Hamilton was super, man
Derby performance resonates a day later
NEW YORK - Out of the right-field stands came a chant perfect for New York. With the lights shining down, and the focus on the man at the plate, just about everyone in Yankee Stadium was standing and cheering, waiting for the next bomb to fly off the bat of the night's darling. So it came - "Ho-ly [expletive], ho-ly [expletive]" - an expression of how the crowd felt, how the players felt, probably how Josh Hamilton himself felt.
"We're professionals, we all play this game, it's how we make a living," Rangers teammate Milton Bradley said yesterday, the day after the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game. "For a minute, we stopped being players and started being fans. Everybody was sitting down and watching the home runs and clapping and cheering, real calm about it. He took like two swings and everybody jumped up."
Everybody. From those lounging on the ground in foul territory to the ones jumping and screaming like kids, the rest of the All-Stars seemed happy just to have a front-row seat. They hopped up, watching and pounding each other's backs, exuberance and elation pouring out. And the home runs kept coming, Hamilton blowing through the first round to obliterate the field with a record 28 homers.
"That was awesome," the Red Sox' Jason Varitek said. "How often do you see me freakin' stand up and freakin' yell? That one that hit the back wall, I stood up and yelled."
There were pauses, Hamilton giving an autograph to a kid watching on the National League side, posing for a photo with Bradley, and getting a sign of respect from Edinson Volquez (for whom Hamilton was traded in the offseason). Maybe Hamilton even dropped back and wondered how all this was happening. How he got to this point, after the drug-addled lows he had experienced, how he had the strength to break Bobby Abreu's first-round record and win himself a place in the hearts of notoriously hardened New Yorkers.
"Laying down on the field, watching these balls just launch off his bat," Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler said, "it was almost a surreal moment when he hit [13] in a row. Everyone in the stadium was just in awe of the moment. I mean, you don't see it very often in a home run derby when both sides are standing, watching a guy hit."
Many will claim they witnessed the scene, though fewer than 60,000 did.
"It was a long day; I'm glad I stayed," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "You're going to have a million people say they were there. And I was. And I didn't miss one of them."
Hamilton was Superman. He was scintillating. He was better than anyone could have imagined. And when, really, does that happen?
"That's what everybody in the Derby was waiting to watch," said Minnesota's Justin Morneau of Hamilton's show of power. "He was the guy they were excited to see. I had one of the best seats in the house. I was jumping out of my seat I was getting so excited."
And that's from the guy who actually won. Ask most anyone - whether they attended or not - who won the 2008 Home Run Derby, and they'll probably say Josh Hamilton. Not quite, the exhaustion catching up with him in the final round, when he bowed to Morneau.
But it didn't matter. The first round, the amazement and the awe, and the balls nearly hit out of Yankee Stadium, already had been imprinted in people's minds.
"If you know Josh at all, you know he's not about himself," Bradley said. "He started hitting those home runs, he wasn't like, 'I want to dazzle these people.' He was right there with them emotionally. He was just trying to give them more. He was giving them a rush.
"It was probably a good high for him - not the kind of high he was getting, but a good high."
Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.
