I’ve been pretty busy dealing with various “real life” things the last few days, a kid who is sick, my own recovery, and a wife who is heavy into the 24 hour version of morning sickness. :) A few links that were sent my way I haven’t had a chance to point out, but I’ll do so now.
Sully Baseball
First up is from a blog called “Sully Baseball“. It’s named that because the guy who runs it is named Paul Sullivan. In his own words, here’s why this link is of interest to folks who frequent my site… “I’ve been comparing the all time homegrown roster versus the all time acquired roster for each team. I’ve done a bunch of them and I just finished one for the Rangers.“. The fellow is an admitted Red Sox fan with “Not a lot of knowledge of the Rangers”. He did however, put together a decent cross section of all time homegrown players for us.
Here’s his team for home grown Rangers:
C – Pudge
1B – Mike Hargrove
2B – Ian Kinsler
SS – Roy Smalley
3B – Dean Palmer
LF – Juan Gonzalez
CF – Oddibe McDowell
RF – Jeff Burroughs
DH – Ruben Sierra
SP – Kevin Brown
SP – Kenny Rogers
SP – Bobby Witt
SP – Rick Helling
SP – David Clyde
RP – Tom Henke
RP – Darren Oliver (Oliver was a starter with the Rangers, I thought)
RP – Danny Darwin
RP – Jeff Zimmerman
RP – Steve Foucalt
BENCH – Pete O’Brien
BENCH – Mark Teixeira
BENCH – Rusty Greer
BENCH – Tom Grieve
BENCH – Jim Sundberg
BENCH – Hank Blalock
The only major complaint I have is that Rusty Greer is not a starter. :) He also lists a starting lineup for imported players. What do you think of his choices?
Dallas Observer
The other link comes from the Dallas Observer. It’s entitled “A Wishlist for Jon Daniels“. He talks a lot about the details of what the team needs (it’s a pretty good summary), but does have a point by point list which I’ll get into.
Ben Sheets: They get so far as to say “don’t eff this up”. I agree, while not the sexiest signing, it could have a big benefit for us. His pitching coach is here, and Nolan Ryan is here. I think this can work, and think we should sign him. The fact that we have not so far tells me we’re playing games over money. We’ve lost a bunch of guys like that in the past, I hate playing the game of contract chicken.
Randy Johnson: I think this would be OK if we sign him, but I don’t think a ton would be different if he did not. As I’ve stated before, I’m indifferent towards him being here.
Ian Kinsler to LF: They say “Wise up and realize that Ian Kinsler sucks as a second baseman. Then, bite down hard and move him to left field.” I can’t agree with that. We have enough of an issue in the outfield without moving Kinsler there. His defensive numbers are better than his reptuation seem to make him out to be. Besides, if you move him to LF, then we need someone for 2B. I don’t think Young wants to go back there, and my gut says that Elvis isn’t ready. Plus we still need a full time 3B, I can’t see how this would work.
Byrd & Salty to Boston for Buckholz: I can’t see Boston moving Buckholz at all. This is s stupid idea on the grounds they won’t move Clay at all. The deal I’m OK with, but since Boston has stated “no way”, I think it’s silly to just pile on more players to get him.
Keep your options open: Ran out of ideas eh? This is such an open ended vague remark, that it tells me they ran out of ideas to put on the list. Every GM “keeps their options open”. Kind of a dumb remark, if you ask me.
While I like the free-form start of this article, the individual points aren’t things that will work, or are realistic for the most part. Still, you should definitely check this out if you have not.

Today the Mariners hired Rick Adair as their pitching coach. I don’t care.
I’m too pissed off at who they hired as their bullpen coach. John Wetteland. I’ve been saying for friggin YEARS since he retired he needs to be our bullpen coach. But no, we piss around and put other guys in there who didn’t really want to be there. Let him get away and get hired by Seattle.
Way to drop the ball on that one Rangers.

I’m trying to clean out a lot of crap from my office today. I’m going to lose this office to the pending baby my wife and I are having next summer. To that, I’m going to be periodically putting things up here that some Rangers fans might be interested in.
I found two new still in the box bobbleheads.
One is the 2005 American League Batting Champion version of a Michael Young bobblehead. Presumably from 2006.
Another is a Hank Blalock bobblehead – the bottom of the box says (c) 2008.
If you’re interested, make me an offer. I’m not looking to give them away for zero, just for something fair – you also pay for shipping (unless you’re local and want to pick ’em up). Drop me a line. Thanks.

I know this is a Rangers site, but I wanted to pass along that you can pre-order the World Series DVDs / Blu-Ray discs now through Amazon. :) If you don’t see the links, turn off your ad blockers for www.rangerfans.com. I don’t run ads here, so there’s no need to block me. :)

Here is a list of the extras that are going to be on the disc.

There goes Mark Cuban’s chance to buy the Cubs. The Wall Street Journal is saying he was charged with insider trading.

