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I’m walking into the Ballpark today (I’ve been to the last three opening day games), and I was running late. I thought I was going to miss the first inning. I’m walking really fast, and my feet are hurting by the time I actually get into the park. Anyways, I see the Rangers are on the field, and are about to throw the first pitch. I stop walking to my seat, and stand next to the wall at the back of Green’s hill. There goes the first pitch.. and there goes the first pitch!! Home run on the first pitch of the season. Boy, if that wasn’t an open for things to come, I don’t know what was. I was sitting in Section 10, which is right next to the left field foul pole. That means one thing. The sun!! Ugh.. It was a nice spot, I thought, but probably would have been better if I wasn’t in the sun so much.
Who made the first error of the season? That’s right – Todd Zeile. Dammit. I want Tatis back! The other two errors were by Clayton (4th) & Stevens (7th). Actually, I didn’t think things were going all that bad until the fourth inning; I mean it was only 1-0. However, the floodgates opened in the fourth inning, the Tigers scored 7 runs, mostly on the longball (2 HR in the inning), helped by an atrocious outing by Helling & Loaiza (there’s a shocker).
Actually, I felt that innings 7-9 weren’t that bad, it’s just the 4th through 6th were so bad. We finally broke the no hitter in the 7th, as Raffy doubled in Greer, who had been hit by a pitch. Mike Morgan & Mike Munoz both pitched some shutout ball, which was nice to see, and we scored 5 runs from the 7th to the 9th, one of which was a Stevens HR to left field. Juan Gonzalez had two RBI’s, and the rest were spead out over several other players. Overall, the game stunk, and Helling better not pitch like this again much, or we’re in big trouble. One down, 161 to go. There goes the perfect season. smile.gif (93 bytes)
To summarize.. I’m sunburnt. Section 10 isn’t the best place to sit in the middle of the day. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Finally, Opening Day arrives. The smell of precious, green, spring grass. The wonderful smell of ballpark hot dogs. The nauseous fumes of bad pitching and defense. You knew there would be a sour stench all day when leadoff hitter Juan Encarnacion hit the first pitch of the game to the moon.
Rick Helling pitched as poorly as he can possibly pitch. In the first inning alone he threw 24 pitches – and it went downhill from there. He hit 2 batters. He gave up 7 runs (5 earned). He gave up 7 hard hits, including 2 homers. He stunk.
Esteban Loaiza was no better. He was actually worse. I’ll spare you the details. Trust me, he stunk.
The defense stunk too. oh sure, Ivan Rodriguez threw out a couple of would-be base thieves. Oh yeah, the infield made a couple of double plays. This only served the cause of not letting the Tigers score 15 runs.
The bright spots were few and far between. Rafael Palmeiro drove a ball to right for a double. Juan Gonzalez had 2 hits and a walk and a couple ribbies. But until the 7th inning, the Rangers couldn’t even collect a hit off Brian “Who is this guy, Nolan Ryan?” Moehler, who threw ground ball after ground ball.
It was a long, lost, smelly Opening Day. The good news is…it can only get better.

Sorry, I was totally offline for a few days, and am just hitting the office again after being out for a few days. Too much to do today before I’m supposed to go see the Opening Day game. Sorry ’bout that. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers lost their final exhibition Saturday 6-4.
Despite the loss, the Rangers pitched well. especially the bullpen. The Rangers were victimized by two errors and three unearned runs in a 5 run Mets eruption in the middle innings. Juan Gonzalez’s miscue was the key error in the frame.
It was announced that OF Scarborough Green and IF Jon Shave made the ballclub and that Mike Munoz and Eric Gunderson sewed up the lefty spots in the bullpen.

