Texas Rangers

In March 2009 I spent several days in Dallas, TX. In addition to Six Flags, the Textbook Depository, and Fort Worth stockyards, I did a tour of The Ballpark at Arlington, the home of the Texas Rangers.

The tour guide was a little old lady in her late 80s I think. She had been a Rangers fan since they were a minor league team. She knew the players, the stats, and she knew the ballpark. During the season she worked in concessions and souvenirs, and when the team wasn't in town and in the off season she did ballpark tours. She was so proud of the stadium. She literally beamed talking about various players lockers. She thought it was very strategic that the Rangers had better batting cages under the seating than the opponent. It crushed her that the team was putting up advertising in front of the the bullpen. And she giggled when she talked about the Rangers bullpen being air conditioned but the opponents wasn't.

So somewhere in Arlington, TX, a little old lady is finally seeing her dream come true this week: the Rangers in the World Series.

Side story about the Rangers. Josh Hamilton, Rangers outfielder, almost blew his career away due to a drug and alcohol abuse problem. Josh used his strong faith to lead him back to a sober life and his career took off. To respect his alcohol abuse issue, the team sprayed each other with ginger ale rather than champagne when the team won the American League championship Friday night. That says a lot of the respect the team has for him.