Down at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, where I'm rumored to be on the selection committee, we made it simple: You don't have to be from Texas. You don't even have to live in Texas.

But when we meet once a year in Waco, we pose a question for each candidate:

Did he or she bring fame to Texas?

Josh Hamilton more than passes muster by TSHOF standards, especially when you consider he was dragging the rest of the Rangers into the spotlight behind him.

Here's how big he got: He achieved one of sports' oldest and riskiest honors, the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Inside the June 2 issue, under the title, "The Super Natural," Albert Chen opened his story with a quote from the subject:

Josh Hamilton is at peace now, at peace even when he sleeps. "I used to have dreams all the time," he says. "They were so real, I'd wake up and take a real deep breath in, like I was hitting the crack pipe."

The comparison was at once descriptive and harrowing and spoken from experience.

Mr. Hamilton's story is by now familiar to most sports fans: The No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 draft by Tampa Bay, the 6-4 18-year-old from Raleigh, N.C., a sheltered kid all his life, quickly watched his career and life spiral out of control. First came an injury, then drugs. He would eventually wake up in cars and crack dens and out of the game he loved.

Simply putting his life back together after such a shattering experience would have been achievement enough. He did much, much more.

With the Cincinnati Reds last year, his first in the big leagues, Mr. Hamilton played so well that the Rangers took note, soliciting tales from scouts who had once rated him the best prospect they'd ever seen.

The Rangers offered the Reds 25-year-old Edinson Volquez. All Mr. Volquez did for Cincinnati this season was go 17-6 with a 3.21 earned run average and finish in the National League's top 10 in five categories.

Get this: Even after the pitching-poor Rangers gave up one of the game's best pitchers to get Mr. Hamilton, fans still argue which team got the better end of the deal.

The Rangers got the better story, hands down. Mr. Hamilton's legend took ROOT in spring training, when opponents and teammates alike stopped whatever they were doing to watch him take batting practice. When you can command the attention of your peers in an ego-driven society, you've won over the world's toughest audience.

Mr. Hamilton's scalding spring training exhibition boiled over into the season, where he was named the American League Player of the Month in both April and May.

The story mushroomed out of all proportions at the All-Star game. On one of the game's biggest stages, Mr. Hamilton put on the gaudiest show.

In the All-Star game's carnival act, the home run derby, he hit 13 homers in a row on the way to a single-round record 28. Three traveled more than 500 feet. It was like watching God on a driving range.

Even though he lost the derby - the Twins' Justin Morneau took the title after the totals reset in the second round - Mr. Hamilton won over a nation.

The fact that he could not maintain such an inhuman pace in the second half - the Sports Illustrated jinx? - didn't do anything to diminish his story. He finished with 32 home runs, 130 runs batted in and a .304 average.

Even better, Mr. Hamilton never shirked his responsibility. Each opportunity that came, with his wife at his side or his teammates in the audience, he told his story. He did it humbly, without conceit, and with full acknowledgement of the road that lies ahead.

At least one Sports Illustrated writer thought it was a story good enough to qualify Mr. Hamilton as the magazine's Sportsman of the Year. He ultimately lost that argument. But it's good enough for me. Here in Texas, a place built on second chances, nothing beats a tale of redemption.

Kevin Sherrington is a Dallas Morning News sports columnist. His e-mail address is ksherrington@dallas news.com.