Getting more adjusted to my new gig. I also ran into a personal project as well, both of which are taking up my time I used to use to write about Rangers games. I’ve had to mostly stop watching the games on TV and listen on the radio just to have them on. However, I’m not missing much here given the way they’ve played in the last week.
My ticket for “Game 1” of the ALDS arrived in the mail today. That’s cool.
At least we can say this, despite the poor play lately.:

• The Rangers have 19 games left in the season. They have to go 12-7 to get to Nolan Ryan’s 92 win spring training prediction.
• The Rangers are 8.5 games up on Oakland, who is at 71-71 at the moment.
• The Magic Number to win the division is currently at 12. It could be 11 after tonight, as Oakland is playing KC
• Michael Young needs 33 hits to get to 200 (with 19 to play). Not impossible, but he can’t afford hardly any ofers – or even just one hitters from this point forward.
• I’ve always said my head would explode if the World Series was Phillies vs Rangers. While I’m not making a claim that’s who will get there, one has to say there’s a chance of it happening now that there’s a very realistic chance that both will make the playoffs. I still don’t know what I’ll do if it ends up being those two.

Also, two random pictures. A PR woman sent me these. They were taken Friday night at the Rangers game during the first pitch celebration. For some reason they had the Captain Morgan Rum character there. Oooh, hold me back. I’m even MORE excited about the game now!
Seriously, they had their celebration with Johnny Narron. This is amusing that they’d put Johnny Narron with him, because the whole reason Narron is on the team is to act as Josh Hamilton’s personal “don’t fall off the wagon” guy. What with Josh being an alcoholic, it was a mild eyebrow raiser that they’d put Hamilton’s “don’t get drunk” guy with a character who is there to promote a company whose most famous product is Rum.

As those of you who have followed my site for awhile know, I’ve been out of work for some 15 months. This past week, I started up working again. Not full time, but a part time gig. Thing is, the first two weeks of the gig are going to be way busier than any other time, so I haven’t had much time for Rangers stuff.
This will probably extend into next week, so I’m taking a short sabbatical from doing updates while I deal with work stuff.
I will be back, I want to be around for the tail end of the season. :)

A lot has been written both locally (pro and blog) and nationally about how the Rangers are “running away” with the AL West. That we have the widest margin of any of the division leaders, and that we’re a “slam dunk” to make the playoffs. While all of that may be true, I decided to examine our record and see where it would put us.
I remember some years ago when the Padres make the playoffs (1998), there was talk that they were the “best of a bunch of bad teams”, and that they only make the playoffs because someone from that division had to. There always seems to be some team somewhere that kind of does that – “backs into” the playoffs is what it’s generally called.
Now, do I feel that’s the way the Rangers are in 2010? No, we’re not a bad team. No, we won’t “back” into the playoffs. The way the team has played this year, we deserve to be there. But still, having said all that, I’d like to see where our current record would place us in the other divisions. A lot also has been made about how the other teams besides the Yankees & the Red Sox (and the Rays in more recent vintage) in the AL East would fare better if they were in another division. So here goes:
AL West: We’re in first place, 9.5 games up on second place Oakland. Our record is 73-55, 18 games over .500 – our winning percentage is .570
AL Central: Our record in that division would put us in second place behind the Twins, only a half game behind them. We’d be three games up on third place Chicago. A pretty decent shot at winning that division, I’d say while it wouldn’t be as easy, we could win that division.
AL East: We’d be in FOURTH place here. Right now the Yankees & Rays are tied at 78-50 (.609), and then Boston is in third at 74-55 (.574). We wouldn’t be far behind Boston (one game), and the division leaders (5GB), but we would have to hop three other teams to get there. I’d say this would be the hardest shot to make the playoffs, despite being only 5 games out.
NL West: Our record here would put us in second place, about 3.5 games back of division leader San Diego, and 2.5 games in front of third place San Francisco. Again, we’d be right in the thick of things, and would probably have a good shot at winning this division.
NL Central: Again, second place. This time just one game back of division leader Cincinnati, and 3 games in front of second place St. Louis. A very winnable division if we were in it.
NL East: This time, our record would tie us with Atlanta for the division lead, and two games up on what would be third place Philadelphia. Of the three NL divisions, I’d say this would be the hardest fight, but we probably could win this as well.
So basically, outside of our own division, we could easily win three of them, have a good fight with one of them, and in my opinion, be out of the playoffs in one other.
I realize this is a nebulous thing, if you moved us out of the division, we’d play different teams, different stadiums, things would be different. Yeah, I know that. Just playing a “pick up and put into another scenario – how would be be doing” fantasy. I know that. Still, it’s nice to know where we stand amongst everyone else.
I’ve given Tom Hicks some grief many a time for letting Bud Selig off the hook on moving the Rangers to the AL Central, where we’d more fit in with our division mates and the time zone. It stinks having so many games start at 9PM. However, had Bud not taken the guaranteed home and away series with the Astros every year, and actually moved us to the AL Central, we wouldn’t be in the driver’s seat we are in now. However, we might have won a few more divisions along the way and have been to the playoffs sometime in the last decade.
Still, this year is feeling like no other I’ve covered on this site since the first one I ever covered (1999). 2004 came close, but we fell down at the end. This doesn’t feel like that year at all. How far we get in the playoffs is an unknown, but at this point, I’m ready to say that we WILL get there, and I expect it will not be a first round sweep and out again. Overall, I think the team is too good for that.

