The Rangers released Josh Hamilton from his minor league contract Friday because he's facing his 12th knee surgery. That puts Hamilton's career in jeopardy, but shortstop Elvis Andrus says not so fast.
Andrus, who has spent most of his career as a teammate of Hamilton's, is hopeful Hamilton isn't ready to give up on baseball.
"That's always sad for anybody to get out of the game for injuries. Hopefully he doesn't think about retiring," Andrus said Sunday. "I still believe he's still got some baseball left. But it gets tiring for those guys. They want to play and just want to be on the field. And (when) injuries don't let you play it's never good, especially with that much talent that he has, how good it is when he's healthy. It's something really sad, but I'm still pulling for him and hopefully he can come back."
If this is it for Hamilton, he certainly left his mark on the Rangers' organization.
Hamilton won the AL MVP in 2010 with the Rangers, made the All-Star team five consecutive years and played on Texas' back-to-back World Series teams.
"It'll be a great legacy," Andrus said. "As long as he was healthy, he did everything you got. His background and everything he went through before he started playing in the big leagues. It's not easy and he was able to overcome everything and show how good he was. For a couple of years he was one of the best or the best in the league. I learned a lot from him about how you play and do your best out there. He was a great teammate and I loved to always see him play."
