By Randy Galloway
rgalloway@star-telegram.com
“It doesn’t [bleep]ing matter.” — Josh Hamilton’s dugout reply to manager Ron Washington, who had asked, “What happened out there, Josh?” following the pop fly that dropped in Oakland.
The same question came up this week, some 4 1/2 months after a staggering around, then loafing around, whiff of a comedic misplay helped define Josh’s eventual exit from the Texas Rangers.
Does it really bleeping matter what Hamilton now has to say about local fandom?
Galloway and Big Mac: Josh Hamilton spouts offTo each his own with that answer. It probably doesn’t matter, but you’d be lying, and I’d be lying, to say Josh’s spring training interview answers with Gina Miller on CBS 11 didn’t grab your attention this week.
For one thing, how could Josh, a man full of God, and you might say, full of a bunch of stuff, be so cruel to a large segment of our populace?
Cowboys’ fans are people, too.
And as we know from that infamous
Sports Illustrated article last summer, Josh’s wife told us why it was most important for the Hamiltons to become flush in the off-season with free-agency cash.
The big-time money would be used by Katie and Josh to “save a hurting world.”
Dear Lord, and Katie, too, do you think Cowboys’ fandom isn’t hurting right now? Those people are living amongst us with a gut ache and a broken heart that has now reached nearly two decades of torment.
Our Cowboys’ fandom has demons that make these neighbors sick in the head. If anyone should understand the power of demons that infiltrate the head, it’s certainly Josh.
Yet, right there on TV, speaking right there to Gina Miller, Josh strayed far from the
Good Book and strayed far from “saving a hurting world.”
Instead, Josh called our local Cowboys’ fans stupid.
I know. I know. At no time did the word “stupid” come up in his opinions.
But listen to the quotes. Read the quotes.
Our hurting world of Cowboys’ fans, at least those who wandered into the Arlington ball yard late last season, he implied were stupid enough to boo him. Why? Because we’ve “always been a football town” and not “a true baseball town,” according to Josh.
And in a follow-up to the TV interview, when the Angels’ media asked if he wanted to verbally back off a bit, Josh stayed strong when referring to his upcoming appearance in Arlington. (The Angels are the Rangers’ juicy home opener opponent in April.)
“I said there are true baseball fans and then there are others that are not,” answered Hamilton. “I said the ones that are true baseball fans won’t boo when I come back, and the ones that are not will.”
Actually, that statement indicted even our local “true” baseball fans.
Josh is saying you people are stupid enough not to boo him, while the Cowboys’ fans are stupid enough to boo him.
Do the Hamiltons think this is the way to “help a hurting world?”
Rangers’ fandom is suffering badly from the team’s historic collapse of late last season, which followed the historic Game 6 collapse the previous season. Cowboys’ fandom is suffering through a historic famine.
Josh? Katie? We are hurting, man. It’s bad. Real bad. Help us. You know you’ve got the money. Arte Moreno was so good to you. You say you are going to keep your residence here. Well, help us
here.
Katie, take the rubber band off that $125 million bankroll and help our hurting world by at least buying a round of beers for the ballpark house on Opening Day.
Otherwise, I might be inclined to think these Hamiltons are not really interested in helping a hurting world, that they were really just seeking top dollar for their own hip pocket.
And I might be inclined to think of you, Josh, as a super talented fraud who didn’t have the backbone to man up for your miserable play and hoo-doo medical maladies that popped up repeatedly from June on last season.
Instead, Josh, you now claim you didn’t deserve those boos you heard, at least you didn’t deserve the boos in a “football town” because football fans are so stupid they don’t know what they’re watching at a baseball game.
And worst of all, Josh, after giving us some great seasons, and after the fans gave you immense love and still gave you immense support during your back-sliding in bars, and your excuse-making for lineup absences, that for you it really all came down to only one thing.
The same thing you told RonWash that afternoon in Oakland:
It doesn’t (bleep)ing matter.
I’m crushed. My world is hurting.
But, hey, I’d feel better if Katie would buy me a six pack.
Randy Galloway can be heard weekdays 3-6 p.m. on Galloway & Co. on ESPN/103.3 FM.
Randy Galloway, 817-390-7697
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