Here is an email my wife wrote to several of our`church friends on Wed evening. I’m home now and am pretty much confined to bed.
Hello everyone,
What a long long day. First off, if you feel lead to forward this message on to others, please do so. I’m so tired at this point, I know there are others that I wanted to send this to.
Joe’s surgery went well. We were at the hospital at 7 am for admitting into day surgery. They took him back quickly, then it was “hurry up and wait” time. Fr. Lawrence and Fr. Jeff from our church came out and blessed us both, which was great, and a huge emotional help to us. They took Joe upstairs at 9am, and I thought, okay, this is it, but the nurse came and got me again. More hurry up and wait time in a bigger room with more questions. Finally, around 10:15 (an hour 15 late) Joe was taken into surgery.
The doctor came out and talked to me, and said that the actual surgery lasted about an hour. Joe had a huge 4 inch cyst that was eating into the tibia bone. A sample was sent to pathology, but the Doctor felt that it was benign. He explained that he used bone chips and “bone marrow asperate” taken from Joe’s hip to fill up the hole. The bone marrow asperate is suppose to encourage new bone growth. He basically described cutting into Joe’s bone a little trap door, filling it up, and shutting it closed like a casket (his words NOT mine). This was a rare surgery.
Anyways, Joe is now in a full leg brace to keep his leg stable, and to keep his knee from bending. He will be in this brace for several weeks, this part is unclear, it depends on how his recovery is going. Joe got back into his room around 1pm, very groggy. He was feeling nausous, so they gave him more drugs for that along with good ol’ morphine. He was out for a few hours, during which I went home to get him some things, and to check on Samantha.
He was up a few times, but he needs to use a walker for awhile. They will be sending him home tomorrow with one, along with some more drugs for pain. After dinner, he did take a nap before his Phillies were on tv in the world series.
I have to say, we had some of THE NICEST nurses ever at this hospital. Not only were they caring of Joe, but they were beyond kind to me. This hospital was an icecube, and one nurse brought me a blanket. When Joe’s dinner came, they brought ME a dinner too. I didn’t ask for one, but they said, “Oh, this one’s for you too”. I teased Joe that this was our anniversary dinner as our 12th wedding anniversary is this weekend, but we cannot celebrate this year. What a way to get a day to ourselves. :)
I stayed until 8:30, and then had to get home. I plan on going back early tomorrow as it is unclear when Joe will be dischared.
Samantha had a wonderful day with her Grandma, and Grandma took care of her the entire day. They played “Doctor Who” toys for several hours, and didn’t even have to pull out all the art supply stuff that I had gotten as a distraction. Thanks be to God that Ellen came down, I don’t know what I would have done, as Joe really needed me with him.
Thanks to all of you who called today, either on my cell or at the house. Thanks also to all of you who were praying for us during the surgery. It truly helped to know that so many of you were keeping us all in prayer. Please continue to lift us up in prayer, as recovery is going to be hard.
Good night, and blessings to all of you,
Lynn

Hey gang. Just a reminder I won’t be around tomorrow, or much the next week or so. I’m having surgery to remove a bone cyst from my left leg (the tibia right below the knee). I’ll be in a hospital bed watching Game 1 of the World Series.
I’ve been ordered off my feet, and off a chair in front of a computer for awhile, so I have no idea what my update capability will be like. Hope to have some new posts sooner than later. :)
Some general info about the problem:
I have a cyst inside the bone just under my left knee. It’s what has been causing me so much pain lately. They were unable to 100% confirm that it was due to the fall I had a year ago, but he said it’s possible. The reason they don’t know for sure is because they would have had to have had a reference Xray from right before the fall. I saw the Xray myself – there’s no mistaking it, it’s quite noticeable in there. They’re essentially going to be clearing out the cyst stuff, and then effectively “filling it with cement”. That’s obviously not what they’re actually doing, but I’m a little unclear as I sit here right now what the material they’re going to actually be putting in there is, but they did use the phrase “bone graft”, which has an ugly sound to it. I was told they “don’t take stuff from your hip and put it in there anymore like we used to”, I believe it’s some sort of synthetic something, but again, I’m not sure. There’s some pictures and details about the condition and operation here:
http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00081

UPDATE 9/17 @ 8:15AM: The elimination number is now just three! Come on, let’s bury the Yankees!
I took a look at the standings tonight, and noticed that the Yankees are 79-70, and in FOURTH place in the AL East. There’s no chance they’ll end up in the cellar, the Orioles have a firm grip on that.
But to see the Yankees in fourth was a surprise. But what I really enjoyed was seeing their “Elimination Number” at just 5. I’d say the Yankees being eliminated from the playoffs completely will happen before the weekend. The Yankees play the White Sox this week, and the Rays play both Boston & Minnesota. Might not happen on Wednesday like I’d like, but I figure the Yankees will probably be eliminated on Friday.
That will be a great moment – no Yankees in the playoffs for the first time in ages.
Unfortunately, they’ll probably overreact and try getting every high dollar free agent for next year.
I’m also not sure exactly what day it happened, but I did also notice the Rangers were officially eliminated from the post season, too.