On a mid-December day, what seems like forever ago, Josh Hamilton was asked if the Los Angeles Angels were right to believe in him.

The sun shined. The cameras clicked. Optimism hovered like a halo. His wife and four daughters sat before him, as did Angels owner Arte Moreno, as did the rest of his baseball career. He was 31 years old, lucky in some ways to have made it there, but there nevertheless, rich many times over and about to be feathered into a lineup that already held Mike Trout and Albert Pujols.

View photos Angels owner Arte Moreno shakes hands with Josh Hamilton during the player's introductory press conference on Dec. 15, 2012. (Getty) More

The press conference was held in what amounted to a bar, which was how certain the Angels were of their belief in him, the recovering alcoholic and drug addict.

“It comes to a point of making choices,” Hamilton said that day. “What choices are you going to make?”

Not halfway through the $125 million contract trumpeted that hopeful day, and all the way through the smiles from that sunny day, Hamilton is no longer an Angel. He is responsible for that. He made his choices, and Arte Moreno apparently is not the kind of man to let another man up from his choices. Those are Moreno’s choices.

On Monday, Moreno rid himself of Hamilton, all that chases Hamilton and, because there after all are choices, all that Hamilton chases. The Angels traded Hamilton to the Texas Rangers, though “traded” is the official term for a transaction that in reality was an eviction. The Angels will pay all but a few of the $83 million still owed Hamilton and get nothing in return but the satisfaction of knowing they put Hamilton out, that he – Arte Moreno – is not a man to be crossed, and that he – Arte Moreno – will not stand for other people making him – Arte Moreno – look like a gullible fool.

In the end, Moreno bought 31 home runs, 123 RBI and zero postseason hits for about $118 million. Twelve years before, he bought the entire team for $184 million, the sort of accounting that would have irked him once. And yet, when Hamilton relapsed, there hardly seemed any hesitation in what Moreno would do. First, the organization publicly and shamefully scolded Hamilton. Then, Moreno announced he had a way out of the contract. They all but said they were wrong to believe in the day Hamilton arrived, wrong to believe in the player, wrong to believe in the man.

That’s a hard, hard heart. But theirs to be hard. The Angels would not – could not – believe. Not anymore. They are not the first to conclude they are better off without him, that the skills – such as they are – are not worth the time, money or occasional heartache and public relations hit. They are not sending him into the streets. Just, away, into somebody else’s clubhouse, somebody else’s lineup, and somebody else’s orbit.

Hamilton, as a high-ceiling, low-paid risk (which is how most organizations viewed Hamilton in free agency, by the way), will have time to continue his shoulder rehabilitation and then his career, certainly in the American League and with the Rangers, where the frailties of his past – a weakened body among them – would be less detrimental.

Moreno lives with that, and presumably quite comfortably.

View photos Things just never worked out for Josh Hamilton in Los Angeles. (USAT) More

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