Why I Believe the Texas Rangers Should Sign Prince Fielder

Yesterday, the Texas Rangers signed Japanese pitching sensation Yu Darvish to a 6-year, $60 million dollar contract (that actually cost them closer to $120 million because of the fee they had to pay to Yu's Japanese team for the rights to negotiate). Because of those big bucks, the speculation is that now the Rangers cannot afford to sign left-handed hitting sensation Prince Fielder to be their new 1st Baseman / Designated Hitter. Especially if the money they would spend on Fielder means they have less money to re-sign current players that are near free agent eligibility in the coming years.

But I believe the Rangers should throw caution to the wind and sign Fielder anyway, and here is why:

Basically, it's because I believe the Rangers are running out of time to get a World Series championship. If anything, last year was THE YEAR to get it done, but they blew it TWICE in Game 6. They are on borrowed time at this point. I believe they are where the Dallas Cowboys were in 1995: a solid core of players who had only one shot left to win another Super Bowl. The previous year was THE YEAR to get it done, but the Cowboys blew it with an awful start in the NFC Championship. In 1995, they got it done, but only because they brought in a free-agent ringer in Deion Sanders, and even then they only barely scraped out a victory over the Steelers in the Super Bowl. They were criticized for "mortgaging their future" on that one year. But, seriously, would ANY Cowboys fan REALLY trade that 3rd Super Bowl ring in 4 years for a few more playoff appearances (but likely no more Super Bowl appearances) in the late 90s and early 2000s?

I'd gladly "mortgage the future" on one more World Series run - a 3rd appearance in 3 years, especially if it increased the likelihood of their actually winning the thing this time around. In this case, Prince plays the role of Deion, helping the Rangers get over that last hurdle. The Angels are like the 49ers, or the Packers, or the Rams, or the Steelers or the Patriots of the late 1990s/ early 2000s- waiting to be the next team to make multiple runs to the championship. They're getting better with each passing year. And the AL East teams and the Tigers aren't going to just roll over either. NOW is the time for the Rangers to make a big move to get the championship THIS YEAR. Worrying about the future just gives those other teams time to keep reloading and keep getting better. Yes, the Rangers will still have a core of excellent players, just like the Cowboys still had Aikman, Emmit, Irvin, and Darren Woodson. But even then the window was closing on the Cowboys in 1995. And it's probably closing on the Rangers in 2012. Sign Fielder, like the Cowboys signed Deion, and try to make that last run THIS YEAR.

Nolan Ryan is My President

Fearless Leader of the Ranger Nation

Texas Rangers Music: "I Like Texas" by Pat Green

Played after a Texas Rangers home win. I'm hoping we'll hear this a lot over the coming days.

It's Less Than a Week Away from November ...

... and the Texas Rangers are still playing baseball !!!

Tonight is Game 1 of the World Series.

GO RANGERS !!!









Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
It's Time !

Been There, Seen That

Oh Yeah! Texas Rangers Moving On to the ALCS

The Feel-Good Sports Story of the Year

It's Time !

Sportswriter Jim Reeves of ESPN Dallas and the Fort Worth Star Telegram writes that "Rangers fans must savor every last drop" of the American League Championship Series, noting that the "added drama only enchances incredible flavor, intoxicating aroma of what's at stake":

Fred Koenig, the one-time Rangers first base coach who now hits his fungoes in the highest league of all, taught me how to drink beer. Well, what he really taught me was how to appreciate good beer. To Fred, beer drinking, done right, was an art form.

Now I know that some of you believe that makes you at least a Picasso, if not a Michelangelo, and you have the beer belly to prove it. But quality, not quantity, is what Fred had on his mind that long ago night in Milwaukee.

I think it was his German roots talking. Fred believed that a good draft beer should arrive, cold and fresh, at the table with a full head bubbling at the top, maybe even spilling over the sides. If it didn't, he might well roll up a napkin and stir it around in his beer until the foam arose two, three inches thick. As Fred explained, that foam meant a full release of the flavors and the heady aromas of a good beer.

[...]

Koenig would have long ago warned the Rangers and all of us that this wouldn't be easy, that the clinching game is the toughest game to play in all of sports, but especially baseball. This is the Rangers' first time there, remember. All of this is uncharted territory.

It won't be easy Friday night to put the Yankees away, either. They have talent, they have history and even more, they have pinstriped pride. That all counts for something. The Yankees rarely give anything away. If you want their title, if you want that ticket to the World Series, you have to earn it; you have to take it. They're not likely to hand it to you on an engraved silver platter.

