In an idea that I admit I completely ripped off from the USS Mariner Site, I went through my attendance history page, and entered the data into Excel. I produced a graph that shows how the attendance records and the winning percentage go over time. I went from 1972-2006. I do have the records from the Washington Senators, years, but I did not include them.
Whenever we hear from the Rangers that there’s too many empty seats, someone will almost invariably follow that up with a statement saying “Well, if you win, people will come”. Yes, that’s true, but it’s also true this is Cowboy land. Some people are loathe to deal with the Rangers. Newy Scruggs over at NBC5 for one. You can almost see the pain on his face when he has to talk baseball. But that’s a rant for another time. I decided to look at the numbers and see how this all breaks down. Take a look below. I have a few larger size images for you to check out besides this thumbnail here. You can also download my Excel spreadsheet if you’re so inclined to look at it that way. I’d be curious to see what you think of this – please leave some comments below. Thanks.

[ Full Size Image | 800×600 | Excel Spreadsheet ]

I work at a game company that has to deal with large bandwidth usages at time on our web servers. So I’ve always been curious what the back end of the mlb.com website is like. They do a virtual boatload of bandwidth, and I’ve been following the official sites for awhile now. I started this website in December of 1998, and have been with mlb.com since before they centralized all the websites under one banner. Used to be each team “rolled it’s own”, and it was haphazard. Heck, I remember when they didn’t own mlb.com, and you had to enter majorleaguebaseball.com (which still works).
Anyway, as they’ve grown over the years, their bandwidth has jumped, with more archives, video streams, etc, etc. So it was with some interest that I ran across this article tonight which talks a bit about the back end of the mlb.com website. It’s not as in depth as I would have liked, but it is an interesting read if you like baseball and are into web servers. This is my favorite quote from the article:

“After the third out in an inning, everyone goes away, then we have 60 seconds for commercials,” Nelson says. “God forbid they pinch-hit at the top of the next inning. Then half a million people request the same JPEG within a 10-second span. You go from zero to 600 miles per hour really fast.”

I don’t know how many of you regularly read the site “The Business of Baseball”, but they post some great stories over there. There was one posted this evening which I found rather fascinating. It’s about television territories and how it affects expansion & relocation. You always hear some teams whining (Angelos & Orioles, the Giants) about their territories. This article goes into that a bit in detail.
They also have a map which shows where each team’s rights go. If I’m reading that map right, the Rangers own rights into New Mexico? That seems a bit far away. Check it out, it’s a good read.

Saw this little blurb today up on the Boston Globe website.

According to a friend of Palmeiro, the former Cubs, Orioles, and Rangers star wants to return to baseball even after the embarrassing events of 2005. Palmeiro, the highest-profile player ever to test positive for steroids, feels he’s done the time and should be able to return. On Aug. 1, 2005, Palmeiro was suspended 10 games. He returned to the Orioles after the suspension but was out of baseball all of last year. The Cuban-born Palmeiro, 42, feels he can still hit.

Apparently Rafael Palmeiro doesn’t feel like he’s finished, and wants to make a comeback. I wonder who would have him? I’m sure the Rangers wouldn’t. I’m not up on the Orioles situation, but I’m not sure they’d want that headache, either. Guilty or not, there’s a stigma around him now too. It’s still a sad way for him to end his career. I wish that hadn’t happened. Oh well.
I envision him like he was in this old Rangers TV commercial, knocking on the clubhouse door saying “Let me in!”

What do you think? Do you think Raffy should come back, and if he did, who do you think would be interested? My gut feeling is that he will probably try, but I have no idea who would want to take a shot on him.

46 days to go until Ranger pitchers and catchers are to report (Sat Feb 17th).

Saw a cool post today with all the remaining free agents out there as of today. Now I know some of these are in the process of signing (JD Drew, Bonds), and a couple (Radke, Kapler) have retired. I wonder what kind of team I can put together with this list. This will be an interesting mish-mash, I’m sure. This also assumes the guys would be healthy, as I know at least one of my choices has some health questions going into 2007 (assuming they get a job).
C – Sandy Alomar, Jr
1B – Shea Hillenbrand
2B – Ronnie Belliard
3B – Aubrey Huff
SS – Tomas Perez
LF – Barry Bonds
CF – Darin Erstad
RF – Shannon Stewart
DH – Phil Nevin
Bench: Miguel Cairo (IF), Doug Mientkiewicz (1B), Todd Greene (C), Mark Loretta (IF), Ricky Ledee (OF)
SP – Barry Zito
SP – Roger Clemens
SP – Tony Armas Jr
SP – Steve Trachsel
SP – Jeff Weaver
RP – Eddie Guardardo
RP – Matt Herges
RP – Danny Kolb
RP – Mike DeJean
RP – Arthur Rhodes
CL – Keith Foulke
Hey, Fernando Tatis is still out there! :)

I just noticed the other day that the site layout here looks kind of odd if you’re using Internet Explorer 7. If you use IE6 or Firefox (like you should), then you don’t see the problem, but IE7 has issues with the css work that comprises this site’s layout. I took the css work from a contest the software’s manufacturer had for people to design free layouts. I’ve already contacted the person who made the css about this issue, and she’s agreed to look into it and let me know.
So in the meantime, if you’re using IE7, and the site looks like this, please be aware it should be looking like this, and it’s being looked into. Sorry about that.
UPDATED: This appears to be fixed. I got a css change from the original design author this morning, and all appears to be well again. If you view the site via IE7, can you please confirm? It works for my IE7, but I wanted to make sure some other people are seeing the same thing. Thanks a ton to Carrie for sending the fix; much appreciated.

I know a lot of small fiddly stuff has happened in the last few days. I’ve meant to write about it, but my mind has been elsewhere. Had a root canal surgery this morning, so my mind is not completely with it due to the happy pills they gave me. :)
When my head clears, and my teeth aren’t aching, I’ll play catch up – I do have a lot of thoughts on what’s going on, buit haven’t found the time to get them out of my head and into the keyboard.

This week is filled with stories about Barry Zito, Mike Piazza, Vicente Padilla, and other names from the Winter Meetings. I want to take a minute to talk about former Ranger pitcher Don Carman. If you don’t remember Don as a Ranger, that’s not surprising. He had even less than a cup of coffee with the Rangers in 1992. His entire Ranger career was two games in 1992 for a total of 2.1 innings pitched. His name is not up there in Rangers lore with Nolan Ryan.
But that’s not why I bring him up. Visitors to my site know I’m also a Phillies fan, and have been since I was a kid. I knew Carman fairly well in the 80’s with the Phillies. A friend of mine sent me a link this afternoon to a story on slate.com about Don Carman and fan mail. It’s a really nice story which shows players aren’t all about what Scott Boras can get for them in negotiations.
It’s the story of a kid (now an adult) who wrote to Don Carman back in the 80’s and never got a reply back. Until now. 15 years later Mr Carman found a box of letters in his garage, and decided to write back to them. Some of the things told in this story are a nice thing to hear in this week of meetings that are so awash in cash, one wonders if Lucifer himself is behind all the evil that that much money does.
Anyway, check it out. It’s a pretty darned nice story to read. It’s written by a Bryan Curtis; I wonder if that’s the same Bryan Curtis who is a news reporter for NBC5 news here in Dallas.
I have a few of these outstanding letters myself from many a year gone by – I wonder if I’ll ver get some of them back – problem is the address I would have sent them from has been out of my family for a decade now. Oh well. :)