Got an email a few minutes ago from Victor Rojas. He informed me that he’s now blogging over at mlblogs again. His new one is entitled “The Spoils”, and can be reached here:
http://thespoils.mlblogs.com.
Vic’s a funny guy, so it’ll be nice to have some regular thoughts by him as the season goes along. Just don’t stop in mid stream, Vic! :)

I was googling for something the other day (can’t remember what now), and happened upon an article over at USS Mariner (probably the best Mariners fan site if you haven’t seen it) entitled, “Bugs Bunny, greatest banned player ever“.
It is an extremely funny “real life” check on the old 1946 cartoon “Baseball Bugs“. They break down the cartoon in such a way as to nitpick the events of it (talking about stadium capacity, realities of injuries sustained in the comic animation, etc). Oh dear, I haven’t laughed this hard in ages. It was originally published right about a year ago, and I obviously missed it. Being this funny, I would have remembered it. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages. This article is one of the best fan baseball things I’ve ever read on any site.
Here’s a couple of examples from the piece:

The Gorillas score 42 runs in this inning alone by drilling single after single right at the pitcher. By keeping the pace of the game extremely fast, they kept the pitcher in the game, presumably because he had a low pitch count and was not tired, but also there was no pitcher warmed up to relieve him, and the Gorillas scored so quickly that they drove the score up before one could even be told to begin stretching. There is an additional psychological effect to be considered, as well: faced with a team that can score 42 runs in an inning, the opposing manager must have been so stunned by the offensive onslaught that he was unable to make a move, and further that his coaches and other staff were similarly disabled.
It’s a further testament to the addled mental condition of the Teatotallers during this drubbing that they were unable to take advantage of the congested baserunning by fielding any ball and throwing it to any base, where it would have immediately forced out three runners and ended the inning.
Why such a game would be scheduled remains unclear. Efforts to find contemporary promotional material for insight into fan motivation or how the game was marketed have proved fruitless.

Seriously – if you haven’t read this piece over there, you need to go do so. The cartoon is available as part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets. This particular toon is on Volume 1 (they have four as of the writing of my piece here). Click on the dvd image to order it from Amazon.com.

UPDATE: I noticed the entire cartoon is available on Google video. You should buy the DVD set, you get so much more, and a really good quality copy, too. :)

I know if you read my site, you’re also going to read all the other fan sites for the Rangers. I hold no illusions – my site is not a bastion of originality or extreme wordiness when it comes to Rangers news. I post when the moment strikes. :)
Anyway, having said that, I wanted to point out an article over at “Baseball Time in Arlington” by their new writer, Joe Matschulat. It talks about our DH situation, and a lot about Jason Botts, as well as the rest of the outfielders who are likely to spend some time in the DH slot. I got a major kick out of the first line of the article..

If only John Hart hadn’t dealt Travis Hafner.

Isn’t that the truth. :) Anyway, as I said above, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you would have seen his piece anyway, but I still wanted to draw attention to it, as it was a well written article.
UPDATE: Guess it would help if I did something useful like post the link!

I just got done with my first fantasy draft of the season for a public league I joined. I ended up with an OK team I think, although my outfield doesn’t have any AAA players in it. Check this out:
C – Pudge
1B – Ryan Howard
2B – Mark DeRosa
SS – Michael Young
3B – Hank Blalock
OF – Jermaine Dye
OF – Michael Cuddyer
OF – Brad Hawpe
DH – Frank Thomas
B – Gary Matthews Jr
B – Frank Catalanotto
SP – Carlos Zambrano
SP – John Lackey
RP – Trevor Hoffman
RP – Bobby Jenks
P – Chris Young
P – Barry Zito
P – Derek Lowe
B – Josh Johnson
B – Greg Maddux
B – Brandon McCarthy
In the next to the last round, it occurred to me that of the 21 players I have on my team, nine of them are current or former Texas Rangers players. I’m such a homer. :)
Anyway, I still have a few slots open in my second Yahoo Fantasy Team. Seven have signed up so far, there’s five open slots as of the writing of this story. You can check out the details on how to sign up in this post from earlier this week. Thanks.

Saw this picture from spring training today. Somehow it just speaks to me about how the new regime will be a lot different than the old one.

Just seeing this picture gives one a nice feeling, eh?

As pitchers and catchers report on Saturday (which is about 25 minutes from when I’m writing this), I figure I better get my duff in gear and get various sections of the website ready for the upcoming season. The Rangers Official site posted a few pieces of information that I was waiting for them to post. The information they’ve posted tonight is:

• The uniform numbers of everyone who is coming to camp
• The TV schedule for 2007

Regarding the first one, I’ve gone and updated the uniform number history of my website with all the numbers they posted. Now the uniform numbers change daily once games get started. Or at least they did under camp Showalter. They would call 3-6 guys over from minor league camp daily, and give ’em really bizarre numbers in the 90’s usually. Those you can’t adjust until they happen, but the roster as it exists going into camp is now reflected in the uniform number history section of my site. Only minor blip to that is that they did not post the coach numbers. A few are holdovers from last year, but there’s several new guys I don’t know the numbers for – if you do, please let me know. These coaches are: Art Howe, Jose Vazquez, & Gary Pettis.
As for the TV schedule, I still need to get my 2007 schedule online and completed anyway, so I should have that finished shortly. The Rangers site has a story up about that. I’ll have more to say about the schedule once I get mine posted.

Anyone catch the new ad campaign by the Rangers? Just read about it on their site today. Here’s an image with one of the slogans…

“First base has nothing to do with kissing”. I find it fairly funny personally. I just look at that and wonder how many parents are going to be irritated that they will now have to answer questions like “What’s that mean, Mommy?”, or “If First base is about kissing, what are second, third, and home plate for Daddy?”. As a parent of a 22 month old, these things cross my mind a lot. :)
A far cry from the ad campaign of a few years back with the slogan “Your friendly neighborhood baseball team”. :)

The equipment truck leaves Arlington this morning to head to Surprise, Arizona! :)
Also, Yahoo Fantasy Baseball opens up again on February 15th, so I’ll be setting up leagues then.
UPDATE: There’s a story up on the official Rangers site with the annual picture of the truck sitting at the loading dock at The Ballpark in Arlington before it heads out to Arizona. Check it out if you’d like to read something else other than Anna Nicole Smith stories this morning.

For my regular site visitors, I intend on doing the fantasy leagues I’ve done the last several years.
I checked this afternoon, and they haven’t announced the start date yet registration – once they do announce that, I’ll get something together for the site and announce it.
Thanks for visiting!

While I don’t have much to say about Sosa (yet), I wwant to take a minute to point out Jamey Newberg’s latest update. Now I know anyone who reads my site will be checking out Jamey’s stuff (as well you should), but he has some non histrionic things to say about Sosa’s possibly return to the Rangers this spring.
He raises an interesting point. A lot of the hysteria I’ve seen has been of the ilk of “He’ll take away at bats from Botts, Cruz, etc”. I love his response:

So from that standpoint, giving playing time to Sosa might cost Victor Diaz and Marlon Byrd some at-bats, but there have historically been two or three outfielders on the Rangers’ non-roster invite list each spring, and there were none on the list announced by the organization last week: no Adrian Brown’s or Adam Hyzdu’s or Chad Allen’s or Jason Conti’s or Andres Torres’s or other non-roster 4-A’s this year.

Rather enjoyed reading this one – has a bit of a more grounded response to the dance we’re doing with Sosa than some other online writers I’ve seen. Including some of the pro writers I’ve seen, too.