to numerous media outlets and Rangers media relations, we've seen all kinds of ridiculous facts and figures about Tuesday's game by Hamilton, who now has 14 home runs and 36 RBIs after raising his season average to .406.

That home run total through the first five weeks of the season is already more than half of his 2011 season total. He's the first player to accomplish the feat since 2003 when Carlos Delgado did it. If he went 0-for his next 210 at-bats, he'd still have a higher slugging percentage than Albert Pujols. The list goes on.

But there might not be a more impressive fact than the one that involves Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre, who was the designated hitter on Tuesday night, hitting one spot behind Hamilton in the lineup.

Beltre, who became a bit of a cult figure last season when he was on the disabled list and was having a good time celebrating his teammate's home runs by yelling "OH [expletive]!" as soon as the balls were hit. His shouts were picked up by television cameras, sending Rangers fans everywhere into a Twitter fury. He did it once again this season.

But Beltre was on deck for all four of the homers Tuesday and wasn't about to do that while in the on-deck circle and show up the pitcher.

"That was my one regret," Beltre told The Dallas Morning News. "I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I might have liked. Who knows what I might have yelled."

The most impressive thing is that Hamilton's game wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime game for Beltre to be a part of. Back in 2002 when he was a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Beltre was hitting in front of Shawn Green when he hit four home runs and racked up 19 total bases on four homers, a double and a single, a MLB record which Hamilton was one shy of on Tuesday night.

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"They were similar games, really," said Beltre, who went back-to-back with Hamilton after his second homer of the night in the third inning. "They were both hitting the ball everywhere. They were both completely locked in."

And speaking of Twitter fury, all of baseball was in on it on Tuesday, watching the guy they call "The Natural" do his thing.

"Thanks for all of the nice messages tonight..." Green wrote, "and thanks Josh Hamilton for getting people to remember me!"

As for remembering things, you can bet Beltre will never forget either night, as he had a front-row seat for the two greatest single-game hitting performances of all-time.

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