[...]

As for the rest of us, this is what Fred would say: Enjoy the moment. Savor it. Remember it.

Somebody stuck a rolled up napkin in this cold beer of a playoff series, stirred it up, and now we're getting the full taste sensation, the anticipation, the tension, the drama, the amazing high of something we've never felt before with this baseball team.

Sip it slowly. Savor the moment. Let it go to your head and open up all your senses.

Rangers fans, this one's for you.

Yes, savor it, Texas Rangers fans. Win or lose, tonight at the Ballpark, (and, if necessary, Saturday at the Ballpark) savor the atmosphere, savor the excitement, savor what it all means for the Rangers to be playing to go to the World Series.

Think about that for a moment. The World Frickin' Series !!! The Rangers !!! The Texas Frickin' Rangers playing for the opportunity to play in the World Frickin' Series !!! That's awesome. Savor that !!!

I know I will be. But I I wish I could be down there in Texas for it. If not at the Ballpark itself, at least in some bar with some of my oldest friends. Drinking Shiner beer, eating nachos, and watching the Rangers.

Watching the Texas Frickin' Rangers play for the opportunity to play in the World Frickin' Series.

Win or lose, I'm going to savor it.

Been There, Seen That

Mitch Williams, the original "Wild Thing".
As a life-long fan of the Texas Rangers (I was 5 years old when the former Washington Senators moved to Arlington, Texas to become the Rangers), I've seen a LOT of bad times and very few good times (only 4 playoff appearances in their 39-year history). So bad have the Rangers been throughout their history, that the nickname "Strangers" has stuck.

So, this hilarious piece by ESPN baseball writer Tim Kurkjian brought back a lot of bad, but nevertheless priceless, memories:

The Texas Rangers are at the highest point in their 39-year history, making their first trip to the American League Championship Series as the last current franchise to win a postseason series. To appreciate where they are, we must understand from where they have come, the depth from which they have emerged, as told by a guy who was there every night from 1982-85.

I should have known what I was getting into that first spring training as the new Rangers beat writer in 1982. Two weeks after having met me, Rangers center fielder Mickey Rivers asked if he could borrow $2,000, not knowing, of course, that The Dallas Morning News was paying me approximately $14,000 a year, and Mickey was making closer to $300,000. That began an interesting relationship with The Mick, easily the most amusing player I've been around in 30 years of covering baseball.

It was Mickey who said one freezing day in Milwaukee, "The wind was blowing 63 degrees today. I felt like the Lost Mohican out there." (The Lost Mohican?) It was Mickey who would walk through the clubhouse, shirt off, flexing his muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger, screaming, "I am Cohan the Barbarian,'' instead of "Conan the Barbarian.''

That first spring I pulled out the map in my rental car in an attempt to find the Rangers' spring training facility in Pompano Beach, Fla., and there it was in the lower right-hand corner: "Municipal Stadium, home of the Washington Senators,'' who had moved to Texas 10 years earlier. The spring training home of the Rangers wasn't a complex, it was one full field -- it looked more like my high school field -- and one half-field, on which one day, Rangers reliever Dan Boitano announced during a drill, "I'm going to wheel, throw, and hit that seagull.'' And to the astonishment of everyone, including Boitano, he went to make a pickoff throw to second base, instead threw the ball straight up in the air, hit a seagull in the head, and it came crashing to the earth, dead on the infield dirt. It was horrible.

"But that's what you get,'' pitcher Charlie Hough said, "for not wearing a helmet.

[...]

In spring training 1985, the Rangers introduced pitcher Mitch Williams, who had been acquired in the Rule V draft from the Padres. Williams threw so hard and was so unbelievably wild that no one wanted to hit against him. As he warmed up for his first live batting practice that spring, he threw one pitch that missed the cage entirely. The ball hit a tire on the side of the batting cage. At that point, veterans Buddy Bell and Larry Parrish announced that they would not be hitting against Williams, who would say later that day, "That's OK. I didn't want to kill any of my teammates on my first day of spring training.''

[Read the whole thing]

Mickey Rivers was the StRangers' center fielder in the early-to-mid 80s.
Nicknamed "Mick the Quick", I assume for his running abilities
as opposed to his mental capabilities.

My Comments:
I know the movie "Major League" features the Cleveland Indians as the story's protagonists, but I would swear that it's really about the Texas StRangers circa 1980-1985 (except, of course, that the StRangers never actually won their division during that time period - they didn't make their first playoff appearance until 1996).


