This weekend, my boys kick off their Spring baseball season and so begins the 4 nights a week activity that is associated with the sport I love so much. Along with machine pitch baseball, I’ll also be managing the “Rangers in 6″ fantasy baseball team in a league full of soulless Yankee fans. God. Help. Me.
HT: SBNATION // For all those Texans and those with bad eye sight…click the Texas Rangers Logo to make the image bigger!
Go ahead and tell me that isn’t the cutest stinking picture you’ve ever seen of two brothers! I’m blown away by how great this picture is. With the exception of the aluminum bat, you could make this picture black and white and it would look just like brothers in the 50′s playing baseball. Good Stuff!
This year we’ve had a an exciting spring with both the boys playing on the same baseball team. We’ve only had victory once; but the chance to coach a team with both my boys on it has been a thrill. Today I had an experience that made me want to encourage all parents to give their children the opportunity to play organized sports.
Ryan, my 6 year old, is one of the better players on the team. It helps that he’s 6 months older than everyone else, but nonetheless he’s a pretty darn good baseball player. Over the past few games he’s had a rough go of it, with a grand slam called back for throwing his bat (it really just rolled out of the batters circle) and some fielding miscues that have cost his team dearly.
In today’s game as he returned to the pitchers mound after again being called out for throwing his bat, he was pretty messed up inside and trying to fight back the tears. I got down on a knee and told him to get a grip! I know, I know…it sounds mean, but what I really told him was that now was not the time to think about his last mistake, and that instead he had to help his entire team by being ready to give his best in the field. I helped him count to 5 to clear his head, and slapped him on the butt and told him to go out there and kick some butt.
As I returned to the dugout, I had this clear thought. Where else would my kid learn such a valuable lesson? I know that not all kids are athletically gifted, but at the youngest of ages I don’t think it matters. The lessons of giving your all for a team, putting your mistakes behind you, and learning to get better are going to prove invaluable to both my boys…not to mention all the great snacks given away at the end of every game.
BALTIMORE – No need to step lightly here. Put simply the Rangers put a beating on the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday, the likes of which has never been seen before. At least not since fielders started wearing gloves. In the first game of what was supposed to be just a harmless doubleheader between two teams going nowhere, the Rangers scored and scored and scored some more. When their bats finally stopped smoking, they had branded the Orioles with a 30-3 loss. It was the first time since 1900, considered the beginning of the “modern era” that a team had reached 30 runs. It’s also the largest margin of victory in the modern era, as well. I’m a BIG baseball fan, and a closeted Texas Ranger fan. When I headed out of the house last night, the Rangers were winning 10-3, but when I checked in later the final score was 30-3. Scoring 30 runs is a NEW record. One of the things that makes baseball so great is that every game has that chance to make Major League Baseball history, and MLB has over 100 years of history to draw from. Here is a great sound bite from KRLD 1080am in Dallas of the final homerun.
Here’s a look at some more astounding numbers from the Rangers’ 30-3 trouncing of Baltimore:
65: Plate appearances by the Rangers tied the AL record for a nine-inning game previously held by Milwaukee against Toronto on August 28, 1992. It was one shy of the major league record set by Philadelphia (NL) in 1922.
4: Four different Rangers had at least four RBIs. It was the first time a quartet of players from the same team each had four RBIs in a game since Philadelphia’s Pete Rose, Garry Maddox, Mike Schmidt and Bob Boone on May 17, 1979.
7: RBIs by Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ramon Vazquez, the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, both of whom had four hits and two homers.
1: Save for Wes Littleton, who earned the quirky save for pitching the final three innings after coming in with a 14-3 lead. It wasn’t the oddest save by a Ranger against Baltimore. Joaquin Benoit had a seven-inning save, the longest in major league history by pitching seven innings on Sept. 3, 2002.
