490, 491, and 4.95.
On June 27, 2010, one month short of six years ago today, Josh Hamilton stepped into the box against Houston righthander Roy Oswalt in the second inning of what was then a scoreless game in Arlington. Vladimir Guerrero had just doubled to left to lead off the frame.
Hamilton took a strike, and then watched an Oswalt pitch sail outside the zone for ball one.
The next pitch landed 490 feet away in the upper porch above right field, according to UTA physics professor Andrew Brandt and University of Illinois physics professor Alan Nathan. (Wanna see it again? Scroll 4:02 into this video.) No fair ball had ever traveled further in that ballpark.
Hamilton would go on to win American League MVP that year.
And Texas would go on to win the American League.
A year and five days after Hamilton’s blast off Oswalt, Texas paid 16-year-old Nomar Mazara a record-setting $4.95 million to leave the Dominican Republic and join the Rangers organization.
A few days after that, the Rangers brought him to Arlington to take batting practice and meet the media. He had a really pronounced leg kick. It looked like this:
He shared BP reps with Hamilton. And then they talked.
Since then, Hamilton’s career has declined.
Mazara’s has not.
He was a .756-OPS hitter in two Class A seasons.
He was an .817-OPS hitter in two AA seasons.
He was a .910-OPS hitter in two brief runs at the AAA level.
All told, Nomar Mazara hit .270/.353/.439 (.792 OPS) in the minor leagues.
He’s hitting .320/.365/.500 (.865 OPS) in the Major Leagues.
In 39 games he has 48 hits, the penultimate one of which traveled a reported 491 feet on Wednesday, landing in that same upper tank in right field. A new record, by one foot.
It was an extraordinary, majestic shot, borne of insanely easy power, a blast reminiscent of so many of Hamilton’s and of Mazara’s own career arc, as it seemed to keep rising, and rising.
The Mazara leg kick is gone, and so, at least in one sense, is Hamilton. But there’s so much more to look forward to.
The last time I wrote, about a Rangers player, “He’s ours,” was about Hamilton, way back in 2008.
I’m not suggesting that Nomar Mazara is on his way to earning MVP recognition this year, and I’m not yet predicting that the Rangers will earn their third World Series berth four months from now.
But I am going to say: “He’s ours.”
And, for now, that’s more than enough.