Just realized I never updated from the weekend, and I don’t have time to do it now. Will get caught up in the next day or so.

You know, as I sit here the last few days watching the coverage from New Orleans, and all the othe surrounding areas destroyed by the recent Hurricane, I have a hard time bringing myself to work on my websites. Some of the images I’ve been watching are particularly disturbing (dead in the water, dead on the side of the road in wheelchairs, and the impact on children), and have sapped my enjoyment of my leisure activities (of which this website is one). The images of dead children, and ones that are obviously dying are extremely bothersome to me.
I will update later once I’m in a better mood. I hope you understand. Remember, this is a fan site, and when the fan running the site is in the kind of mood he’s in, he doesn’t want to do much in the way of fun things, as the game reports of a baseball team just seem insigificant.
Make a donation to the Red Cross, please. Thank you.

I haven’t updated for the Tampa series because I’ve been sick. Running a fever, and had some other problems that decorum prevents me from mentioning here.
I will update, I’m not bailing on the season, but I need to feel a little more “normal” before I want to do that.
Not that there’s a whole lot to write about there anyway. We lost about sums it up. :)

Well, another “major” player has been suspended. This time Ryan Franklin of the Seattle Mariners. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Rangers, really – just wanted to note it.
Link.
Raffy’s still the “biggest name” player, though.

I have to admit this free fall has really bummed me out. On my forums I’ve told a lot of people I’m not ready to give up on the season. I’m still not, but I have to admit it’s not looking pleasant. I have to admit to burnout at the moment.
As I write this, we’re in third place in the AL West, 10 games back (and only 6 games out of the basement). We’re only 4.5 games out in the Wild Card race, but we’re in 8th place there. Our pitching is in shambles, and there’s not a lot of immediate help ready. Sure, I know a lot of knee jerk Rangers fans go “Bring up Diamond, Danks, & Volquez”. Volquez is hurt, and Diamond and Danks aren’t ready yet – they’re great prospects, no one argues that. But I don’t know that you rush your blue chips along like that just to satiate the fans who want to win now. Sorry, can’t help you with that. As much as I’d like to see us go 162-0 some season, I don’t want to blow out the future just to win now.
So we have a starting rotation right now of Kenny Rogers, Chan Ho Park, Chris Young, Ricardo Rodriguez, & Joaquin Benoit. Not a group of 5 that scares anyone, really. Rogers is our best bet, and he’s going out for a couple of weeks on suspension. In the meantime, we have James Baldwin as a rescue? His first appearance aside, I can’t imagine him as the great saviour.
I read where we’re trying to get Sydney Ponson from the Orioles. Given how much this guy makes $8.5 Million, I can’t see where this is an upgrade over what we have already, especially given his performance.
I also read where we’re trying to send Alfonso Soriano to the Mets for some prospects. I also read where we’re asking for three good guys for him, one being a stud outfield prospect called Lastings Milledge. I don’t know much about him, though. I’m sure Soriano will probably get moved if we continue to fall the next few days and we’ll probably see Kinsler at that point.
Laynce Nix is out for the season with surgery. I have to wonder if he’ll still have his anointed spot in center field next year – my gut feeling says that the team is tired of waiting to see if he’ll develop offensively.
Adrian Gonzalez was brought up a couple of days ago, he essentially replaced Marshall McDougall on the roster (as they were both infielders). I have to wonder if that’s a showcasing thing, as Teixeira doesn’t need the backup. Although anyone who would be intersted in Gonzalez wouldn’t need a showcase, they’d know about him anyway.
Drew Meyer was moved up to AAA a week ago or so. I wonder if he’s a realistic option at 2B should we move Soriano? I know most everyone assumes it will be Kinsler, but I wonder if they’re thinking Meyer?
I don’t like the new “Let’s Go Rangers” animation in the ballpark. It’s too monotous. The graphics on the scoreboard are fine, but the musci used behind it has no vareity, and it’s played way too much – goes way up there on the annoying scale.
I like Rangers Captain. Sue me.
There’s a lot of talk lately about Mark Cuban buying the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’d much rather him by the Rangers from Tom Hicks. As Hicks views it as an investment (as he’s always talking about money), give Hicks a lot more money than he’d ever hope to make, so he can get his money and go.
Off Topic Hockey Remark: I see when the NHL starts up again they’re going to NOT allow goalies to touch the puck in the corners. I think that’s the wrong way of going after this. What they should do is allow the goalie to be a viable target if he’s out of his crease. You can handle the puck in the corner, but if you’re out there, I’m allowed to check you into the boards like any other player.

Saw today on the New York Post where Joe Torre is planning on complaining to MLB about John Wetteland. Technically he’s not supposed to be in uniform and in the dugout during the game, there’s a rule that you’re only supposed to have six coaches. Our six in uniform coaches are Rudy Jaramillo, Orel Hershisher, Don Wakamatsu, DeMarlo Hale, Steve Smith, & Mark Connor. Wetteland makes 7 which pushes us over the limit. However, it’s been I think two years
And what about guys like Don Kalkstein? He wears 66, and is essentially the “shrink” for the team. I know that’s not his real title, but I can’t think of what his real one is. I see him in the duguout all the time. What’s the difference between Wetteland and Kalkstein? Why complain about it now? What about all the other teams who didn’t care, or all the other times we’ve played the Yankees?
What exactly does Torre hope to gain by this? Seems like a cheap shot to me, even if we are violating the coach rule.
In other Yankee news, the same article talks about the Yankees wanting to get Gary Matthews Jr from the Rangers. I will say my usual quote. Never help the Yankees. Baseball would be better off if not a single team at all ever traded with the Yankees. DON’T HELP THEM. Period.

