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A-Roid again

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So. Alex came out today and admitted he did steroids for all three years he was in Texas. He claims he hasn’t done any since then. There’s no positive tests to combat that since then. However, given he lied about doing them here in Texas, who knows what the real truth is?

I actually kind of buy into his logic that he felt he needed to live up to the contract. I remember there being an awful lot of talk in that direction when he first signed here. How he chose to try and live up to it.. Ever since he left Texas (09 will now be his sixth season since he wore a Texas uniform), I’ve always personally thought he held up his end of the bargain by delivering on the field. I’m not sure what I think now.

However, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. In looking around for a pic of A-Roid to use in this story, look what I found in the archives. I had forgotten about this – it should have been so obvious!

Donnelly Signed

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  • P Brendan Donnelly signed to a 1 year minor league contract with an invite to spring training [ Link ]

More Minor League Signings

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The Rangers continue their march to getting to camp without signing a single player to a major league contract from the free agent pool this offseason. A couple more signings.
Yesterday, the Rangers signed Jason Jennings to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training. Last year was clearly a disaster for the Mesquite TX native. He even said so in the remarks about the contract for 2009. This really is not a big deal. He’d have to pitch his way onto the roster. Doesn’t cost us much at all – if he makes the roster, he gets $800,000 plus various incentives totaling $1.4 million based on innings pitched (from 110 through 200). Only $15,000 of the contract is guaranteed, so this is no brainer, really.
Today, the Rangers signed Brendan Donnelly to a minor league contract. Apparently if he makes the club, he’ll get $950,000 and can request his release if he’s not in the majors between March 27 and April 27th. He’s coming off of Tommy John surgery in 2007 for his right elbow. This would be about the time guys bounce back, so we’ll see. Ranger fans should remember him (and his goggles) from his time with the Anaheim Angels.
Finally, while he hasn’t signed, there’s a lot of talk that the Rangers are about to sign Andrew Jones to a minor league deal. He’s getting a gazillion dollars from the Dodgers in money and deferred money to go away, so he’s a zero risk player – we don’t need to pay him anything at all, really. Rudy Jaramillo has a habit of working gold with players, and until he dropped off the face of the Earth two years ago offensively, he was seriously top dog player. I don’t particularly think outfield is a place we need to pick up players – we have an overflow as it is, and a couple really good guys in the system. Unless Rudy fixes him in spring, and he hits 50 HR and 145 RBI again, I’m not particularly sure I see the need. We’ll see.
Oh, and I haven’t said anything about Ben Sheets at all. He’s hurt. Nobody signed him. Now we know why. I would like to see the Rangers sign him to a two year contract now with the first year paying him next to nothing, and the next year be somewhat realistic. Probably won’t happen, though.

A-Roid

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There’s been so much written in so many places today about this. Not to mention the coverage on MLB Network (Hi Jamey!) and ESPN… There’s just so much to digest, I’m only saying this.
The name A-Fraud in the Torre book is getting all the attention at the moment. Perhaps a better nickname for him now might be A-ROID!.
Yeah, OK – everything I’m seeing says he tested positive just once, and there’s nothing to say he has since this happened (which is now 6 years ago). However, there was a remark I saw where Gene Orza apparently tipped off Arod in 2004 to a screening. If that’s true, then there’s a gigantic problem in the Union (shocker, I know). But still.
Arod’s a user. Bummer. Perhaps he was using something else when he dumped Cynthia for Madonna. Makes this pocket schedule seem kind of prophetic. 2003. Arod. Fuzzy background. ;)

On Saturday night, Kevin Sherrington of the DMN had an article about the “All Juiced Team”, saying Arod here completes it. Check this out. Shows the position and how they became linked to steroids:
CF – Gary Matthews Jr. – Mitchell Report
C – Pudge Rodriguez – Teammate allegation
SS – Alex Rodriguez – Media report
RF – Juan Gonzalez – Teammate allegation
1B – Rafael Palmeiro – Tested positive
3B – Ken Caminiti – Acknowledged
DH – David Segui – Acknowledged
2B – Randy Velarde – Mitchell Report
LF – Chad Allen – Mitchell Report
The amusing thing about this is the first comment left by someone on the DMN site about this. They said “Crazy line up there…..but once again NO pitching!”.
That remark made me laugh.

Jennings Re-signed

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  • P Jason Jennings signed to a 1 year minor league contract with an invite to spring training [ Link ]

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.