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Texas Rangers Pocket Schedules

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One of the lesser used pages on my site is my archive of Texas Rangers pocket schedules. I’ve been collecting them since just before I started this site (Dec of 1998), and a few years ago I decided to fill in the holes and get every one ever made. The problem with that is that my research has turned up a lot of alternates. There’s Spanish versions, multiple English ones, spring training schedules, etc… So a list of what the complete archive comprises is not available. Still, I’ve been trying to at least get all the years represented. Today I’ve done that.
Before I get to that, I wanted to draw attention to the first 2009 edition that I’ve seen myself. Features Josh Hamilton inside the ballpark. It shows off some of the more prominent tattoos on his arm, and given how great of a season he had in 2008, he probably deserves to be on the pocket schedule for 2009. That image is shown here. Based on what I’ve seen, there will be other 2009 variants, too. If any of you reading this are going to spring training in Surprise, can you pick me up a pocket schedule for spring training? They’ve had them in the past, and if they have one this year, I’d like to get one. Thanks.
As for the archives, I was fortunate to be sent an email from a Claude Jacques recently which completed the task of getting all the years on my archive. Claude runs a website dedicated to collecting pocket schedules. He’s got just about every team in every sport, in every level of majors and minors you can think of. It’s QUITE extensive. He was kind enough to send over everything he had relating to the Texas Rangers. After I went through and weeded out the duplicates of things I already had, he gave me 28 pocket schedule images I did not have before. I now have every year from 1972 through 2009 represented, and that’s pretty cool. Of the 28 new ones, below are a few highlights of ones he sent over that I liked the look of.
Make sure to check out my archive of schedules where you can see everything I have. As usual, if you have a variant I do not, or you have a larger/better quality version of something I do have, please drop me a line. Thanks.

Pocket schedule design has come a long way from this one in 1972, eh?

Guardado’s Back

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  • P Eddie Guardado signed to a 1 year minor league contract with an invite to spring training
  • P Bryan Corey signed to a 1 year minor league contract [ Link ]

Guardado’s Back

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The Rangers made it official today, bringing Eddie Guardado back for the 2009 season. It’s a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. I’m pretty sure he’ll be in the pen when the season starts. I have no facts there – just a gut feeling.
I wrote about why I thought it was a good (if not exciting) move a couple of days ago, so I won’t repeat that. I will say this, though. It makes the Rangers one of just two teams to not sign a single player to a major league contract this offseason.

Bob Costas joins MLB Network

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In a move I really like, Bob Costas has joined the regular group of on-air talent over at MLB Network. This is a really cool thing, as I like Costas a lot. He hosted the first thing ever aired on MLB Network, a replay of the Don Larsen perfect game. He’s also in there as the channel is running Ken Burns’ Baseball.
However, this new deal will be original programming. The first thing he’s doing today is interviewing Joe Torre about his book, it will air in Thursday.
This is a guy I’d like to see become commissioner when Selig eventually retires (or even before!). I doubt the owners would go for that. They’ll probably put someone like George W. Bush in there.
There’s a story about this over at bizofbaseball.com – check it out.

Radio Coverage Changing for 2009

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Just saw an announcement a few minutes ago that the radio coverage for the Texas Rangers is changing for 2009. All Rangers games have been on AM KRLD 1080 since 1995. That’s not going to be the case starting this season.
Effective with the 2009 season, all weekday Texas Rangers games will be on 105.3 FM (aka “The Fan”. According to the press release on the Rangers site, it is only weekday games (Monday through Friday) that are here. Saturday and Sunday games will continue to be on KRLD 1080 AM as they have been since 1995. The reason for this is unspecified “anticipated schedule conflicts”. The schedule lists 110 games on 105.3, and 52 on 1080.
This probably isn’t a big deal in the long run when you compare it to the confusion of TV coverage (given all the possible channel choices there), but it does take away that tagline KRLD has used for ages… “All the games, all the time”. Still, it does seem easy enough to wrap one’s head around. “OK, M-F is 105.3 FM, and Sat-Sun is 1080 AM – Got it”. I will be curious to see how the better fidelity plays out. On top of that, I wonder if the broadcasts will be geared towards HD-Radio, as KRLD-FM is an HD-Radio channel, from what I’ve read today.
One other bonus is that this will really increase the radio schedule for spring training games. Generally, spring training games were only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I asked aout that a few years ago, and was told that KRLD didn’t want to piss off the “Dr. Laura” audience by replacing that show with Rangers games. This apparently will bypass that limitation. The number of spring training games is now 18, versus the 12 it has been for awhile now. 16 of the 18 are on 105.3. Check out the Rangers press release for a list of the dates of the Spring Training games (I’ll have my site’s schedule page updated shortly).
UPDATE: I’ve updated my site’s schedule pages with the radio dates during spring training.

