To everyone else, this is text meant for Anthony Andro of the Ft Worth Star Telegram.

Anthony, here’s a properly formatted text box score. It can be done with MT/Typepad. You just have to use the tags I sent you in email. Let me know if you need any help with this.

If you’re reading this on a Kindle, hopefully it isn’t too messed up. :)

Line Score
ML  FINAL
1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9     R  H  E
-  -  -   -  -  -   -  -  -     -  -  -
TEXAS               1  0  0   0  4  0   0  0  1     6  9  0
HOUSTON             1  0  1   0  0  0   0  0  0     2  5  3   (FINAL)
BATTERIES:  TEX - DARREN OLIVER, PAT MAHOMES (7TH), MARK
PETKOVSEK (8TH), JEFF ZIMMERMAN (9TH) AND IVAN
RODRIGUEZ
HOU - SCOTT ELARTON, JAY POWELL (8TH), JOE SLUSARSKI
(9TH) AND BRAD AUSMUS
WP - DARREN OLIVER (6-2)
LP - SCOTT ELARTON (4-7)
SAVE - NONE
HOME RUNS:  TEX - ALEX RODRIGUEZ (20) OFF ELARTON IN THE 5TH, 2
ON
HOU - CRAIG BIGGIO (8) OFF D OLIVER IN THE 1ST, 0 ON
CRAIG BIGGIO (9) OFF D OLIVER IN THE 3RD, 0 ON
TIME:  2:51     ATT:  43,277
PROBABLES:  ANA - SCOTT SCHOENEWEIS (6-4, 3.71)
TEX - ROB BELL (NR)
COL - PEDRO ASTACIO (5-7, 5.28)
HOU - SHANE REYNOLDS (6-5, 4.94)
Box Score
TEXAS (6) VS HOUSTON (2) - FINAL
TEXAS                  ab  r  h rbi bb so lob   avg
Catalanotto 2b          4  1  1  0   1  0   1  .306
I Rodriguez c           5  2  2  1   0  1   2  .286
A Rodriguez ss          4  1  3  3   0  0   0  .327
R Palmeiro 1b           3  0  0  0   1  1   1  .257
Sierra rf               3  0  0  1   0  1   2  .319
Petkovsek p            0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
Je Zimmerman p         0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
Kapler cf               4  0  0  0   0  0   3  .276
Lamb 3b                 4  1  1  0   0  0   0  .250
Ledee lf                4  1  1  0   0  2   1  .167
D Oliver p              2  0  1  0   0  1   0  .400
Mahomes p              0  0  0  0   0  0   0 1.000
Porter rf              0  0  0  1   0  0   0  .293
Totals                 33  6  9  6   2  6  10
BATTING: HR - A Rodriguez (20, 5th inning off Elarton 2 on, 1
out). S - D Oliver. SF - Sierra, Porter. RBI - Sierra (24), I
Rodriguez (33), A Rodriguez 3 (60), Porter (3). Runners left in
scoring position, 2 out - Kapler 2. GIDP - I Rodriguez, R
Palmeiro.  Team LOB - 5.
FIELDING: DP: 1 (A Rodriguez-R Palmeiro).
HOUSTON                ab  r  h rbi bb so lob   avg
Biggio 2b               4  2  2  2   0  0   1  .307
Lugo ss                 4  0  1  0   0  2   0  .263
Bagwell 1b              3  0  0  0   1  2   1  .277
L Berkman lf            3  0  2  0   1  1   0  .330
Alou rf                 4  0  0  0   0  0   4  .355
Hidalgo cf              4  0  0  0   0  1   0  .276
Castilla 3b             3  0  0  0   0  1   0  .238
b-Vizcaino ph          1  0  0  0   0  1   0  .277
Ausmus c                3  0  0  0   0  0   0  .210
Elarton p               2  0  0  0   0  0   0  .083
a-C Hayes ph           0  0  0  0   1  0   0  .189
Ja Powell p            0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
Slusarski p            0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
Totals                 31  2  5  2   3  8   6
a-walked for Elarton in the 7th; b-struck out for Castilla in
the 9th.
BATTING: HR - Biggio 2 (9, 1st inning off D Oliver 0 on, 0 out,
3rd inning off D Oliver 0 on, 1 out). RBI - Biggio 2 (30).
Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - Alou 1, Bagwell 1.
GIDP - Alou.  Team LOB - 5.
FIELDING: E - Lugo 2 (13, ground ball, throw); Ja Powell (1,
throw). DP: 2 (Lugo-Biggio-Bagwell, Bagwell-Lugo-Ja Powell).
--------------------------------------------------
Texas          - 100 040 001  --  6
Houston        - 101 000 000  --  2
--------------------------------------------------
TEXAS                        ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
D Oliver (W, 6-2)             6 2/3   5   2   2   3   5   2   5.96
Mahomes (H, 3)                  1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   7.30
Petkovsek (H, 4)              1       0   0   0   0   2   0   6.17
Je Zimmerman                  1       0   0   0   0   1   0   3.58
HOUSTON                      ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
Elarton (L, 4-7)              7       7   5   5   2   5   1   6.52
Ja Powell                     1       2   1   0   0   0   0   3.93
Slusarski                     1       0   0   0   0   1   0   8.40
Ja Powell pitched to 2 batters in the 9th.
WP - D Oliver.  Pitches-strikes: Elarton 124-82; Ja Powell
19-14; Slusarski 12-8; D Oliver 102-68; Mahomes 4-2; Petkovsek
19-12; Je Zimmerman 9-7.  Ground balls-fly balls: Elarton 14-2;
Ja Powell 3-0; Slusarski 1-1; D Oliver 7-8; Mahomes 0-1;
Petkovsek 0-1; Je Zimmerman 1-1.  Batters faced: Elarton 29; Ja
Powell 6; Slusarski 3; D Oliver 27; Mahomes 1; Petkovsek 3; Je
Zimmerman 3.
UMPIRES: HP--Chuck Meriwether. 1B--Brian Onora. 2B--Mike
Fichter. 3B--John Hirschbeck.
T--2:51.  Att--43,277. Indoors.
ML       TEXAS AT HOUSTON
NOTE:  THE HOME RUN BY HOUSTON'S CRAIG BIGGIO LED OFF THE BOTTOM
OF THE FIRST INNING.  THE HOME RUN EXTENDED BIGGIO'S
HITTING STREAK TO 17 GAMES.