I’ve been watching this show since I was a kid (“How about that?”), but this weekend’s episode should be of interest to anyone reading this site.
The subject is the 2010 Texas Rangers. :)
MLB has some press about the episode here.

Hey, if you’re on Facebook, and like baseball art, you should check out this page I ran into not too long ago. It’s by a fellow named “Kyle Banister”, and he does some great baseball art. Noticed about a week ago he had posted a nice picture of Josh Hamilton, and I had asked his permission to post it, and he was cool with it. You can see it here. He simply calls it “Hamilton”, and it was hand drawn in colored pencil and black marker. It’s quite nice, and I thought I should let others know about this guy.

While he doesn’t have a website yet, all of his art and whatnot is up on the fan page for him on Facebook. So if you’re on Facebook (who isn’t these days), go check out the Kyle Banister – Baseball Art page, and “like” it. He’s got a lot of good stuff there. I also particularly like his pencil drawing of Ubaldo Jimenez.

Here’s a blurb Kyle has written about himself:

Before admitting he was an artist, Kyle owned and operated a successful sign and lettering company. For nearly 20 years Kyle used his talents to help others communicate and realize their dreams. In 2002 he gave up the sign business to pursue his own dream, to become the artist he was born to be.
While producing signage for others, Kyle learned and mastered a variety of mediums. And he uses all of these in his art today, often mixing them to achieve what he sees as the best look for a particular piece of art. That is why you may see an array of styles in one of Kyle’s shows. He is just as comfortable painting with 1-Shot Lettering enamel on Plexiglas as he is digitally coloring an original pointillism drawing. Some have criticized Kyle’s work saying that the use of so many mediums will slow his march to success. But Kyle is OK with that as long as he can stay true to himself, and his art.

Kyle’s favorite subjects are History, Baseball and Women, not necessarily in any order. He loves to travel doing research for the many projects he has planned. His strongest asset is inexhaustible creativity, he never is at a loss for a new art project. Kyle says, “It’s as if God leaves notes on my forehead after a nights rest.”
Kyle’s art is quite a journey. So come along and enjoy the ride.

This is a complete duplicate of a post I made back on June 10th, but given the Mariners today fired their manager, bench coach, and their pitching coach, I thought it was time to revive the post…
I’m playing catch up with some backlogged game reports, I hope to catch up with the Mariners series tomorrow. Having said that, I was curious to see what ussmariner.com had to say about tonight’s game. They had a rather funny image posted there about the Mariners’ season:

I prefer this image I posted a couple of years back, originally.

I am so stealing this from Scott Lucas. It sums it up pretty good. ;)

What a weird couple of days for me. I find out about two days ago that I was to start a temp work assignment in a few days (today, actually). That was cool, as I’ve been out of work for awhile. Then yesterday was a whirlwind.
The auction for control of the team happened. I hopped onto Twitter and followed the proceedings, starting at 9 am, and staying with it all the way through till the end at 12:50am. Was a heck of a ride but Ill write more about that later.
I’m posting this now because I haven’t had the tine to writ about the Seattle settees due to family stuff, plus my church had its vacation bible school tis week (ended last night). Then today I stated my temp assignment, and on top of it, ive caught a cold.
But I couldn’t let the day pass without saying something. I coiled not had be happier with the way the auction turned out. Bring in Chuck, Nolan, and the new stuff. Theres a ton to talk about there, and I will when I feel better. Promise. In the meantime…
Bring on August 12th! Goodbye Hicks, and take the remnants of the stupid Ameriquest bell with you!

Did anyone watch the old timer’s introductions during the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies back a week or so ago from Cooperstown? I did, because to be honest, I was more interested in hearing those intros and to see who was there than the new player inductions. Not that I think the class of 2010 wasn’t worthy, but I like the nostalgia angle more.
Anyways, there was an interesting remark by the fellow who was doing the introductions (George Grandy). It was most specifically his choice of words during the introduction of Hank Aaron. Here’s his exact intro:

Our next Hall of Famer is, very simply, everyone’s home run champion. He hit a home run on the baseball field, he’s hit a home run in life. Let’s welcome the Hammer, Henry Aaron.

At the moment he called Hank Aaron “everyone’s home run champion”, my mind immediately lept to Bonds, and all the discussion about is he the real champ, etc.. That someone from the National Baseball Hall of Fame would call Aaron “everyone’s home run champion” was telling to me. Now it could be nothing – it could just be a speech and choice of words for sure. But I felt the choice of words was a small dig at Barry Bonds. Does it imply what the hall is thinking?
If you don’t believe what I’m saying, click here – it’s a pdf with the complete transcript of the entire induction ceremony, including Aaron’s intro (which is on Page 43).
I figure on this day where Arod hit #600 at age 35, and provided he doesn’t break down into his 40’s will eventually pass Bonds, I thought it was interesting to make this observation.