- P Michael Kirkman recalled from AAA
- P Brett Tomko outrighted to AAA [ Link ]
Changing Broadcasters
On the team’s off day, they decided to announce a major shakeup of the TV & Radio broadcasters. Here’s a line item summary of the changes, then I’ll talk about them a bit individually.

- John Rhadigan is removed from TV play by play – returns to FSSW to do pre & post game coverage.
- Dave Barnett moves from radio to TV to replace Rhadigan.
- Steve Busby will join Eric Nadel as Barnett’s primary replacement
- Bryan Dolgin will also handle an undetermined number of games with Nadel.
I have to say this was a bit of a surprise to me. There’s a lot of moving parts to all of this, and the biggest thing is that it’s temporary. It’s supposed to be re-evaluated at the end of the season. Which tells me they felt that shaking everything up would be better than letting Rhadigan ride out the season, and make a change there.
Rhadigan fired: Well, as I said above, this was the biggest surprise. When it was first announced, I thought it was somewhat an odd choice, as he had never done play by play before. John however, was involved with the Rangers for ages through his association with Fox Sports Southwest. He knows the team, he didn’t have to learn the history, he knew it. While his lack of experience was a question mark, I figure his obvious knowledge of the team would allow him to compensate for that. He definitely came across as a newbie in the job. He made mistakes (but then even the big time pros do that from time to time), and had the odd quirk here and there, but overall, I didn’t think he was that bad. However, a portion of the fanbase was quite rabid about how bad he was, and from what Evan Grant said on Twitter, (more) that seems to have contributed. I don’t think that’s particularly fair, as he was only on the job for a matter of six weeks. I felt he deserved a bit more time than that. He WAS a new guy, he WAS rough, yes. But you don’t build a Vin Scully that quickly. I do recognize he was a bit rough around the edges, but that’s the kind of refinement that comes with time. Sadly he wasn’t given the time to refine what he was doing, and was booted. He does get a nice severance, as they paid him for the entire length of his contract, so he won’t be selling pencils. Would have liked to have seen him last at least the first year. Feel bad for the guy, but he will be going back to the pre/post game stuff on Fox Sports Southwest, so that’s at least something positive, I suppose. To close this section, I’m gonna steal this text from Evan Grant:
But just like Major League callups, you don’t always get the ideal amount of time to prove yourself.
Dave Barnett to TV: Ugh. Maybe it’s good I lost my Cable TV a couple of weeks ago. I have never been a fan of Dave Barnett. It’s not like he’s exactly awful, he’s not. He’s been doing broadcasts before the Rangers for quite awhile. He’s not as rough as Rhadigan, so in that regard it’ll be an improvement. But when there was a search for the successor to Josh Lewin, I had a few posts saying how much I did NOT want Barnett on TV. There’s no one fact I can give you as to why I don’t like him. It’s just a gut feeling sort of thing. He never gelled with me, and while I never actively campaigned for him to be let go or anything, I never wanted to see him on TV, because I watch more games than I listen to on radio. That miught change now with my TV situation and what Barnett on TV. We’ll see. At least I personally can hang my hat on the fact that it’s been said that the situation will be re-evaluated in the offseason, which means they don’t really want him as the #1 TV Play by play guy either, or they would have anointed him the permanent replacement. They also didn’t offer it to him this past off season, either. My gut says Barnett is out of here after this season, we’ll see.
Busby to Radio: Steve Busby has been involved with Rangers broadcasts for awhile now in some capacity. He’s been on TV before, he’s been on radio before. He was a former player, so he’s no stranger. I like his voice, I like his style. My favorite thing about Busby is something I’ve written about here before. He used to work the official post game call in show with Scott Franzke (who was offered the TV job in front of Rhadigan but declined). There’s always a lot of “no knowledge” fans calling in to these shows, and Busby would never take their crap. He’d call a lot of the callers out, when they’d say dumb stuff like “when are we getting some pitching in here”, or “trade so and so for x”. I LOVED THAT. So I was a bit bummed when I heard that the TV play by play job was offered to him, and he turned it down because he would have only wanted to do it for say 2-3 years, and the Rangers wanted someone for longer than that. That bummed me out. But we will get him on the radio for at least the rest of the season, which is good. HOPEFULLY he can be talked into doing either of them for longer, as I’d like to see Busby stick around permanently. Preferably on TV, but radio’s good, too.