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Oh Yeah! Texas Rangers Moving On to the ALCS

The Feel-Good Sports Story of the Year

Oh Yeah! Texas Rangers Moving On to the ALCS

The Texas Rangers win a playoff series for the first time in their history! (Until tonight, they were the ONLY team in Major League Baseball never to have won a post-season series.)

Bring on the Yankees!!!


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
The Feel-Good Sports Story of the Year

Blown Calls and a Lesson in Grace and Charity [UPDATED]

I originally added this as an update to my previous post on the subject, but I think it deserves a post all its own.

Joe Posnanski writes the best thing I've read about the perfect-game-that-should've-been at Sports Illustrated:

... There was something beautiful lost in the Jim Joyce fiasco, something that I hope I remember for as long as I remember the blown call. Yes, it’s hard to think about beautiful things when you have just watched one of the most absurd injustices in the history of baseball. But I’m a father of two young kids. And fathers find themselves looking for lessons. And there was something beautiful in the Jim Joyce fiasco.

[...]

And in that moment when he had a perfect game so unfairly taken away from him, he smiled. In the interview after the game, he simply said that he wasn’t sure about the call but he was proud of his game. When told afterward that Joyce felt terrible about the missed call, Galarraga said that he wanted to go tell Joyce not to worry about it, that people make mistakes.

Galarraga pitched a perfect game on Wednesday night in Detroit. I’ll always believe that. I think most baseball fans will always believe that. But, more than anything, it seems that Galarraga will always believe it. The way he handled himself after the game, well, that was something better than perfection. Dallas Braden’s perfect game was thrilling. Roy Halladay’s perfect game was art. But Armando’s Galarraga’s perfect game was a lesson in grace.

And when my young daughters ask, “Why didn’t he get mad and scream about how he was robbed?” I think I will tell them this: I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because Armando Galarraga understands something that is very hard to understand, something we all struggle with, something I hope you will learn as you grow older: In the end, nobody’s perfect. We just do the best we can.

Armando Galarraga certainly taught me something about responding with grace and charity. It's a lesson I should have already learned by now, but it's one that I hope I never forget.


UPDATE
“A terrible story that just keeps getting better and better.”

Travesty [UPDATED]

If I'm Armando Galarraga, I'm facing a season-long suspension because no way is Jim Joyce leaving the ballpark tonight without facing a little comeuppance from me:



UPDATE
Joyce mans up: “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

And Gallaraga is a better man than I am. Class act.


UPDATE #2 (3 June)
MLB deciding whether to review blown call


UPDATE #3 (3 June)
Joe Posnanski writes the best thing I've read about this at Sports Illustrated:

... There was something beautiful lost in the Jim Joyce fiasco, something that I hope I remember for as long as I remember the blown call. Yes, it’s hard to think about beautiful things when you have just watched one of the most absurd injustices in the history of baseball. But I’m a father of two young kids. And fathers find themselves looking for lessons. And there was something beautiful in the Jim Joyce fiasco.

[...]

And in that moment when he had a perfect game so unfairly taken away from him, he smiled. In the interview after the game, he simply said that he wasn’t sure about the call but he was proud of his game. When told afterward that Joyce felt terrible about the missed call, Galarraga said that he wanted to go tell Joyce not to worry about it, that people make mistakes.

Galarraga pitched a perfect game on Wednesday night in Detroit. I’ll always believe that. I think most baseball fans will always believe that. But, more than anything, it seems that Galarraga will always believe it. The way he handled himself after the game, well, that was something better than perfection. Dallas Braden’s perfect game was thrilling. Roy Halladay’s perfect game was art. But Armando’s Galarraga’s perfect game was a lesson in grace.

And when my young daughters ask, “Why didn’t he get mad and scream about how he was robbed?” I think I will tell them this: I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because Armando Galarraga understands something that is very hard to understand, something we all struggle with, something I hope you will learn as you grow older: In the end, nobody’s perfect. We just do the best we can.

Armando Galarraga certainly taught me something about responding with grace and charity. It's a lesson I should have already learned by now, but it's one that I hope I never forget.


UPDATE #4 (3 June)

Out of Touch Much? Coakley Refers to Legendary Red Sox Hero Curt Schilling as a "Yankees Fan"

First the Fenway slight, and now this. Martha Coakley obviously doesn't get out much to rub shoulders with the Red Sox fan riff-raff.

Ignorant woman probably has Schilling confused with Roger Clemens.

