Josh Hamilton continues torrid start with four home run game; is he primed for another MVP year? Hamilton is only the latest player to achieve a rare baseball feat in the first month and a half of the 2012 season. As Cindy Boren explained: taking rarity to another level, Hamilton's four home-run game for the Texas Rangers came 17 days after Chicago White Sox pitcher Philip Humber pitched a perfect game. Both of those feats have never happened in the same season. "Obviously it's, other than being in the World Series, the highlight of my big-league career," Hamilton, 31, said after the Rangers beat the Orioles 10-3 in Baltimore. Each of his homers came with a runner on base. I was saying after I hit two, I've never hit three in a game before, and what a blessing that was. Then to hit four is just an awesome feeling, to see how excited my teammates got. Hamilton, the sixth AL player to have a four home-run game, set an American League record with 18 total bases and was one shy of breaking Shawn Green's major league record, set in 2002 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Green also had a four-homer game in 2002, as did Seattle's Mike Cameron. You can get dizzy watching Hamilton circle the bases here. It was a bravura performance by the center fielder, who was the 2010 AL MVP and former No. 1 pick by Tampa Bay. He'd battled drug and alcohol addictions and was suspended for three years when he was a minor leaguer. "It reminds you of when you're in Little League and a little kid, and just the excitement and why we play the game," Hamilton said. Things like that. You never know what can happen. It was just an absolute blessing. After a tumultuous offseason in which he suffered an alcohol relapse and then publically apologized for his mistep, Hamilton's brilliant start to the season is a welcome reminder of the talent he displayed before drugs and alcohol nearly ended his baseball career. As the AP reported: Josh Hamilton expects it will take some time before he realizes the significance of becoming the 16th player in baseball history to hit four home runs in a game. He does, however, appreciate how fortunate he was to be playing baseball at Camden Yards on Tuesday night as a member of the Texas Rangers. Because, before his epic performance against the Baltimore Orioles, Hamilton had to do something even harder than launching a quartet of two-run homers. He needed to save himself from personal ruin. Hamilton went from first-round draft pick by Tampa Bay in 1999 to out of baseball altogether because of drug and alcohol addiction. He recovered and returned to the majors in 2007 with Cincinnati, and was traded to the Texas, where he has become a star - the AL MVP in 2010 - while still battling his addiction. He had a relapse before this season, but is off to a torrid start. After going 5 for 5 with a career-high eight RBIs and setting an AL record with 18 total bases in the Rangers" 10-3 win, Hamilton reflected on what his life was like before this unforgettable night. "I think about what God's done in my life, everything I did to mess it up," he said. To finally surrender everything and pursue that relationship with Christ on a daily basis and understanding when I don't pursue it, I end up messing up. Understanding that what I'm doing and what God's allowed me to do, coming back from everything I went through and allowing me to play the game at the level I play it, it's pretty amazing to think about.