Brad Wilkkkkkkerson signs with Red Sox

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Read tonight that former Ranger Brad Wilkerson has signed on with the Boston Red Sox. It’s apparently a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. For a fellow who was the major jewel in the trade away of Alfonso Soriano from the Rangers, he’s fallen a long way. I remember being seriously excited about him when he came here. But he struck out more than Juan Gonzalez on a slider down and away. Never did much in the way of making that trade look good.

In what I believe to be a first, Mr. Wilkerson has figured out a way to record an official strikeout during a player signing announcement. How this technically worked out, I don’t know, but it’s an amazing feat.

Yeah, that was sarcasm about the press release. Shocked?

Everyday Eddie to Return

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TR Sullivan is reporting this afternoon that the Rangers are likely to close a deal in the next day or so for Eddie Guardado to return to the Rangers for 2009. This is probably a move that isn’t likely to light any fires when it happens. It certainly didn’t last off season.
But he was pretty darned serviceable for us last year, and if he pitches in 2009 like he did in 2008, it should help. Will probably be a low dollar amount signing, so yeah, it’s probably a decent move to make.
This was probably pushed a little faster by the Benoit news from last week. Despite the fact that Eddie is a lefty, and Jack is a righthander, one has to figure that Benoit’s going down moved this forward, even a little. There was also rumblings about Eddie signing again before this, so who knows?

The Birdman Cometh

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Those of you who like to stand in the ballpark and flap your arms like a bird when Marlon Byrd is up will be happy about this one. He and the Rangers came to terms tonight on a contract for 2009. His case was the last possible arbitration case the Rangers had on their plate. Actually, he would have been a Ranger in 09 anyway, it was just down to money.
Marlon had asked for $3.6 Million, and the Rangers countered with $2.7 million. They settled on $3.06 million, which is pretty much in the middle.
With the Byrdman signed, that resolves the arbitration possibilities for this offseason, keeping intact our record of not having gone to an actual hearing in about nine years now, the last being Lee Stevens.

Winter Carnival Story

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Saw a story in the current Dallas Observer about the Texas Rangers, a fan, and the winter carnival. Along with the usual comments about “what about the pitching?”
The thrust of most of the article is about the fan Paige Skinner, and her (I assume it’s a girl) presumed slight by the players when she was at last season’s finale. Here’s a quote from the article:

“It was supposed to be Fan Appreciation Day,” Skinner says. “But the players didn’t toss us a ball, a batting glove, not even a smile or a wave. In fact, a security guard hopped up on the dugout and told us to go home. They treated us like we suck, and we’re the ones who’ve supported them through all these losing seasons. Without us, they’d have nothing. I was furious. Ticked beyond belief.”

While I do agree with her about security guards – they tend to be a bit overzealous in the “Get out” mantra (that should be worked on, really). I have an issue with the thrust here that the players seemingly owed her something. Particularly the comment “they treated us like we suck”. Using the words “They treated us” means there was an intentional desire on the players to make the fans feel like “they suck”. Somehow I doubt that. The specific comment was also made about not getting an item thrown to them. I don’t think so. Just because you attend a game, doesn’t mean you have the RIGHT to have something given to you. Even on Fan Appreciation Day.
There’s another comment that one could make about the fact that if you can afford to sit in the seats down by the dugout, you don’t need (much less deserve) freebies like that. Buy your own. If the players REALLY wanted to foster goodwill, take the balls and gloves and stuff up to Section 345 where poor families have to sit because they have zero chance of ever being able to sit in the seats down at the bottom and be “slighted” by the players.
Those fans would be far more excited I think over a freebie from the players than those who can afford to sit in the first few rows of Sections 31-35.

