If you haven't had a chance to read the great S.L. Price's story in this week's Sports Illustrated, you should probably check it out. It's a great story about a fascinating character in Josh Hamilton and the upcoming unique free agency of arguably baseball's most talented player.
And if you're a Texas Rangers fan, you should read it to start preparing yourself for the inevitable, which as Randy Galloway put it in Thurday's Star-Telegram, is that Hamilton will not be in a Rangers uniform come 2013. And no matter how hard you want to think otherwise, he's most likely right.
If you've read the article, you know that Katie Hamilton, Josh's wife, says the following about her husband's upcoming, or ongoing for all we know, contract discussions with the Rangers.
"Fans and reporters are so far off base with where we are. They'll say, 'Oh, Josh doesn't care about the money.' No, we don't really care about the money so much for us, but we have huge plans for this money, and, no, it's not strictly for our bank account. It is for a hurting world.
"The other thing they keep saying is, 'Josh needs Texas; he needs the comfort of this team.' Uh, we need Jesus. We need God. He goes with us wherever we are. Yes, we're comfortable in Texas. But maybe God hasn't called us to comfort. I mean, he didn't call Jesus to comfort."
While Hamilton is right in saying he doesn't owe a hometown discount, it could be debated that his case is one-of-a-kind. Hometown discounts, as a general idea, are stupid. Players of Hamilton's caliber deserve to get paid, which often make them a villain to the departed team's fans. But then Hamilton throws out this gem about what he plans to do with his riches once he signs his new long-term deal.
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The Hamiltons plan to get a whole boatload of money in Josh's new deal, and share it with the world by charitable means. That's fantastic, if true. It'll be interesting to see what their plans are, especially when Hamilton throws out statements like this: [it will be] "shocking to the world when it happens. It's real big."
So yeah, it sounds like money is all that matters to Hamilton and his family. And maybe that won't be such a bad thing. But you can bet your bottom dollar the Rangers won't be the highest bidders for Hamilton's services and that's because they're too smart to make the same mistake the Los Angeles Angels or Detroit Tigers made this past off-season with the long, hefty contracts of Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, respectively.
The Rangers will make a fair offer to Hamilton, but it won't be the biggest. And from the sounds of the SI article, that's all that matters.
