Josh Hamilton gets booed, then strikes out in his return to Texas

No surprise: The boos rang out when Josh Hamilton walked to the plate on Friday afternoon to face his old team for the first time. But then even louder cheers followed.

Hamilton struck out in his first at-bat against the Texas Rangers, the team he left this past offseason for a five-year, $125 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels.

His swinging strike three, courtesy of Derek Holland, elated the fans at Rangers Ballpark. Many of them not only booed Hamilton when he came to the plate, but also held newspapers in front of their face in protest of Hamilton.

Some of the papers had "baseball town" written on them, in response to Hamilton's controversial comments that Dallas/Fort Worth isn't a real baseball town. Other fans held signs with things like "FYI: We are a baseball town" written on them.

The sweeter revenge, though, was Holland making easy work of his former teammate, who was hitting .077 coming into Friday's game. In the next inning, Hamilton misplayed a ball hit into the right-field corner by A.J. Pierzynski that allowed him to stretch a double into a triple.

In his second at-bat, in the fourth inning, Hamilton struck out swinging again.

Hamilton boos vine.co/v/bT5qDBJPu7O

— Madylan Edge (@MadylanEdge) April 5, 2013

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