Thoughts on the MLB Network

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I have to say, once I got past my major irritation at not being able to get MLB Network on Time Warner in Garland, I have to say the channel is a major home run. I’ve really been enjoying the heck out of it. They recently announced their upcoming programming for the month of February, so I decided that I’d say something now that they’re reaching the end of the first month of programming.
I don’t watch everything there, as I’d have a hard time doing anything else in my life. As it is the nightly baseball news show is a season pass on my TiVo. It’s called “Hot Stove” (although that will change to “MLB Tonight” once games start). It’s basically four guys at a desk (from a rotating crew of guys) with some support staff in studio talking about the issues of the day, and other things like commentary on free agents, things of that nature. It’s similar in feel to Baseball Tonight in that regard – but this “feels” somewhat different. I’m not sure how to describe it. Perhaps it’s because the MLBN program is on at a time when Baseball Tonight is not – they generally are off once the World Series stops, so we shall see how viewing habits go once BBTN gets rolling again. Anyway, “Hot Stove” has segments where they interview players and other baseball related folks. I’ve seen real major league players in there, I saw Scott Boras in there, John Hart once, Nolan Ryan, and even Batting Stance Guy. A lot of times on Baseball Tonight, I tend to skip the “segments”, but on MLBN I generally don’t. That’s not to say I haven’t – if I’m particularly disinterested in a guest, I’ll skip over it, but for the most part, I’m interested in Hot Stove from front to back. Maybe it’s the personalities, who knows? I admit Victor Rojas is a major draw for me, and I’ve always thought BBTN made a mistake by dumping Harold Reynolds. There’s been a rotating crew of other guys (Al Leiter, Mitch Williams), and whatnot. Really have enjoyed the “feel”. I still think the set behind them is a little too busy with video screens, but I can live with that. This show is “new” on Monday through Friday at 6PM here in Dallas. It’s repeated SEVERAL times during the day to help fill the 24 hours of programming, so even if you don’t have a TiVo you should be able to catch it.
There are several other series on here. Shows about ballparks, specific “years” in baseball history, classic games, and all kinds of things. But one other thing I’m glad is on here is “Ken Burns’ Baseball”. I saw this originally when I rented the flicks from Netflix some time ago. As with a lot of people, I got my first taste of Buck O’Neill and the Negro Leagues from this show. Oh, I knew about the Negro Leagues before that, but it was a bunch of “black guys” playing baseball to me before I got to see more detail. I’m grateful to Ken Burns for bringing this to the light for me. I haven’t seen this in awhile, and they’ve been running it every Tuesday night – this past Tuesday was Episode 4, talking about the 20’s and Babe Ruth, mostly. Fantastic show if you’ve never seen it. Of particular interest is the fact that they have Ken Burns in studio with a recorded clip to go with each episode. It’s him talking for about 5-10 minutes or so about the particular episode on that night. It’s nice to have this new insight. But the best part was the news that they’re doing a new episode. When the series first aired, it was right after the players went on strike in 1994, so that’s roughly where that series ended. The new episode will pick up where the series left off, and go through 2008, so I’m glad to see a new one of those coming up.
But one show I am looking forward to is one that will started on February 20th, called “30 Clubs in 30 Days”. It will be a one hour series detailing a preview of the upcoming season for that team. I expect this will be a good way to learn about teams that we might not know a lot about otherwise. I’m not sure if I’ll watch all 30 of them, but I will definitely catch more than just my hometown Phillies, and my adopted team the Rangers. :) I did look ahead on their programming, and it appears the Texas Rangers episode will air on Wed March 18th at 5PM Central Time.
This 30 Clubs show speaks a lot to why I like this network so much. It’s not like ESPN where they seem to have an affinity for just the Yankees & Red Sox. Last week they spent 20 minutes talking about the Royals, saw the Giants another night, and the Indians yet another. Sometimes I think ESPN forgets there’s more than just Boston & the Bronx.
If you aren’t watching this channel, you should be. Especially if you’re stuck with Dish Network.