Monday, March 05, 2007

The Josh Hamilton Bandwagon Rolls On

It looks like some Rays fans are starting to lament the loss of Josh Hamilton. Rays Index says "Reds likely to start producing Josh Hamilton Jerseys any day now."
The Rays still have plenty of their own questions as they enter the first full week of Spring Training games. However, there was one question lingering out there in the minds of many Rays fans and it involved a player in a different organization all together. This past off-season, the Chicago Cubs selected Josh Hamilton from the Rays in the Rule 5 draft and then traded him to the Cincinnati Reds. At the time, most thought that it would be a long shot, at best, for Hamilton to make the Reds 25-man roster. Most thought that Hamilton would find his way back to the Rays or the two teams would work out a trade so that the Reds could send him to the minors for further seasoning. At the very least we assumed this would be underlying storyline throughout Spring Training with the final decision coming down to the last round of cuts by the Reds.

Well, the Reds are four games into their Spring schedule and the story may be a non-story already as Hamilton is tearing up the Grapefruit league with 8 hits in his first 15 at bats with 2 doubles and a home run. We admit that we were a bit torn about the Hamilton situation. We are always for the team before the player, but we do have a soft spot for Josh Hamilton. Part of us wanted him to fail so that we could get him back, but another part of us smiles every time we see a Reds box score and Hamilton has multiple hits.
Hey, it's only Spring Training, but good feelings abound about this guy. This is one bandwagon I'm happy to be on.

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