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My wife won’t like this one!

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This little tidbit from Jamey Newberg’s latest newsletter piqued my interest:

The Rangers are evidently talking casually to Boston about David Wells.

While I personally wouldn’t mind that, my wife can’t stand him. I find him rather amusing, and he is still servicable, if not spectacular. My guess is he’s a fallback in case Clemens goes somewhere else. As long as we’re talking about Boomer, his book is pretty darned amusing. If you’ve never read it, you should. Here’s what I wrote about his book on my blog awhile back.

I never liked David Wells, mostly because I only knew him as a Yankee player. That alone is generally enough to get me not to like someone. :) I wanted to check this out solely because of the “hype” surrounding the book. And after having read the book, I have to wonder if the negative press surrounding the book and some of it’s “expositions” weren’t self inflicted. Read the book. It’s a wonderfully entertaining read. He talks about all the problems he had in his life early on, from his time in the minors, to the boredom in the bullpen (although his story about getting women in the stands to flash them is awesome) to his battles with team management, and lots on the Yankees. I also got a charge out of his comments on former Reds owner Marge Schott, and her dog.
I have to admit that this book goes on my recommend list. It was a funny read, and for a baseball fan like myself, gives me some insight into the mind of a baseball player. I really enjoyed it. The link here is for the hardback edition of the book. There is a paperback version scheduled for release, but it’s not currently slated until Mar 1, 2004. The hardback is available now.
Oh, BTW, if you’re someone who isn’t into the liberal use of foul language, you might want to stay away from the book. It’s not like every third word is f this or f that, but there is definitely more than a smattering of f-bombs and the like in the book.

I wrote that back in 2003 when I first read the book. Since then, the paperback version has come out, and is linked above. The hardback version has no discount on Amazon right now, but there are some used copies available through the picture link for as cheap as twenty cents. The paperback link has a facility where you can read a few pages inside the book online. I recommend this book, it was a good read.

ST11: Rangers drop second in a row, 3-2 to Royals

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The Rangers threw out four pitchers today. Only one of them is one I think will make the big club (Edison Volquez, unless Roger Clemens decides to sign here (ha!), in which cose it’s zero). Of the four, two of them gave up runs (Volquez, Mahar), although one of the two Volquez gave up was unearned. Alfonseca was scoreless (gasp), as well as Fabio Castro (who I think we’re probably gonna lose having to give back on the Rule 5 rules). I don’t have any big inside info, just a gut feeling.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad pitching performance if you add our four pitchers together. 9 IP, 6 hits, 3R (2 ER), 8K, 3BB. Would rahter not see three walks, but overall it wasn’t too bad, really.
And yet we lost again – for the second game in a row, dropping us to 500 (5-5-1). KC’ starter was Mile Wood, and he was better than our guys, going 5 innings, giving up no runs on four hits. Matter of fact, of the four relievers KC used, there was a combined 6 hits for 2 runs (only 1ER) over the remaining four frames. KC’s pitching didn’t dominate, but it was certainly enough for them to get the win.

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More Spring Moves

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  • P Wes Littleton optioned to AAA
  • P Armando Galarraga optioned to AA [ link ]
  • P Ryan Bukvich reassigned to minor league camp [ Link ]

ST10: Rangers lose to M’s Sunday 4-2

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Since Saturday’s game was rained out, I was looking forward to this one, because it was on the radio with Eric & Vic. However, after I came home from church, I passed out on the couch, and all I got to hear of the game was the final out. Oh joy. :) If this were TV, it wouldn’t have mattered, as I would have TiVo’ed the game. :)
It appears that the big star of this game is Seattle pitcher Felix Hernandez. I don’t think anyone who follows baseball well doubts this kid’s ability, so I won’t go into that here (getting tired of hearing the word phenom). Anyway, he did a great job against us, something I expect to be saying a few more times this season. He went three innings, gave up no runs on three hits and three strikeouts (with one walk). Overall, a really good performance, although the box score can’t tell you about his “stuff”, which when he’s on is pretty much impossible.
Josh Rupe was our starter and went 3.1 innings, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits and no walks, while striking out three. Not a great performance numbers wise, but not horrible, either. Juan Dominguez, who by all acounts is falling out of favor with the team, gave up the other two runs in his 2.2 IP. Scott Feldman & Kevin Walker combined for two innings of shutout ball to finish up the game.
Offensively, we were led by Kevin Mench, who went 2 for 3 with a run scored. Phil Nevin continued his offensive barrage, going just 1 for 2, but he did drive in 2 RBI on a double, giving him about 5,000 RBI this spring so far. :)
Funny, my report sounds pretty positive, but we lost the game. :(

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Fantasy Baseball

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Just wanted to say thanks to those of you who signed on to my annual free fantasy baseball league over at Yahoo Fantasy Baseball. We had our draft tonight, and I think about half the league showed up (I didn’t count, really). Draft went well, had some good chatting – and one of the guys actually paid to be on the draft from a hotel in Hawaii or something like that. That was pretty cool! To those who didn’t or couldn’t make it (one guy joined the Army, so he’s got a good excuse), I hope your drafted teams serve you well, too.

Doug Brocail has heart surgery

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Read this afternoon that former Ranger reliever Doug Brocail had heart surgery. Something like that is never good. He’s two years younger than me, so I don’t like hearing stuff like that. Don’t like hearing that stuff about people no matter what their age is. I’ll have a small prayer tomorrow at church for Doug and his family. If you’re so inclined, do that yourself, as he was a nice guy, even if he wasn’t our best pitcher most of the time.

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Roster Moves

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  • IF Aarom Baldiris optioned to AA
  • C Mike Nickeas assigned to minor league camp
  • OF Ruddy Yan assigned to minor league camp

Rangers rained out Saturday

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Saturday’s game against the Rockies was rained out. This ended a streak of 143 straight days without rain the Phoenix area. The Dallas area had a taste of that not too long ago.
Kameron Loe lost his start today because of the weather, but did get work in with indoor simulated games.
Here is a story on the Rangers site about the rainout.

Rangers beat Team Japan on Thursday 8-4

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I forgot that we played a second game on Thursday evening, going against the Japanese World Baseball Classic team. This was an exhibition game, it didn’t count in the spring training standings – was also a split squad game.
It’s pretty hard to write about this, as I can’t seem to locate a box score for it anywhere. If you know of one, please leave a comment below where to find it. This is one I would have liked to have watched on TV. From what I can see, it appears to be a pretty evenly played game through five, when we were up 2-1. However, it broke out from there, as we scored two in the 6th and four in the 7th, to essentially seal the deal.
Some highlights: Ian Kinsler went two for three with an RBI, RA Dickey went three innings giving up just one run, and John Danks threw three innings of scoreless relief for the win. For Japan, their starter Daisuke Matsuzaka went four innings, giving up just one lone run – their pen let them down.

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