Dolgin on Radio Too: Bryan Dolgin is the pre-post game guy now, and he’s way better than that doofus they had who initially replaced Scott Franzke (Mike Ogulnick). While I still don’t listen a lot to post game, mostly because I can’t stand the lack of baseball intelligence of most callers, I have to say I like Dolgin. He kind of reminds me Franzke. Not that he’s a clone, but I like the slant of his talking, and things of that nature. While I would prefer Busby as a permanent replacement for Barnett, if they went with Dolgin, I think I’d like it too. So however he’s used is good – so long as they don’t stupidly let him go like they did Franzke. Still a bit peeved about that one.
Ultimately, if I had my choice, this is how things would settle out, but I know it won’t happen.
TV: Tom Grieve as color, and Victor Rojas as play by play
Radio: Eric Nadel & Steve Busby
Post Game: Bryan Dolgin
I know there’s no hope of Rojas coming back. I wish they would have given it to him before MLB Network got off the ground. That was a good promotion for him, but when he left that, they didn’t make a run at him, which bummed me out.
Oh, and finally, I should point out my broadcasters history page here on my site. Not one I pay a lot of mind to, but it is kept up to date, and with this news, it seems like a good time to mention it. It doesn’t go back into the DC years of the franchise, I don’t have that info. One quirk though – for quite awhile there were different broadcast teams on TV if the game was on regular TV vs Cable. That’s why there are columns that say that in the descriptions. It hasn’t been used that way in awhile now, but I never got around to reformatting the page. :)
Let’s see how the new TV team goes, as tonight is the one night out of the week I get a game on free antenna TV. I’ll probably have something to say about it in the recap for tonight’s game.
G50: Rangers take series behind CJ with 2-1 win
I’m going to take a pass on this one. Didn’t see or hear any of it.
One quick comment, though. CJ Wilson looked good, and we got a good low scoring win. Feliz though looked more like John Wettleland than I cared for. Two walks before getting the save. Don’t like that new trend by Neffy.
G49: Rangers lose to White Sox on Tuesday, 8-6
I’m going to take a pass on this one. Didn’t see any of it, as I was too involved with family on the night I came back from my trip. Mostly hiding from tornadoes in the bathroom, really. Baseball was a serious secondary concern.
Still, what more needs to be said other than Carlos Quentin’s three home runs? That pretty much means you’re losing if you give up something like that.
G48: Off DL, Josh & Nelson help Rangers win 4-0
I didn’t get to see or hear any of this game, as I was still in Philadelphia at the time. Stayed over an extra day to do the family thing. I first went out to lunch at a place that’s got one of the best French Onion Soups I’ve ever had. The place is called Zoto’s Family Diner, and it’s in a Philly suburb called “Line Lexington, PA”. My brother and I got to hang out with one of our stepbrothers for lunch, so it was great to see him again. Wish we’d live closer, as Harry is a great guy to mess around with.
Hung out at my mom’s place, talked to my grandmother a bit, got to see my two nieces I don’t see too often, as well as my cousin and her husband. After most of the family left, I stayed over at my mom’s as she was taking me to the airport in the morning. A guy I worked with at three different companies back home and who was one of the ushers in my wedding came over, and we ended up talking for the better part of two hours, so that was all good. Had a great time there. It was definitely a good day spent visiting my family back home in the Philly area. All good.
