My site has been going for awhile now, and during that time I’ve seen several broadcasters come and go.  However, one of the more polarizing ones was Josh Lewin, who was the television play by play guy from 2002 through 2010.   I say polarizing, because there’s a lot of fans who really disliked him.  There’s a lot of fans who really did like him.  For the most part I liked him – although I did think there were too many forays into movies and food, but whether you liked his work or not, you can’t deny the man was a pro, and a hard worker.  He was ready for the games he broadcast.  I wish he was here for more of them (never liked the weekends away), but that’s all in the past now.  Today I’m here to talk about his book, “Ballgame!: A Decade Covering the Texas Rangers from the Best Seat in the House”.  Or as I call it, “Ballgame!”.   [Read more…]

As I posted a little bit ago, I had doubts that I wanted to continue on into the new season in the format this site has had for awhile.  I found it hard to stay focused when I have no TV to watch, and I couldn’t timeshift the radio broadcasts.  Fortunately, a friend of mine decided to step in and offer to write about some of the games on this site, too.  He’s a good friend of mine, the two of us attend church together, and he’s been a long time Ranger fan.  He lives in the Arlington area, and his name is Jeff.  We attended the one game together in the 2010 World Series that the Rangers won, so that was cool.   Here’s a picture of us from the MLB Gigapan photo.  I think Jeff knew when it was being taken, as he covered my face with his camcorder.  :)

I’m appreciative to Jeff for helping out going forward.  In fact, he wrote two commentaries already towards the end of the 2012 season.  The ones for Games 160 & 161, so you can check them out.   That will probably lighten the load on me going forward.  Plus, this site is called “Rangerfans” – as in plural, so it probably will be cool to get a second voice on here.    I also restored the byline credit on the site.  Because I was the only one writing, it seemed kind of silly to have “by Joe” under the title of each article.  But with two of us, I felt it was time to put that back.

Jeff posts in the Texas Rangers fan group on Facebook as well as me, so you might recognize him from there.   Not sure what the plans for off season writing is, probably a remark here and there when the mood strikes.  But I’m grateful to a friend for stepping up and helping out.   Back in the earliest days of this site I had a second author for part of the start of the 1999 season, but that guy didn’t last long – and disappeared off the face of the Earth too.  I would think Jeff wouldn’t.

UPDATE: The contest is over now, I’ve gotten enough people now for the giveaway thanks to the addtl submissions sent in.

If you’ve been a fan of the Texas Rangers, you’ve watched a lot of games on TV, and while the Rangers don’t have a pedigree like say the Yankees in the post season, there are quite a few notable games in the back catalogue.  That’s what I’m writing about today.  This coming Tuesday, there’s a DVD set due out which contains four of these “Essential Games” from the Rangers history.  I’m going to write about the set, and due to the folks from A&E Home Entertainment/MLB Productions, I’m going to have five copies to give away to my site visitors.  That will take the form of a trivia contest, more on that below.  First off, a review..

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