I originally posted this video back in July of 2008, but I wanted to bump it up again as I was showing a friend of mine some BSG stuff, so I thought I’d bump it back up and add on.

Thanks to my site visitor Baldwin Smith for pointing out the embedded video above. It’s a rather amusing video of the “Batting Stance Guy” doing his take on various Texas Rangers players both current and past. His rendition of Hank Blalock made me laugh out loud. Same thing for his Kenny Rogers one at the end of the video. :)
Thought y’all would want to see this.
UPDATE Feb 2009: Batting Stance Guy’s website can be reached at well.. http://www.battingstanceguy.com. He has several team specific videos besides this one. However, one video I urge you to watch is the one linked here. BSG made an appearance on the Hot Stove program on MLB Network back in January where he talks about how he does all of this. He also runs through a bunch of players called out by the three MLBN guys (Victor Rojas, Harold Reynolds, & Mitch Williams). His take on Andre Dawson is quite hysterical, and to see him do Harold Reynolds right in front of him is great. Of course, he does Joe Carter in front of Mitch Williams as well. Definitely check out this video (and go watch MLB Network).
UPDATE #2: BSG was on again Feb 25th, and did all Reds in front of Barry Larkin & Sean Casey. Check this one out, too.

I am sick of talking about steroids. I have declared my Rangers website to be a steroid free zone going forward. I’ve also tweaked my header graphic to take note of this. I’m not writing about steroids again.

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!

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?

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.

Those of you who follow my site know that I put together an annual Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League. I will be doing that again this year. However, Yahoo has not opened up signups yet. So I have a question to those visitors of mine who participate.
Would you prefer a draft date as early as possible, or something closer to the start of the actual season, or something in the middle. Let me know ASAP, as I expect these things to open up for the 2009 season shortly.

