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Spring Training Remark

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I’ve been a Dallas Morning News Subscriber for some time.   However, in the last few years, I mostly read the paper on my iPad.   As a subscriber, I can read the content there, and frequently do.   However…

Yesterday morning in the Sunday paper was Evan Grant’s spring training preview.   THAT – for some reason demands to be read in the physical newspaper.  Oh sure, I can read it on my iPad, or on my web browser.  But for some reason, spring training materials to me need to read in a “real” newspaper, with a cup of coffee preferably.

Now that I’ve done these, I’m ready for spring training to start.  :)

A Second Voice

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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.

About Me and this season

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I’ve discovered as we head into the last game of the season today that my lack of ability to watch the Rangers games on TV has seriously impacted my desire to maintain this site with regular daily updates.   I’ve gone three times this season where I haven’t updated for 2+ weeks, and when I do, I have to do like 20 games at once.

I still follow the team, but a lot of times it’s just on my iPhone app or something.   As I’ve said before, the time the games are on in the evening is prime family time, and given you can’t timeshift radio, I either have to forego family time to listen, or just not listen to the game.   It doesn’t make me want to do an update too much when I can’t listen or watch the games at all.

If this situation continues into next season, I might have to have a rethink about the site, and how I run it.   As I sit here today on Oct 3rd before Game 162 is played, I can say there’s about 50 games this season I haven’t written about.  Not sure I WANT to go back and write about them, to be honest.

I’ll probably do the playoffs properly, and then have a think about catching up the games I didn’t do in the season.  Although I suspect I probably won’t want to go back and do that.  We’ll see.

Anyone really care?  :)

Win Free Copy of Essential Games DVD Set!

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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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Getting caught up

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I’m getting caught up again.  I’m up to date with recent game recaps, as well as all transactions, and my “How Many in 2012” page.  So that’s all set up.  It is, however 1:50AM, and I’m tired, so I’ll finish the roster page and the uniform number history pages either tomorrow or Saturday.

Thanks for visiting – and I have a couple of cool giveaways soon.   I think you’ll like them!

UPDATE:  Finished the Roster rearrangements and the uniform number updates.  I still have a few roster pages to create, but at least the current roster is now accurate again.

Working the backlog

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I have started making a dent on the backlog of game updates. I’m still dealing with a pulled muscle in my arm, and it does hurt to sit at my desk for any length of time. Given I have so many of these to do I would be sitting there for quite a long time I don’t really feel like dealing with that pain.

When I decided to do is do the updates from my iPad using dictation. So these updates that you’re seeing since last June are all voice dictated into my iPad. In order to keep myself from multitasking from the WordPress app back to the MLB app on my iPad, decided to two-fist it and look at the updates and recaps on my iPhone with the MLB app into the dictation on my iPad.

I’m backdating them so they will appear in the proper order as to when they happened. At the rate I’m going it might take me another week to catch up, but I’ll get there. Thanks for visiting the site!

Josh Hamilton

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Is it just me or has Josh Hamilton’s swing lately been looking like Chris Davis’ gigantic wheelhouse swing? Not liking that.

I’m still here

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In the last two weeks I’ve come down with a pulled muscle in my neck that is made more painful if I do things that involve my hands.  Such as typing for any length of time, and playing videogames.   That’s why I’ve disappeared.  When this clears up, I’ll play catch up, but I didn’t want people to think I’ve abandoned ship.

Josh Hamilton

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Uh-oh.  Josh’s average fell to .399!  Time to Panic!