Kenny Bybee rocks. Check this out!

And the Hot Stove begins. The Rangers unrestricted Free agents are:

• Jorge Cantu (not coming back)
• Frank Francisco (could go either way)
• Cristian Guzman (is he still here?)
• Cliff Lee (Uh, that’s five dump trucks full of money please)
• Bengie Molina (I’d take him back if he wants to play)
• Matt Treanor (he’ll come back)

And if Cliff Lee wants 10 dump trucks full, you give it to him.

Is it me, or does this picture of Neftali Feliz from World Series Game 3 last night make him look like Pedro Martinez? That looks like old school Pedro with the mullet and the look upwards at the end of the game…
Game 3 recap coming today. Was just too euphoric to stop and write last night. Was just enjoying the heck out of it.

Pretty funny!

Whichever it is, one can’t take away this image.

I also saw this image of Claw & Antler flags. Anyone seen these around town?

Oh my gosh! It just seems weird to type that title! I mean… WOW!
I’ve been watching reactions and post game stuff on TBS, FSSW, & MLB Network. A lot of it. Ill have more to say tomorrow.
I’m just enjoying it now. :)

Got a fun email from the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History a few minutes ago, put the pictures up straight away. They said this:

With support from its own white-tail deer, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History wishes the Texas Rangers the best of luck tonight against the New York Yankees.

Dear Yankees Fan,
Payback’s a bitch.
With Love,
Nelson Cruz’ two run home run

I can’t take credit for this line, saw it posted on Facebook, and was too good not to use :)

I totally forgot to mention this from Game 1 of the ALCS, but then again, given the way it ended, most cool stuff went out of my head.
There was an inning where Alex Rodriguez was leading the game off. When he was walking to the mound, Chuck Morgan played the old “Who” song, “The Kids are Alright”. I roared with laughter, as I was probably the only person in my area that got it. I had to explain why I was laughing. Said something like this..
Remember the remarks Arod made immediately after he was traded to the Yankees before the 2004 season? The remark about “It felt like me and a bunch of kids”? Chuck bringing that up subtly like that with the song “The Kids are Alright” was a stroke of genius.
I believe he’s done that before for Arod, but it was great to see it in the playoffs. I wonder if anyone else caught that.

Some time ago I wrote about Josh Hamilton’s Book, but with the Rangers in the playoffs, and my site getting a little more attention, I thought I’d mention this again. Since I mentioned it last, Amazon has come up with something called “Kindle for the Web” where you can read Kindle books online. Now, I can’t make the whole book available here, but they do have a sample you can read, so check it out below (it might not show up if you’re actually reading this on a Kindle).
Here’s what I wrote in a review for Amazon.com. If you’ve never checked out the book before, click here, it will take you to the page on Amazon.com for it.

This is a fantastic, extremely compelling story of one man’s redemption through the power of God. As a Rangers fan, I knew most of this before I read the book, but a complete story was definitely worth a read. You’ll cheer at the comeback, and wonder what the hell he was thinking in the bad bits. Even if you are not a baseball fan’ you should read this. The power and glory of God just spill out all over this book. i got a physical copy the day of release and finished the whole thing in one sitting. It was that compelling. Bought a second copy on my Kindle, and gave the hard copy to my church for their library!

NOTE: The embedded Kindle for the Web app was sized for my site here. It looks best if you hit the “full screen” button below.

A lot was made when Chuck Greenberg took control that there may be totally new scoreboard stuff in place for next season. The longer we stay in the playoffs, the less I think it will happen for 2011. What they’ve talked about is a massive project, and I don’t know if there will be enough time. Hope I’m wrong.
Anyway, today on the TBS coverage, they had this thing that Fox does on football games, which is put “fake” scoreboards into stadiums and put stuff on the screens. Their shot is solid evidence as to how our scoreboard in right field is seriously lame – and needs to be replaced completely. Look at this picture:

I know it’s a fake, and they just superimposed it on top of our scoreboard, but this is what you need to do up there. Not all advertisements. A VIDEO BOARD. Not an advertisement board with a video board as an afterthought. Ditch the entire thing that’s up there and replace it with this.
The other idea to replace all the static ad boards above the offices with nothing but more video boards needs to happen as well. :)

Hey, I got sent a link to a site being sponsored by Chevrolet called “Antler Yourself”. You can upload a picture of yourself, and add antlers to it. Below is a quick picture I took of myself. Check it out at http://www.antleryourself.com.

The Dallas Morning News is running an article in Tuesday’s paper with a few quotes from me. The piece is about fans’ feelings going into Game 5. They emailed me early on Monday and asked me a few questions. I’m quoted three times. Twice at the end of the article, and once further up.
The one in the middle I wanted to comment on. While they weren’t exactly wrong in using what I said, I tried to be funny with it, I guess they edited that out for brevity. Here’s what appears in the paper:

“My thoughts on our chances are basically two words: Cliff Lee,” said Joe Siegler, a longtime Rangers fan who runs the fan website Rangerfans.com.

What I really said was this:

“My thoughts on our chances tomorrow are basically two words. Lee & Cliff. Feel free to rearrange them in any order you like. ;)”

Check out the article. Hopefully we get to move on. Also what I was trying to say with my quotes at the end was that it seemed like the mind lock on getting to the ALCS is a bigger deal than the mind lock from the past with the Yankees. I’m not sure that came out right.

It’s 10:30AM. First pitch is 4:07PM.
I’m heading out to the game in a few minutes. Gonna be some absolute hellacious traffic. I’ve also been invited to hang out at a tailgate, so it’s time to head out there.
Hopefully I’ll be coming home to use the sweep graphic!