I did get to see a little bit in the way of highlights at my mom’s, since I could get MLB Network, something I now lack at home. Anyway, it was nice to see Josh Hamilton & Nelson Cruz come off the disabled list. I don’t think anyone expected that both of them would hit home runs in their first games back. Oh, as a Rangers fan, you’d LIKE for that to happen, but realistically, you don’t expect it to happen. Josh’s was a solo shot in the first inning, to put us up 1-0. Nelson Cruz’s shot was in the sixth inning, a two run shot, which put us up 3-0 at the time.
Turns out Josh’s home run was all we needed due to Alexi Ogando, who seems to be the best starting pitcher we have at the moment. I mean, how do you argue with a complete game shutout? 9 innings pitched, just 5 hits, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts on 115 pitches. Was a masterpiece, and I wish I would have been able to see it. Ogando is now 5-0, and it feels like he should be 8 or 9 and 0 given the way he’s pitched overall.
Thing is, John Danks for the Sox also pitched a complete game, obviously a loss. He’s now 0-7 with an ERA of 4.34. While I don’t follow the Sox that closely, you get the impression he should have a better record than that. This game alone is one he was good for long periods of time – he didn’t allow much of anything between Hamilton’s first inning home run and Cruz’s sixth inning home run.
Michael Young continues to rip it up, getting another three hits this game. His average is now .348 after this game, and has a total of 63 hits for the season. As a bit of a cheat, the next two games he took ofers. Normally if I have to write recaps for a few games at a time, I still write them as if I don’t know what’s happening in the future games. This one I wanted to look ahead. 63 hits in game 48 is a healthy clip. :)
If Ogando keeps doing what he’s doing, I wonder if he’ll get a shot at the All-Star Game. It doesn’t realy seem that outrageous to me.
G47: Rangers return favor over Phils, win finale 2-0
Well, game three of the Rangers/Phillies series was almost a statistical reverse of the game the night before. The score was the same, only reversed. The number of hits was mostly the same, only reversed. I was a bit surprised that Matt Harrison outdid Roy Oswalt in the game.
Harrison was darned good, though. Went 8.1 innings, gave up just five hits and walked three. Struck out three, so it was more of a hit to contact day. No runs, though, which is important. No Phillie had more than one hit, and all five of them were singles. Both walks were to DANE Sardinha (a backup catcher). So Harrison looked quite good. Might have even beat the other two Phillies pitchers we went up against.
Oswalt wasn’t any slouch either, he went seven, gave up eight hits and three walks. Obviously more than Harrison, but not an awful or outrageous number. The Philly pen allowed the other run besides the one Oswalt allowed.
Overall, this was a fantastic series pitching wise. There were a total of nine runs scored in all three games by both teams combined. If you put all the scores together, the Phillies won the overall series 5-4. That score isn’t considered too out of whack for ONE game between two teams, let alone three combined.
One amusing thing about this game, though. Since my brother and I were hanging out at his apartment, we fired up some traditional fare for the game. I’ve included a picture of the meal above. A rather large burger, one hot dog, and some potato salad plus macaroni salad. My brother whipped all that up. Was a very hearty lunch to say the least. Thing is it was a bit TOO hearty. In the middle of the fourth, we were both dozing of, so we decided to take a nap. The burger meal did us in. We slept for a couple of hours then resumed watching the game. :)
G46: Rangers shut out by Cliff Lee & Phillies, 2-0
Well, I was going to two of the three games in Philadelphia, and as it turns out, the Rangers lost both of them. But again, as I also like the Phillies it wasn’t that bad for me personally. :)
Before the game though I met a friend of mine who I’ve known for about a decade or so. He works for Channel 17 in Philly, and as such he had access to the Diamond Club in the park. A comparable thing in Rangers Ballpark is the Cuervo Club, except the one in Philly is much larger. It’s structured like a true sit down restaurant. The Cuervo Club in our park is more like a bar with a bunch of bar area seating. The Philly one also overlooks the indoor batting cages too, so if you’re in there at the right time, you can see players take batting practice. We hung out there for about 30-40 minutes before the game started, and had a great time chatting. His fiance took the picture of us that’s here. Enjoyed that a lot. Had my brother and I not loaded up on our traditional trip fare (Chinese Buffet) beforehand, I probably would have had something to eat down there. :)
When that was over, I headed upstairs to the seats where my brother was. We were in exactly the same seats as the night before, so that was kind of cool. There was rain again this game, but it didn’t stop anything, as it all happened during the pregame when I was down in the Diamond Club sipping a lemonade. :)
This was a game of two former teammates in the World Series last year going against each other. The local Philly press had quotes and whatnot from Lee saying it wasn’t a big deal going against the Rangers, but that he’d be lying if there wasn’t a little “something” in his feelings for the start.