Today I managed to get my hands on a spring training roster. The cool thing about this roster was that it included uniform numbers. Those who follow my site know that’s something I care about, so I took the opportunity to update my uniform number history section of the website with the 2009 number assignments. This includes everyone on the 40 man roster, as well as all the current spring training invites.
If you’ve never visited this part of my site, I have the history of each uniform number going back to 1972. I have the info from the Senators days, but I never seem to find the time to get that all in there. :)
Anyway, a couple of guys had changes in this list, they are:

• Joaquin Arias changed from 4 to 3, due to Jackie Moore’s now having 4.
• Travis Metcalf changed from 30 to 15, due to Gerald Laird’s departure.
• Josh Frasier’s 66 was taken by Netfali Feliz. No idea what Frasier is wearing, or even if he’s bullpen coach again.

Well, yesterday was the launch of the new year. It was also the launch of the new Girl of the Year Doll over at American Girl. I spent a few hours there with my daughter and my wife, it was a lot of fun (even if the place is seriously pink). :) It was also the launch of the new MLB Network, of which I have a few things to say.
First off, it was a great joy to see Victor Rojas up there. I didn’t want him to leave – I frankly would have preferred he take the lead TV play by play job here, but I can understand from Vic’s standpoint why he left here to go to northern New Jersey. He was sitting at the desk with Harold Reynolds, Barry Larkin, & Al Leiter. Harold I was glad to see again, as I always enjoyed him on Baseball Tonight. Particularly his sparring with John Kruk, so perhaps he can develope that same kind of rapport here with someone on MLBN. Assuming the duties we saw last night hold up, it appears Vic is the main “anchor” of the broadcast of the nightly news show.
The studio itself looked pretty good, although I do have one complaint. When they are showing a wide shot with all four guys in view, it was hard to see them. The screens behind them are fairly busy, and their heads got lost in the shot. When on a closeup of one guy this, was not an issue, but showing all four guys at once was hard to see any of them due to all the info that was going on behind them. Kind of like losing the ball in a bunch of white shirts. That’s kind of what I felt. But that was the only negative I had to say about it. Seemed pretty good, and most of the on air talent had little to nothing to do, but that was just the first hour. I’m sure things will change in a month when spring training gets going.
There’s a news scroll detailing current stories and events on the botom of the screen, much like is what is on ESPN’s channels. This is on all the time, so if you’re watching some of the older footage and non live programming hours, you can get updates there, too.
I watched most of the Don Larsen perfect game coverage. Was kind of cool to watch that. The game had a different feel back then. Really “feels” different with no camera behind the pitcher, and no closeups, and virtually zero graphics. On top of that, seeing the old commercials from 1956 was quite a blast, too. If you get a chance to watch this, it definitely shows you how different TV coverage is now.
I think it’s a great idea, and should garner a lot of eyeballs for baseball fans. Once all the kinks are ironed out. Apparently, the launch has had some technical problems getting going on some carriers. I’m not talking about carriers that aren’t carrying the channel (like Dish Network, although if you’re on satellite you should be with DirecTV anyway). But some carriers like Time Warner here in the Dallas area are having some issues. I can attest to this myself, as I’m having some problems with the channel. The short of it is I have two TiVo’s. One is an older Series 2 unit that uses a Motorola Cable box provided by TWC. The other is a TiVoHD unit that uses a M-type CableCARD. The Series 2 box can see the channel, but that’s because of the Motorola box. My TiVoHD cannot see it. I called TiVo today and spoke with them on the phone for roughly an hour trying to resolve the problem. After speaking with more than one tech there, they concluded the problem was with TWC, and filed an official report with them over the channel. So basically, I can see it on the old small TV in my bedroom, but not out in the living room on my big TV with all the fancy HD stuff. :) I did some research online and happened upon this article over at bizofbaseball.com. It details some problems other carriers are having. It appears there’s some techie stuff relating to TiVo units that use CableCARDS (that would be me and my TiVoHD), that prevents them from seeing the channel. Oh great.
At least I can see the channel on my old TV. It’s not optimal, but at least I can see it. Hopefully this gets straightened out in short order, as I really wanted this channel in my living room on my big TV. Of course there’s a separate issue of TWC Dallas not carrying the HD feed at all, but I’m trying not to get TOO worked up over this issue.
Anyone else in the Dallas area with a TiVoHD (or Series 3 or something like that) have the channel? Do you have a CableCARD?