Under a constant threat of rain, the Rangers won their first game in 1999 at the Ballpark in Arlington. I was there – Section 225, row 1. It was cool being close to the TV & radio guys. I even asked Eric & Vince if the kettle corn thing they were talking about all the time in Spring Training was real. They said it was. Eric said it was popcorn covered with something – couldn’t hear them very well.
Mark McLemore pulled something in his hamstring in the first inning going after a foul ball, he was pinch hit for in the first inning (he was slated to lead off). Overall it was a good feel for the Rangers, even though they didn’t win by a whole lot. Pudge had a triple, which was cool, and of course, when they announced Palmiero, the place went nuts. There did seem to be a bunch of people up from Houston in Astros garb. Ruben Mateo did play, but I didn’t know it as it wasn’t announced – he pinch ran for Raffy after a double Raffy had gotten.
I’m still on vacation, so I won’t say much, but there is some new stuff at the Ballpark. Mainly advertising. There is a new third rotating sign in left field, and the TX lotto ad to the right of the manual scoreboard is gone. There are two new ads on the outfield wall, both for Dodge trucks, and the ad on the back wall of the Rangers bullpen is now a very noticeable white ad (I forget who it is at the moment). Also, the high outfield wall ads by the Coke scoreboard have changed slightly. There is one all the way to the right that I think is different, and the Radio Shack ad with the lighted ball for Home Runs is still there, but it has a Channel 39 logo on it instead of the Radio Shack ad.
But the one totally NEW thing that I liked was a new scoreboard that shows speed of pitch and type of pitch. It’s located in left field to the right of the already existing dotpanel scoreboard (that shows out of town scores and updates during the game).
Well, I ended up writing more than I thought – sorry I didn’t write much about teh game itself – check out Jim’s commentary.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers edged the Astros 6-5 Friday in Arlington, scoring 3 runs off Houston pitcher Scott Elarton late in the game.
Rusty Greer and Jon Shave each had two runs batted in and Pudge Rodirguez and Royce Clayton has two hits each.
Mark Clark had his final tune-up of the spring and while he wasn’t overpowering, he was effective (3 ER in 6 IP with 6 SO).
Texas plays their final exhibition Saturday versus the Mets.

I’m out on vacation, and found 10 minutes to update this page – no commentary from me today. However, I am going to the game at the Ballpark tonight (Friday 4/2). Should be fun!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers beat the Red 6-4 to close out their Grapefruit portion of the exhibition season Thursday, but more importantly, they got some great news from the rehab department.
John Wetteland, who’s been shelved for most of the spring with a bum ankle, started the game for Texas and pitched one scoreless inning. I have no idea how good his velocity was or anything, since the game with AWOL as far as radio goes, but the Rangers obviously had him facing the top of the Cincy lineup for a purpose – a test. It appears as though he’s passed it. He’s pitched on consecutive days (yesterday, he pitched an inning in a minor league game). This is tremendous news for the Rangers.
The good news didn’t stop there. Rafael Palmeiro, down with 2 seperate knee injuries all spring, made his Grapefruit League debut Thursday and hit a home run, serving as the DH. While he’s not running at 100%, he says in two weeks he thinks he will be running full speed. Batting fifth, it’s his bat that the Rangers froth over, not his speed.
Aaron Sele pitched decently for Texas. All in all, he’s had an acceptable spring training – much like Rick Helling, Mark Clark and John Burkett. Nothing to write home about, but with this Texas offense, you don’t have to be Cy Young, you just have to be Mike Young.
It was good news day all around in camp and with the final two exhibitions switching to Arlington, the entire team must be pretty excited about the health of Wetteland and Palmeiro.
The final roster spots are still on the table…who will be the utilty infielder? Will Ruben Mateo make the team or will Melvin insist he be sent to AAA? Will Johnny Oates take Zimmerman over Mike Munoz or perhaps Eric Gunderson in the bullpen? We’ll soon find out. Opening Day is just 4 days away!

I’m pretty busy getting ready for a short vacation while I have some relatives in this weekend, so I am not writing much today. It was nice to see the offense back, even though it was only against the Twins.
No errors again, which is nice to see. Without looking it up, there’s been a few no error game since the obscene 5 error game last week.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Rangers’ righthander Rick Helling hurled 7 innings Wednesday and the Ranger bats were once again alive and well, as the Rangers shelled the Twins 11-4.
Helling gave up two 2-run homers to Ron Coomer (surprisingly, his 5th and 6th homers of the spring) in back-to-back innings but that was the extent of the Twinkies’ damage. Helling’s outing was the longest by any Rangers’ pitcher this spring to date.
Tim Crabtree and Eric Gunderson each had a scoreless inning of work. Gunderson has been especially effective as of late and Crabtree seems to be bouncing back now after a poor outing last week.
Offensively, the Rangers banged out 17 hits with Roberto Kelly, Juan Gonzalez and Royce Clayton doing the major damage. Kelly hit a 3-run shot and Gonzo and Clayton added a couple hits each. The team collected 6 extra base hits. Every Rangers’ hitter got a hit except Milt Cuyler (0 for his last 19) an it appears he’s lost any chance he had to make the team.
The Rangers did not commit an error on Wednesday, the 3rd time in 4 games they have gone errorless.