Cliff Lee was pretty masterful, as you’d expect. Eight innings pitched, just five hits and two walks. Struck out ten. Even at just two, it’s a bit more walks then you’d expect from Cliff Lee. But nobody scored, which was the bottom line. It also was only his third win of the season, which is a big surprise. But that’s more a case of the Phillies offense being lackluster this season (and most of last, too). As much as not having Cliff Lee in Texas in 2011 isn’t great, I think we’re probably better off in the long run. However, this is still the short run, and as such, he’s painful to watch when he pitches against you. Hopefully this is the last time we see him against Texas unless it’s the World Series, which would mean the explosion of my head due to a Philly/Texas World Series matchup.
Anyway, Lee looked really good, and really deserved the 2-0 win he got. Ryan Madsen who has developed into the Philly closer since the injuries to Brad Lidge & Jose Contreras was pretty darned good, too. He allowed just one hit in his scoreless inning of work, and dropped his ERA to 0.47. Got his ninth save of the season, which is a great stat when you consider it was only about Game 45 or so of the season for the Phils, and he didn’t start the year as the closer. Lot of talk up there that Madsen doesn’t relinquish the role when the other guys come back.
On the flip side was Colby Lewis. Colby was pretty good for the Rangers too. He wasn’t as dominating as Lee was, but his line was nothing to sneeze at. He pitched well enough for a win, too. 6.2 innings pitched, seven hits, two walks, and six punchouts. He allowed two runs though – one came on a home run shot by Ryan Howard in the second inning, which was his first home run in bloody ages. I managed to get him swinging on the home run shot, that picture is shown here. Came out good, too.
The second run the Phillies got came in the sixth, and was pretty much 100% the fault of Colby Lewis. He walked two in the inning (Ibanez & Ruiz), and then John Mayberry Jr (former Ranger prospect) singled to put the Phillies up 2-0. On the same play, Carlos Ruiz was thrown out at third, so the inning ended there, but the run counted.
That was pretty much it for the offense. On the Rangers side, we had just six hits, all of them singles. And half of them came from Michael Young alone, who was pretty hot in this series overall. Andrus, Kinsler, & Napoli each had singles, but that was it, aside from the two walks to Andrus & Napoli. The Phillies offense was driven by the guys you’d expect mostly. Rollins, Polanco, & Howard each had two hits. Everything was a single execept for the aforementioned Ryan Howard home run. Mayberry and Cliff Lee also had hits. Yeah, Cliff Lee.
What else is amusing is that Cliff Lee had a stolen base. I personally would have ruled it defensive indifference as there was ZERO attempt by the Rangers to stop him. But when it was happening in the stadium, Lee got a lot of cheers and hollering. It did seem funny to see the pitcher trying to steal second base. And getting away with it.
That was pretty much it. It was a fun game. Got to meet a friend of mine I’d never met face to face, and got to hang out with my brother for another game. Rangers lost 2-0, but my hometown team won, so it was good for me all around. :)
Game three of the series was a different kind of viewing experience.
G45: Rangers lose in Philly, 3-2 to Doc Halladay
It’s a game I was actually rooting for both teams. I was there wearing the Rangers colors for this game, though. I had a Rangers shirt and my Rangers World Series hat on. I flew up to Philly to visit family, and my brother and I went to a couple of games this weekend. This was the first of the two.
