Well, this game was fun for me for a few reasons. First, it was dollar hot dog night, which is always good to be able to get FOUR hot dogs for the price of one of them ($3.75) any other time. Walked up to the hot dog stand and said “Here’s something you’ll probably hear a lot tonight – 3 hot dogs!”. :)
Second, I was by myself. Normally I go with my wife, and I really love going to games with my wife (even games I go to by myself seem to be lacking something because my wife isn’t there). But when I go by myself it feels different (and not just because I’m by myself). There’s always something about sitting in the stands by yourself, listening to the game on the radio and scoring the game that seems, well, cool.
Third – we won. The big story on this one of course was the 8th inning when we put up a seven spot – with something like 6 or 7 straight Rangers reaching base. I thought that Chan Ho Park pitched better than before, but nowhere near what he should be. This felt like a spring training game for him (to me). After he came out though – our relief pitching didn’t give up anything at all (runs wise), which was nice to see. Especially Rocker, who was the beneficiary of a very fortunate deflection off himself for a DP. We had gotten a few runs here and there, and we were down 4-3 starting the 8th, which wasn’t bad, but after we had scored one in the 7th, and left two on base, you always get the feeling that we won’t get anymore. Boy, was that wrong – it was capped off by a bases clearing 3 run triple by Mike Young, giving us (at that time) a 9-4 lead. We tacked on one more, giving John Rocker his first win as a Texas Ranger, and getting Park off the hook again.
One thing did bother me about the fans in the stands. We were booing Ken Griffey Jr when he came up to pinch hit in the ninth. I know he’s not our player, but he is most definitely one of the game’s greats, and quite frankly, I saw no reason to boo him. I even said that when I called in to the post game show (yeah, that was me on there talking about Griffey & our fans). I might understand it if Griffey was going to Seattle, but there really is no beef with him here. One caller after me on the post game show said something about “He’s in our house”. Well, duh – but that wasn’t my point. He was one of the game’s greats – and I felt it was very disrespectful to be booing him – it just bothered me.
Finally, I almost wished I wasn’t at the park for this one – because there was a very fun broadcast on TV with Josh Lewin & Tom Grieve in the stands broadcasting. I hope they do that more often. I TiVo’ed the game at home, and watched pieces of it when I got back. I’m more convinced Josh Lewin is one of the most fun broadcasters I’ve seen in awhile. His doing the word scramble, jumping in the dogpile for a home run ball was very fun to watch.
Also, when I was leaving the game, someone stopped me and said Hi. I had said on my site that if you saw me with a Siegler 20 Rangers Jersey, say hi, so someone did. To that person – I’m afraid I cannot remember your name. I’m really bad with names until I’ve met someone several times. It was nice chatting with you, if you ever want to say hi or chat about the Rangers, drop me a line. :)