Ameriquest Field is no more. Long live Rangers Ballpark in Arlington!
Personally, I could have done without the addition of “Rangers” to the original name for the park, but I can live with it. I never cared for the corporatization of The Ballpark’s name; why would you rush to rename your ball field when it has such a classic name as “The Ballpark at Arlington”? I pretty much refused to dignify the corporate name by speaking it, and have continued, lo these many years, to simply refer to it as “The Ballpark”. And now it’s “The Ballpark”–only with “Rangers” in there, too–once again.
Best of all, that stupid bell in the left field mid deck is gone, gone, gone!
Tag: baseball
Tom’s thoughts on the National Anthem mirror my own.
The missus can regale you with many a tale of Super Bowl, college bowl, NASCAR, baseball, hockey, and other sports viewing wherein I severely critique the anthem singing because they fail in one of the ways Tom speaks of.
Look, we know you’re a good singer. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been chosen in the first place. And if it’s a major sporting event, we know you’re a great singer.
(Or you’re just the flavor of the month, since we all know popularity doesn’t necessarily reflect impressive skill.)
(We do know that, right?)
The missus and I have been talking about taking the little phisch to some baseball games this season over at our local high school. It’s within walking distance, and right now, as the season’s beginning, the temperatures are still cool.
I pulled up the varsity schedule, and entered all of the home dates in to a new calendar in iCal. I then exported the calendar, in .ics format, and am making it available for anyone in Flower Mound who wishes to follow the Marauders at home in 2007.
Again, this is the home schedule only, and your calendar program should support the .ics format (which pretty much any modern calendar app does).
Three days after seeing Michael Young get his 200th hit of the 2006 season, Brent and I were back at the Ballpark in Arlington. This time, we were about 23 rows up behind home plate. I didn’t take a lot of shots, because the net behind the plate gets in the way.
Click the photo to see the entire set.
Well, baseball photos, any way.
I’ve let myself get way too far behind on processing and uploading photos, so I’m making a concerted effort over the next few days to get caught up.
Back in September, thanks to a generous church member, Brent received four tickets to the Rangers game on the 16th. Four primo tickets, sixth row, first base line, just to the right of first. It was the closest any of us had ever sat at a major league baseball game, and Brent and I were way excited. It was the sort of opportunity that makes me pine for a digital SLR with a telephoto lens or two.
The highlight of the evening–besides the Rangers winning, that is–was seeing Michael Young collect his 200th hit of the season. I’ve uploaded a photo set to my Flickr account.
Michael Young hitting number 200.
With St. Louis’s victory in the World Series Friday night, the perfect sports month comes to a close, even with three days left on the calendar. This was a less than perfect sports weekend for yours truly, given that the Tigers didn’t play yesterday, and in three weekend nights, the Stars only played once. They made the most of it, however, beating the Kings last night, 3-2, giving rookie netminder Mike Smith his second win in as many starts, and equalling the team’s best start ever at 9-2.
Oh well, I suppose I can always root for Carolina against Dallas tonight…
Division playoff series kick off today, and I thought I would post my totally-uneducated picks.
The Oakland-Minnesota series looks, to me, to be the best match-up, and should be very entertaining. It could honestly go either way. Dan will be pulling for the Twins, while Tom roots for his hometown A’s, so IM chatter should be fun. I wouldn’t be surprised by the Twins moving on, but I think we’ll see Oakland playing for the American League championship.
The Padres’ magic ride is going to come to a halt when the Cardinals crush them and move on.
Speaking of magic, the Yankees will likely use some to string out their series with Detroit, but I think the Tigers are going to continue to shock the league and advance to face the Athletics.
I think a Dodgers-Cards matchup in the National League championship would be great. Sorry, New Yorkers, no chance for a Subway Series the rest of the country wouldn’t care about any way. LA just has to get past the Mets first, though it will probably take them six games to do so. From a purely nostalgic view, it would be nice to see the Dodgers in the World Series again.
We’ll revisit these in a couple of weeks, when I’m sure I’ll be totally wrong on all counts. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying what is quite possibly the best sports month: Major League Baseball, college football, and the beginning of NHL hockey!
Congratulations to Gary Matthews, Jr., who became only the third Texas Ranger to hit for the cycle, and the seventh American Leaguer to do so in order: single, double, triple, home run. The homer, which came in the top of the sixth, was a thing of beauty, sailing over the wall in left-center. The Rangers hit five home runs in the big park in Detroit, on their way to routing the Tigers, 11-3.
- For you baseball aficionados, Tiff has a great story on what happened when she gave tickets to some coworkers, and how they thanked her.
- Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, affectionately known as the MacBU, has its own blog.Via The Iconfactory
- Someone took the house I, and I’m sure thousands of others, would love to live in–Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater–and put it in Half Life 2.Via del.icio.us
Couldn’t resist.