I can just hear the groans from her campaign staff as she stepped into it with this latest gaffe ... live on the radio. Heh.

Friday Night at "The Jake by the Lake"

Friday night, I got to attend my first Cleveland Indians game at Jacobs Field (note: I do not use that new name that they've given to the ballpark). I took my 4-year-old sports fanatic son, Aidan, along with me to see his first ever professional baseball game. The 6-5 9th inning victory over the rival Detroit Tigers was such a great game to see for our first time at the ballpark.

Watching Fausto Carmona pummel the headlocked Gary Sheffield was icing on the cake. (Of course, I had to explain to Aidan that the bench-clearing brawl we had just witnessed was inappropriate behavior and bad sportsmanship, and that Daddy was wrong to yell "Hit him again! Hit him again!").

We were fortunate to have 2 of the best seats in the house - on the front row along the first base line. We were practically right on the field. Sarah's grandmother had won the seats while attending a game the week before ... I'd have never been able to afford those seats otherwise.

And what a terrific fireworks show after the game was over. But nothing in comparison to the "fireworks" we had just witnessed on the field. One of the best and most exciting MLB games I've ever witnessed in person.

The Feel-Good Sports Story of the Year

Creative Minority Report reports on the story of Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton:

During the All Star Home Run Derby this week, Josh Hamilton exploded in the first round with a derby record 28 home runs, making him the most inspirational sports story in years.

The former Sports Illustrated writer and current ESPN announcer Rick Reilly shocked millions by declaring, "It's a lousy night to be an atheist."

To take in the full scope of that statement, you should know a little about Josh Hamilton. Just a few years ago, he'd hit bottom...

[More]

My Comments:
Growing up in East Texas, I was (and still am) a big fan of the Texas Rangers (or the StRangers, as I often refer to them).

Having only been to the post season 3 times in their nearly 40-year history, the StRangers have given us fans very little to cheer about over the years. Oh sure, there were major stars and major achievements such as Nolan Ryan pitching his record 6th and 7th no-hitters, reaching 300 wins, and reaching his record 5000th strikeout (not to mention the 40-plus-year-old Ryan giving the younger Robin Ventura a good-old-fashioned Texas ass-whoopin') in a Rangers uniform, and Juan Gonzales, Ivan Rodriguez, and Alex Rodriguez receiving American League MVP awards while they were on the team. But the team's failure to put a winning product on the field, coupled with the steroid scandal that, apparently, was a major part of the Rangers clubhouse, has given Rangers fans a major league dose of bad feelings throughout the team's run in Arlington.

Josh Hamilton, however, gives the team and its fans a story about which we can be proud and someone for whom we can pull. A wonderful story of redemption and grace.

"Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition"

Definitely get this and watch it with your kids. You won't be sorry.

From the Companion Guide to "Champions of Faith":

Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition on DVD is a groundbreaking film that showcases the intersection of sports and faith in Major League Baseball by profiling many of the most accomplished and devout figures in the game both on and off the field. Major League basball champions Mike Piazza, David Eckstein, Jeff Suppan Mike Sweeney, Jack McKeon and Rich Donnelly lead an All-Star discussion that breaks open the story of faith in baseball like no other film ever made. Captivating personal stories captured in one-on-one interviews and peppered with thrilling game highlights provide a unique forum for baseball fans and all movie-watchers to discuss faith, family, teamwork, sacrifice, leadership, humility and the many virtues and spiritual lessons one can learn from the game of baseball.

My favorite quote in the film comes from St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan in reference to the Eucharist:

"In the Last Supper when Jesus said 'this is my body, this is my blood', it's such an amazing thing. He wants to give Himself to us. Sometimes I think that's all that needs to be said."

I just hope the folks at Catholic Exchange who put this together come out with a football edition.

I highly recommend this film for the whole family.

A Great Night for a Couple of My Sports Teams

First, TRIBE WINS!

The Cleveland Indians got another outstanding pitching performance to outlast George Steinbrenner's club by a final score of 6-4 and take the American League Division Series by 3 games to 1.

GO INDIANS !



Second, "How 'bout them Cowboys!"

Despite a dreadfully horrendous game by quarterback Tony Romo, who threw 5 - count 'em, 5 - interceptions and lost 1 fumble, my hometown Dallas Cowboys pulled off a near miraculous last-minute victory over the Buffalo Bills. In the end, Romo put the Cowboys in a position to win when it counted, leading them to remain unbeaten with a record of 5-0.

But he better not think he's going to get away with a performance like that next week against the also 5-0 New England Cheatriots.