CORRECTION: In this year’s Best of Big D issue, we named Josh Hamilton the best athlete, writing: “There is the left arm, a shoulder-mounted Howitzer. There are the wheels, fast for any player but shockingly fast for a man who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 240 pounds. There is the bat. He hit four homers against the Orioles in early May, becoming only the 16th player in history to match that mark. Then there is the heart. Later that month, while struggling with an upper-respiratory infection that forced him to take oxygen and an IV when it was all over, Hamilton hit a 13th-inning walk-off home run to beat the Blue Jays.” As it turns out, that’s not true. A couple days ago, he said, “I still had a pretty good year. Just think if I hadn’t taken off June and July.”
Taking off two months of the season? Then came yesterday’s pathetic performance, which included an embarrassing dropped fly ball (followed by a lackadaisical effort to retrieve the thing). If he’d caught it, the fourth inning would have come to an end. Instead, two runs scored, and the A’s pulled ahead 7-5 (and proceeded to pile on five more runs before the game ended). Yes, Josh Hamilton is still big and strong and fast. But clearly his heart is weak, and he is not the best athlete in Dallas. We regret the error.
