I didn’t get to see or hear very much of this game at all. My wife and I were out to dinner and a movie. We saw “For Love of the Game”. Was a great movie. Yeah, it’s a Kevin Costner movie, and it had the usual “mushy sap” in it that women seem to eat up, but I very much enjoyed the movie.
There was some awesome direction in the movie, especially the bits where Costner’s character (a pitcher) was drowning out the crowd. Extraordinarily well done, I thought. If you like baseball, go see this. Especially if your wife/girlfriend/whatever is into romantic movies, she’ll love it, too. I was hoping the Texas Rangers would get mentioned, even in passing, but they didn’t (old Arlington Stadium was actually in his first baseball movie, Bull Durham).
Aaron Sele pitched well (from what I see in the box scores). Mr. Flaherty hit another home run (what is it with us and one player from the other team just unloading with home runs?). A really nice story was the appearance of Jim Morris, the oldest rookie (at 35) since 1970. Came in, threw the last out for Tampa Bay, and blew away Royce Clayton on four straight 95 or 96 mph pitches. Hope he sticks around next year, was great to see.
Ex Ranger Julio Franco was called up from Tampa’s AAA team, and was on the bench and in uniform for Tampa, but did not appear.