Hey, if you’re someone who uses my forums here, I just noticed this morning that the database was crashed that ran them. I fixed that, but decided to upgrade the software to the current version at the same time.
Ran into a problem doing that at the moment, so the forums are down. Waiting on some help from the software makers to resolve the problem. Hopefully I’ll have it working by tomorrow. Just wanted to let you know.
The error message it’s showing is “Database error only visible to forum administrators”. Yes, I know about it. :)

As we get ready to go with the playoffs (less than two hours now), I wanted to post this picture. Saw it this morning on Facebook. Someone posted it on Chuck Greenberg’s Facebook page. Unclear if the person posted it created it, or if it was done somewhere else. Don’t know the true source, but I thought it was cool.

We’ve all seen the official claws and antler shirt, but I wanted to point out a quick note about another shirt that was emailed to me.

“This is Our Year”. Check it by clicking on the image above.

OK, here’s my predictions. Wanted to get them in before any games were played. This is hard for me because I have TWO homer teams, one in each league in play. Granted, one of them is really good (Philly) at the moment, so it’s not a true homer pick to pick them. Anyway..
Round 1:
NLDS:
Philly over Cincinnati in 4
Giants over Braves in 5
ALDS:
Texas over Tampa Bay in 5
New York over Minnesota in 4
The Giants and the Braves I know the least about, but from what little I do know, I say Giants over Braves. No particular reason, and I’m sure there will be a lot of sentiment on TV about it “win it for Bobby Cox”. Gut feeling says Giants.
Texas over Tampa? Well, it’s a homer pick. If I was’t living here, I’m not 100% sure I’d pick them. :)
Philly over Cincinnati. That’s the easiest series to pick a sweep, but I have to figure the Reds are good for one win.
New York over Minnesota. Had you asked me this about three weeks ago, I would have said Minnesota over New York in 4. I’m going the other way now as Minnesota has really limped into the playoffs. They seem weak now.
Round 2: ALCS & NLCS
That brings us back to 96/98/99 – Rangers vs Yankees. Despite the Yankees starting pitching being suspect, I don’t see Texas getting by them. Can’t tell you why, other than “gut feeling”. Yankees in 5. Maybe 6.
Over in the NL, I see the Phillies easily going to the World Series again over the Giants. The Giants have a good team, but they’re not the “dominant everywhere” team that the Phillies are, plus the Phillies are smoking right now. Phillies in 5.
Round 3: World Series
Rematch of last year’s World Series. Yankees vs Phillies. This time I see the Phillies taking it on the strength of the starting pitching. Phillies in 6.
What do I really WANT to happen? Rangers vs Phillies in World Series, with the Rangers in 6. Don’t see it happening, though. :)

Someone sent me an email a couple of days ago with an interesting link to a picture. It’s a shot from a company called “Rico Industries”, who is working on merchandise apparently for the World Series. They have some combinations up there of the various teams and what it would look like.
Anyway, this person sent me the following link, as well as this text (which shows they’ve been reading my site for awhile).. :)

As a long time reader of your site (and the games from your former employer) I know you keep mentioning how your head would explode if your two favorite teams actually met up in the fall classic. Well it seems Rico Industries is testing that possibility with preview designs of potential MLB postseason merchandise. They also have all other potential product designs for every playoff team with different championship titles. I thought perhaps it would be something you would want to share on your site.

It is interesting to consider, that’s for sure. Check out the image below, and click on it for a larger sheet. :)
Dare I live that dream? hahahaha.

Back when I was first married, it was 1996. Ranger fans know that year well. Right after that season, Eric Nadel published a book about the Rangers. While it was mostly focused on the 1996 season, it also spent time talking about the rest of the franchise, going back to DC. My wife bought me this book as a present in 1997, in our first year of marriage.
Here’s what I wrote about the book back in 2001 for my site:

I loved this book. My wife gave it to me as a a present in 1997, and it was wonderful! I can’t recommend this book enough.
I’ve only been a Texas Rangers fan since 1994, and my wife gave me this book as a present in 1997. I knew the Texas Rangers existed before I came to live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Texas area, but I never thought much of them. I didn’t realize the characters and history of the team. If you’re a casual Rangers fan, or a die hard Rangers fan, then you should have this book. It’s filled with all kinds of informational pieces about the team’s history, going back to the early 70′s when they were the Washington Senators. Focuses heavily on the 1996 season in which they finally made it to the playoffs after about 25 years.
As the Texas Rangers now move into the Alex Rodriguez era, the book probably could stand an update, as a lot has happened since the book was published during the 1997 season, but it’s a great read if you’re into team history

I still have the book – at some event years ago, I got Eric to sign it. More than once over the years, I asked Eric when he planned to do an update to it. As it’s 2010, we now have 14 years of stuff (once this year is over) to do an update on. Anyway, Eric told me on more than one occasion that he wouldn’t update the book again until the Rangers got back to the playoffs.
Well, we’re back Eric. Should we expect an update to the book next year? :)
UPDATE: I got an email from Eric Nadel after the game tonight with an update on this. After asking his permission to do so, I’m posting his reply to me below:

Eric: No, I am not planning to do an update to the book. What I said back then was I would do an update when the Rangers made it to the World Series. If that happens, then someone else can do the book. At this point, I am not willing to give up an off-season to write a book.

There we go. I’d still like to see a sequel from him, but I cannot argue with not wanting to give up one’s free time for that. :)

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.: