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.:

• The Rangers have 19 games left in the season. They have to go 12-7 to get to Nolan Ryan’s 92 win spring training prediction.
• The Rangers are 8.5 games up on Oakland, who is at 71-71 at the moment.
• The Magic Number to win the division is currently at 12. It could be 11 after tonight, as Oakland is playing KC
• Michael Young needs 33 hits to get to 200 (with 19 to play). Not impossible, but he can’t afford hardly any ofers – or even just one hitters from this point forward.
• I’ve always said my head would explode if the World Series was Phillies vs Rangers. While I’m not making a claim that’s who will get there, one has to say there’s a chance of it happening now that there’s a very realistic chance that both will make the playoffs. I still don’t know what I’ll do if it ends up being those two.

Also, two random pictures. A PR woman sent me these. They were taken Friday night at the Rangers game during the first pitch celebration. For some reason they had the Captain Morgan Rum character there. Oooh, hold me back. I’m even MORE excited about the game now!
Seriously, they had their celebration with Johnny Narron. This is amusing that they’d put Johnny Narron with him, because the whole reason Narron is on the team is to act as Josh Hamilton’s personal “don’t fall off the wagon” guy. What with Josh being an alcoholic, it was a mild eyebrow raiser that they’d put Hamilton’s “don’t get drunk” guy with a character who is there to promote a company whose most famous product is Rum.

As those of you who have followed my site for awhile know, I’ve been out of work for some 15 months. This past week, I started up working again. Not full time, but a part time gig. Thing is, the first two weeks of the gig are going to be way busier than any other time, so I haven’t had much time for Rangers stuff.
This will probably extend into next week, so I’m taking a short sabbatical from doing updates while I deal with work stuff.
I will be back, I want to be around for the tail end of the season. :)

A lot has been written both locally (pro and blog) and nationally about how the Rangers are “running away” with the AL West. That we have the widest margin of any of the division leaders, and that we’re a “slam dunk” to make the playoffs. While all of that may be true, I decided to examine our record and see where it would put us.
I remember some years ago when the Padres make the playoffs (1998), there was talk that they were the “best of a bunch of bad teams”, and that they only make the playoffs because someone from that division had to. There always seems to be some team somewhere that kind of does that – “backs into” the playoffs is what it’s generally called.
Now, do I feel that’s the way the Rangers are in 2010? No, we’re not a bad team. No, we won’t “back” into the playoffs. The way the team has played this year, we deserve to be there. But still, having said all that, I’d like to see where our current record would place us in the other divisions. A lot also has been made about how the other teams besides the Yankees & the Red Sox (and the Rays in more recent vintage) in the AL East would fare better if they were in another division. So here goes:
AL West: We’re in first place, 9.5 games up on second place Oakland. Our record is 73-55, 18 games over .500 – our winning percentage is .570
AL Central: Our record in that division would put us in second place behind the Twins, only a half game behind them. We’d be three games up on third place Chicago. A pretty decent shot at winning that division, I’d say while it wouldn’t be as easy, we could win that division.
AL East: We’d be in FOURTH place here. Right now the Yankees & Rays are tied at 78-50 (.609), and then Boston is in third at 74-55 (.574). We wouldn’t be far behind Boston (one game), and the division leaders (5GB), but we would have to hop three other teams to get there. I’d say this would be the hardest shot to make the playoffs, despite being only 5 games out.
NL West: Our record here would put us in second place, about 3.5 games back of division leader San Diego, and 2.5 games in front of third place San Francisco. Again, we’d be right in the thick of things, and would probably have a good shot at winning this division.
NL Central: Again, second place. This time just one game back of division leader Cincinnati, and 3 games in front of second place St. Louis. A very winnable division if we were in it.
NL East: This time, our record would tie us with Atlanta for the division lead, and two games up on what would be third place Philadelphia. Of the three NL divisions, I’d say this would be the hardest fight, but we probably could win this as well.
So basically, outside of our own division, we could easily win three of them, have a good fight with one of them, and in my opinion, be out of the playoffs in one other.
I realize this is a nebulous thing, if you moved us out of the division, we’d play different teams, different stadiums, things would be different. Yeah, I know that. Just playing a “pick up and put into another scenario – how would be be doing” fantasy. I know that. Still, it’s nice to know where we stand amongst everyone else.
I’ve given Tom Hicks some grief many a time for letting Bud Selig off the hook on moving the Rangers to the AL Central, where we’d more fit in with our division mates and the time zone. It stinks having so many games start at 9PM. However, had Bud not taken the guaranteed home and away series with the Astros every year, and actually moved us to the AL Central, we wouldn’t be in the driver’s seat we are in now. However, we might have won a few more divisions along the way and have been to the playoffs sometime in the last decade.
Still, this year is feeling like no other I’ve covered on this site since the first one I ever covered (1999). 2004 came close, but we fell down at the end. This doesn’t feel like that year at all. How far we get in the playoffs is an unknown, but at this point, I’m ready to say that we WILL get there, and I expect it will not be a first round sweep and out again. Overall, I think the team is too good for that.

I’ve been watching this show since I was a kid (“How about that?”), but this weekend’s episode should be of interest to anyone reading this site.
The subject is the 2010 Texas Rangers. :)
MLB has some press about the episode here.

Hey, if you’re on Facebook, and like baseball art, you should check out this page I ran into not too long ago. It’s by a fellow named “Kyle Banister”, and he does some great baseball art. Noticed about a week ago he had posted a nice picture of Josh Hamilton, and I had asked his permission to post it, and he was cool with it. You can see it here. He simply calls it “Hamilton”, and it was hand drawn in colored pencil and black marker. It’s quite nice, and I thought I should let others know about this guy.

While he doesn’t have a website yet, all of his art and whatnot is up on the fan page for him on Facebook. So if you’re on Facebook (who isn’t these days), go check out the Kyle Banister – Baseball Art page, and “like” it. He’s got a lot of good stuff there. I also particularly like his pencil drawing of Ubaldo Jimenez.

Here’s a blurb Kyle has written about himself:

Before admitting he was an artist, Kyle owned and operated a successful sign and lettering company. For nearly 20 years Kyle used his talents to help others communicate and realize their dreams. In 2002 he gave up the sign business to pursue his own dream, to become the artist he was born to be.
While producing signage for others, Kyle learned and mastered a variety of mediums. And he uses all of these in his art today, often mixing them to achieve what he sees as the best look for a particular piece of art. That is why you may see an array of styles in one of Kyle’s shows. He is just as comfortable painting with 1-Shot Lettering enamel on Plexiglas as he is digitally coloring an original pointillism drawing. Some have criticized Kyle’s work saying that the use of so many mediums will slow his march to success. But Kyle is OK with that as long as he can stay true to himself, and his art.

Kyle’s favorite subjects are History, Baseball and Women, not necessarily in any order. He loves to travel doing research for the many projects he has planned. His strongest asset is inexhaustible creativity, he never is at a loss for a new art project. Kyle says, “It’s as if God leaves notes on my forehead after a nights rest.”
Kyle’s art is quite a journey. So come along and enjoy the ride.

This is a complete duplicate of a post I made back on June 10th, but given the Mariners today fired their manager, bench coach, and their pitching coach, I thought it was time to revive the post…
I’m playing catch up with some backlogged game reports, I hope to catch up with the Mariners series tomorrow. Having said that, I was curious to see what ussmariner.com had to say about tonight’s game. They had a rather funny image posted there about the Mariners’ season:

I prefer this image I posted a couple of years back, originally.

I am so stealing this from Scott Lucas. It sums it up pretty good. ;)