It’s been awhile since I had been to a game in Philly. I’ve been to Citizens Bank Park a few times since it had opened, the first time being the first year in 2004. It’s a great park, I like it a lot. Their attempt to mimic Eutaw Street in Baltimore with the center field area called “Ashburn Alley” is kind of cool, except it is always, and I mean ALWAYS jam packed with people. You can’t casually stroll around there, it’s packed with people, and it’s a lot of close quarters stuff, so if you dawdle, the crowd will force you to keep moving. Or they’ll say something about it. :)
My brother though had gotten some really nice seats, in what amounts to the Lexus Club level at Rangers ballpark. Where we were helped a bit, as we were mostly covered when it started raining in the middle of the game. You can see from the couple of pictures what the view was like. Only the far corner of right field was obscured, and I enjoyed the view from where we were. Especially with the new scoreboard they put in there. It’s pretty massive as you can see from my couple of pictures, and really dominates the view out there. Anyone who reads my site knows I’m a fan of scoreboards, and with the way the park is laid out, you can see the entire scoreboard from places around the park before you even get into the place. Also from the highway that runs not too far from there (closer than I30 is to Rangers ballpark). So I enjoyed that a lot.
Anyway, on the way into the place, I went to check in on Facebook, and saw that my niece Rose was in the park. I told that to my brother, and he called her. She was in town with some friends who had never been to a game before, and my brother went over to where she was to say hi. It had started raining during this time, so I felt bad for him, but he did something nice for me. He gave Rose his ticket, and told her to come over and see me and say hi. Given I live in Texas, I don’t get to see some parts of my family all that much, so it was nice to say hi to her. She’s a bit sports nut, huge Philly sports fan girl, and if I was 20 years younger, and not related to her, yeah, she’d be a cool one to hang out with. :) Anyway, it was really nice to see her, and it took us about five tries to get the picture you see here, we couldn’t get the self portrait thing going right. :)
The game though was Roy Halladay vs CJ Wilson. The result was what you’d expect from a battle of two teams’ #1 guys. Wilson went seven, and Halladay weight eight. The Rangers had a shot to get to Halladay in the first inning. The first two batters of the game (Andrus & Moreland) both singled to start the game. We had first and third and nobody out in the top of the first. Told my brother at the time that the Rangers had better capitalize on that, because if we didn’t, Halladay would shut us down.
After the singles, Capt Uppercut struck out, and on the play Elvis Andrus broke home, and Moreland broke to second. Ruiz threw to second, and Valdez threw home, and probably would have had Andrus trying to steal home, if Ruiz didn’t drop the ball, so the Rangers scored. Michael Young then grounded out, and Beltre struck out. That was it, we didn’t really capitalize. Yeah, we got a run, and that was good, but not against someone like Halladay. He clamped down after that. The Rangers didn’t score again until the 8th inning when Endy Chavez had a pinch hit double, and was later brought home on a groundout by Mitch Moreland. Ryan Madsen came in for the ninth and got the save rather handily. The game itself ended oddly though as David Murphy was called out stealing second.
Pitching wise, Wilson matched Halladay in almost all respects. The one big thing that cost him the game was a pitch thrown to Ben Francisco in the fifth, and another to Raul Ibanez in the fourth. Both of those were hit over the wall, and accounted for all three runs (Francisco’s was a two run shot). That’s pretty much the game in a nutshell. Wilson had ten strikeouts, and overall looked pretty darned good. He just got beat with the home run ball. Shame, as I thought he deserved the win, but against someone like Roy Halladay, you have no margin for error, really.
The Rangers let Halladay off the hook in the first inning, and that proved to be their undoing. Still, I enjoyed the company, and enjoyed the park and the game, so no complaints either way since I like both teams.
Had a great time.
No more Rangers Games for awhile
(This was originally posted May 17th, bumping it while I play catch up so people can know why I’m behind).
I’m having to check out for a little while here… Not from my site, I plan on keeping that going. But from watching Rangers games. You see, yesterday I had to disconnect Time Warner Cable. It wasn’t a decision I really WANTED to do, I was kind of forced into that due to my life circumstances.
