The Inate Ramblings of a Rangers Fan

There were at least 40 kids huddled around the bleachers that afternoon. Just imagine the little league scene in Good Will Hunting (a film that’s cemented into my personal top 10), except Chuckie, Billy, and Morgan are admittedly cooler than all my friends, and not one of us would ever be described as being as smart as Will.

Voices continuously yelled over each other. “NO WAY!,” someone behind me exclaimed. “You’re a moron,” two kids in front of me yelled back at the other half of the crowd. Someone even stood up and walked away.

The argument? Who was worse: Brad Wilkerson or Joaquin Benoit.

This is what you cared about as a Rangers fan from 2000-2010. We knew we were bad and we were proud of it.

The common decision that everyone seemed to be settling on was that Wilkerson was at least hitting home runs. Benoit wasn’t even trying to get his guy out. (It was widely known throughout the area that Wilkerson was the President of the “HR/K Ratio” club…..which at the time left Mark Reynolds as the Vice President, Adam Dunn as Secretary of the State, and Chris Davis as the heir to be.)

And as the opinions continued to flood in, and the crowd once again started shifting on the claim that Benoit has a successful hold at least once a month, I finally stopped down the conversation. “Wait. Wouldn’t Benoit strike out Wilkerson?”

It had been settled. And call me crazy, but I actually miss those days.

After last year’s improbable World Series run, I’ve come to the conclusion that only three situations in life give me enough stress to possibly set myself on fire: The last five minutes of every Breaking Bad episode, the last two minutes of a game that Tony Romo plays, and a postseason game involving the Rangers.

Emphasis on the last one. Those 27 outs are the longest 3+ hours of my life. It usually starts out smoothly and ends with me prepared to drive to Arlington, chuck eggs at the ballpark, than drive my Taurus recklessly off a cliff. Every moment causes extreme overreaction. When Texas scores a single run, I begin counting down outs like Wilt counting his points. When they fall behind by one run, I start thinking of creative ways to trade every player on the roster (my Astros friend Lucas just punched himself in the face).

It’s no coincidence that the peak of my balding career came whenever Texas went to the World Series (I began shaving my head a few months ago. Basically, if my bald spot was Michael Jordan, than ’92 was when Cliff Lee owned the Rays, ’96 was when Neftali struck out A-Rod, and the year he carelessly returned to the Wizards was when Michael Young demanded a trade).

As it stands right now, the Rangers could be eliminated from postseason play as soon as Wednesday. Or they could be heading to the ALCS. But you know what? I’m fine either way. If they move on, I’ll gladly continue chewing my nails down to the cuticle. If they don’t, screw it.

Let’s go back to the days when a filled ball park consisted of 8,000 people.

Let’s go back to piling into a few vehicles, without any prior notice, and driving to Arlington to buy $11 outfield seats at will call.

Let’s go back to planning our schedules around the weekend the Pirates visited for a doubleheader, as if we were college kids in a town that Girls Gone Wild was touring in, because we were excited about the prospect of actually winning a game (a few friends and I actually did this on numerous occasions. And five of us painted T-E-X-A-S on our chests in red and blue even though it was 100 degrees outside. No, I wasn’t getting much sex at the time. Why do you ask?)

Let’s go back to watching fan bases cheer as Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemons, or John Smoltz takes the mound for them on opening day while we prepare to see Ryan Drese throw feces at the catcher.

Let’s go back to when the popular running joke around the league was “If you need to win the All-Star game, call upon a Ranger . If you need to win the World Series, call anyone else.”

Let’s go back to when the most exciting moment during a game was when the cameras showed ” Dellucci’s Hoochie’s ” (David Dellucci was an Italian right fielder who played for the Rangers for a few seasons. The “Hoochie’s” were a group of girls that were at every game holding signs. I can’t even begin to explain how turned on I was every time they appeared on television. Try to imagine a 13 year old who sees eight 20 year olds bouncing up and down wearing the jersey of his favorite player who also happens to walk out to the Godfather theme before every at-bat. Let’s just say that if you walked into my room after a Rangers game, you would think a snake was shedding skin.)

And finally, if we must, let’s go back to arguing. At least back then we knew our spot among the baseball ranks.

And we knew Benoit could strike out Wilkerson.


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