I was at this game, due to tickets I picked up in exchange for the rainout a week or so ago. First thing..
I HATE FRIGGIN’ CRICKETS!
They were all over the place. It was actually kind of gross, tell you the truth. They were hopping around, making nuisances of themselves, and it got to the point where I was spending more time looking for crickets than at the game, which I didn’t care for. I hate this time of year because of this. Weather is starting to cool down, but out come the crickets. :(
There was some cool pre-game stuff. This was Latin American night at the Ballpark, and the Rangers had dancers out in the concourse, which were nice to watch (they were mostly kids or teenagers). There was a very cool pre-game ceremony where Luis Mayoral (Rangers Spanish radio announcer) gave awards to all the Latin American players on both the Rangers and the Devil Rays. Furthermore, for the first inning, Mayoral was following Chuck Morgan’s player announcements with a Spanish version. It was very cool to hear Mayoral announce the Latin names in Spanish. Had a much more “Spanish sounding” feel to it. It was very cool.
I don’t know if anyone from the Rangers will see this, but I wanted to say I very much enjoyed this kind of thing. These little added extras make it very cool to attend games in person.
As for the game itself, it can be summed up pretty easily with two things: Home run ball, & missed opportunities. We left fourteen men on base thought the game. There wasn’t an inning where we didn’t have at least one hit, and most innings had people in scoring position. The bottom of the eighth was the worst, because we left the bases loaded. Lee Stevens struck out swinging three straight innings in a row, which is never good. The wind did keep several balls inside the park that probably normally would have gone out.
However, the Devil Rays hit a few, including one by Canseco (there’s a shock). However, their catcher (John Flaherty) hit two home runs, and only missed a third by a few feet due to a spectacular catch by Tom Goodwin. All but one of Tampa Bay’s runs came as the result of one of their home runs. It was not a good night for us, but we didn’t get blown out.
It’s really our own fault – 14 men left on base!