While I try not to go on about it, if you’ve been reading my site at all the last couple of years you know I’m unemployed. I sadly still am. I do have a part time gig which helps, but it’s not enough to live off of properly. As we’ve gotten to a tipping point in my situation, I’ve had to make some rather drastic cuts. I’ve been making cuts all along, but this round is by far the hardest one to make, as it cuts into things I always figured, “Well, I can make do and not have to deal with that bill”. Well, no mas. By turning off Time Warner Cable, I’m gonna save about $70 a month.
I’ve gone back to plain old rabbit ears. I would prefer to install a good antenna on the roof, but I don’t have the cash to pay for the antenna & the installer to put it up there (doing it myself is NOT an option). So I’m back to a pair of $8 rabbit ears. I did a ton of research on antennas, and actually chose a different one than this – a $50 powered really nice looking one. Didn’t get all the channels I wanted. Then I tried the $8 one, and it actually got more channels than the powered $50 antenna. I was shocked. Packed up and returned the $50 one to Amazon, and went to Best Buy and got another of that $8 rabbit ears. That’s what I’m using now. It works great for the TV stations I care about. There’s a ton of stations here in D/FW, but a lot of them are Spanish Soap Opera kind of stuff on UHF. I get all the 2-13 channels well enough, and the UHF ones I care about (21, 27, 33) I get fine. I also get a few others, too, so for eight bucks? It worked out great.
Unfortunately, there’s a couple of MASSIVE downsides to this being a Rangers fan.
First off, I just disconnected MLB Network. That’s quite painful, as it was probably my most watched single cable channel – by far. There’s tons of stuff there I’ll miss for sure. Second, though is Fox Sports Southwest. This means that I’ve just lost my ability to watch every Rangers game unless it’s on Friday night – where I can get it on the free OTA channel 21.
Before you say “Just listen on the radio, then”.. Try having two kids whose bedtimes are during non west coast games. it doesn’t work. I relied on the TiVo and FSS to timeshift the games until after the kids were asleep. You can’t do that with radio. You have to listen when it happens, or you don’t listen. There’s always the possibility of waiting till the entire game is over and listening to the radio via MLB Gameday Audio reply, but the chances of me not knowing the score that long for that many games is unrealistic.
MLB.TV isn’t an option. I am retaining internet at home, but I can’t use MLB.TV because Rangers games are blacked out in this area. No love there.
So basically, I’m cut off from watching Rangers games again until I can get myself employed at a full time level. I haven’t decided if I was going to stop doing my updates based on just the MLB recaps or not. That gets old after awhile.
It will stink if this is still going come October and playoffs, as the bulk of the playoffs are on TNT, which I can’t see now. So the next time you’re watching the Rangers and complaining that you don’t like Rhadigan, or whatever else you want to complain about, remember – you’re watching it.
One positive. I won’t have to hear about anyone sending up baked goods to the booth for a while. Perhaps there is a silver lining in all this.
P.S. If you’re ever in need of information for antennas, I cannot recommend TV Fool high enough. The amount of detail they give you on all the channels in your area is astounding. You even get asked serious detail like how high up your antenna is, several variables to account for (trees, buildings, etc). There are overlaid Google Maps maps showing how strong a stations’ signal is in your area. Plus they have a good help forum. I cannot recommend them highly enough. AntennaWeb is far more known, and there’s nothing WRONG with them, but TV Fool has a lot more detail.
G44: Rangers lose finale in KC, 2-1 (in 10 no less)
There it is. An extra inning game we lost in 10. Gah.
Derek Holland got screwed, as he was fantastic. Eight innings, nine hits, one walk, five strikeouts, and just one run. 113 pitches – he was great. Deserved the win. But our anemic offense lately couldn’t come through.
Then Feliz blows the save, his second of the year so far. Darren Oliver lost the game, by giving up the run, although it was Cody Eppley who allowed the inherited runner to score.
I’m just annoyed at that. Go read the box score and pro recaps I link to at the top of this story.
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