1) Well, that didn’t take long. Jason Botts was sent back down today without having made an apperance as far as I can tell. CJ Wilson is brought back up. Given the state the bullpen is in now, we probably need another arm. Is Wilson it? Don’t know. At least Botts won’t get a chance to rot on the bench. When he comes back, I’d rather it not be as a bench player.
2) The quote by an unnamed player that appears in today’s FTW-ST article by Jim Reeves is pretty damning of Ranger management. The quote was “I’m not expecting anything, why would I?” in reponse to a move at the trading deadline. Now I don’t know who that is, but I have a hard time it’s someone like Marshall McDougall, or Sandy Alomar. It’s probably someone like Soriano, Blalock, or Tex. Why? Fringe players aren’t likely to make a quote like that – to me, that kind of statement is made by a player who is a leader, or at least is established. Could be Kenny, given his recent spate of negative happenings. Who knows? The point is if it’s true, then it means that players are getting agitated about the lack of moves. For the most part, I agree with Jim Reeves, although I think he takes it a bit too far. I agree something needs to be done, but I don’t think it’s quite as dire as Reeves makes it out to be.
3) Francisco Cordero should change his uniform number to 35. He appears to have become John Wetteland in terms of the scariness of some of his appearances. I love Wetteland, but he had a habit of putting men on before getting the job done. That’s what Cordero is doing (or worse, giving away the lead).
4) Juan Gonzalez is out for the season. [ link ]. I can’t say this surprises me. A quick look at some of his stats the last few years:

I have to say, it’s a better rate of money per at bat than any other player in history, even counting Arod. Juan made 600k for one plate appearance this season. I can’t imagine anyone giving him a major league deal next year, assuming he even tries. Someone’s got to sign him to a minor league deal.

The other day I was looking at the Phillies website. I’m from there, so I continue to follow the team. Something was bugging me about the their site, and I couldn’t figure it out. I finally did. Look at this capture from their site. Do you see what’s wrong with it?
I didn’t pick up on it right away, but perhaps you will. Take a look. If you can’t figure it out, highlight the text below with your browser.
The baseball that is leaving the stadium in the picture is leaving in foul territory! That image is used to signify a home run ball flying out of the park. But this is a foul ball – behind the plate, and a little up the first base line!!!
I don’t know who was the bonehead that approved that picture, but I bet you they didn’t know much about the park that this image is supposed to be about!
Yeesh.

It annoyed me so much how we lost that game that not only did I not feel like writing about it, I didn’t feel like writing about Saturday’s game either – which we won (barely).

During the 2005 All-Star game, a transformer decided it was going to blow on my block, and I was without power tonight for several hours. It didn’t occur to me until right before the power was restored that I could have slapped on the radio, I think the game was on ESPN radio. That really bugged me, as I couldn’t see the game. When the power went out, the score was 3-0, and Mark Teixeira had more or less just popped out to second for his second at bat. I figured that was probably it for him anyway, two at bats is pretty decent in the All-Star game. When the power came back on, the game was over, and while there was a little more I could have watched, I had already seen the score, so I decided not to bother. I probably should have watched it, as I had Mark Teixeira’s home run on the TiVo.
I always watch the player introductions – that’s one of my favourite moments of an All-Star game (the one in Boston from 99 was the best I’d ever seen – Teddy Baseball’s appearance with Tony Gwynn brought tears to my eyes). For many years growing up (in Philly), I loved watching the All Star intros. I always got really excited at seeing “my guys” on the field – especially during the lean years when they played like crap, it was always exciting to me to see “my guy”. And that’s the reason I never want to get rid of the rule regarding every team has to have a representative. I know there’s a lot of call to remove that, but I think it needs to be there. The reason is that if a kid in Tampa Bay or Kansas City wants to watch the All-Star game, he should at least be able to go “Hey, that’s my guy!”. I know that feeling terribly well, and with the game having an image problem with the youth of America, I think we need to do things to appeal to them. Granted, I admit, it’s a very minor thing, but I loved that “my guys” feeling as a kid, and I don’t want to take that away. Hell, I’m 40, and I still get off on seeing Texas Ranger players there. It’s been better the last few years when we’ve sent 4 or 5 guys, but when we sent just one – “Hey, look there’s Pudge!” I really hope that doesn’t get taken away from me. Sure, it’s an imperfect system, and I’d say at least one or two really deserving players get shafted, but I don’t want to lose this.
Speaking of player introductions, I didn’t think Kenny Rogers got booed anywhere near the level I expected him to. There was a bit in the player intros, but I expected more than that. I will say that the replays of it I saw later on ESPNNews seemed like the booing was louder than it was originally – anyone else notice that? Due to the power outage, I didn’t get to see any of Kenny’s appearance in the game (nor did I see Soriano or Mike Young, either). I see from the news reports that he was booed coming on, booed when he gave up a home run, and booed again when he left the field. Now given the immaturity of the actions that got him here in the first place, I feel odd saying this, but… it seemed pretty good of him to go take his lumps, and particularly the quote I saw about the booing where he said that “They can say what they need to, that’s fine”. Hopefully this goes away after he comes back from suspension, but I tend to doubt it will, as national press loves a story like that.
I’d love to say I had a good time watching the game, but I didn’t, as I only saw a few innings, and then sat in darkness. Still, it was nice to see the Rangers have a good showing in terms of number of players again. Last year it was 5. This year it’s 4. All good.
You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.