Last night I took the folks, visiting from Ohio, to The Ballpark in Arl ... er, excuse, me, as of last night, Ameriquest Field in Arlington. At least we know that whenever the Rangers do decide to "mortgage" the future for a pennant race, they'll have the right sponsor in place.
The Ballpark -- and yes, everyone will continue to call it that -- is a wonderful place. And enough happened in last night's game to make me not sorry at all we opted not to go tonight to watch the reconstructed arm of R.A. Dickey; of course, now Dickey will throw a one-hit shutout or something.
Anyway, here are a few notes and observations ...
The good thing about the stadium's name change is that each fan gets free equal-value tickets for any Monday-Thursday game the rest of the season and we had great tickets in the eighth row behind third base. With the folks heading back north, that means all three free tickets land in my wallet, about which I will not complaint. The "free ticket" exception, unfortunately, is the Yankees series -- those always sell out -- and it appears the Jays are only in North Texas for weekend games ...
So anyway, last night ...
The stars of the game, apologies to standing-ovation and game-winning-homer boy Pudge Rodriguez, were shortstops Carlos Guillen and Michael Young. Yankee Gods strike me dead if need be, but last night I said to my dad -- who was mere yards away from Joe D. the night he broke his ribs catching a Ted Williams near-homer -- that if I were the Rangers, I wouldn't trade Young even up for Derek Jeter right now ...
Joaquin Benoit -- this from my dad, who's never heard of him, much less seen him -- "he's got nasty stuff but looks like a mistake pitcher ... two or three a game get hit out." Right on point. Benoit could end up being a future Andujar winner, following the career path of similarly frustrating ex-Ranger (and ex-Jay) Esteban Loaiza ...
Hank Blalock -- I said this a couple of years ago on a Rangers BBS and got laughed off the place -- Hank Blalock has a really, really good chance to be George Brett ...
Jeremy Bonderman was awful and looked like Arlington Martin High School might have lit him up last night, given the opportunity ...
One of the most frustrating things about going to a game live is not getting all the information you are used to on TV; starting CF Laynce Nix left the game in the third inning, and all we heard was "Brian Jordan now in right for the Rangers. Mench to left. Dellucci to center." What, it would be too much for them to announce "Nix has a stomach virus and will be fine for tomorrow's game"? ...
Ugueth Urbina came into the game to close it down and when he was announced, the crowd didn't know what to do. He was something of a fan favorite here but if I had to guess, most fans in the balpark didn't realize he was now with the Tigers. There was a weird surprised silence when his name was announced, then a smattering of ... boos? "Oogs"? It was hard to tell ...
Jays fans won't like to hear this, but my mom said the Ballpark -- oops, Ameriquest Field -- was too loud all the time. It was a really nice night. Much of that was artificial, scoreboard-led random "Make Some Noise" hoo-ha, and the largest ovation except for Young's first-inning leadoff homer, was for Pudge's first at-bat. There were two groups of what sounded like high school kids trying to start chants all night -- one in the left field stands with "Let's Go Ran-gers" (and a failed "Full-mer" chant) and another group up by the center field grassy knoll (right, it probably shouldn't be nicknamed that so close to Dallas) with "Here we go Rangers" ... they didn't catch on stadium-wide, but they surely were audible.
I didn't make it out to a game locally last year, but the stadium feels different this year -- which has exactly nothing to do with the name change. And it's fun to go to a game where you only have mild rooting interest -- I like to see the Rangers win, but don't live and die with it -- so you can root for good baseball. We had good baseball last night; some great defense -- especially by Young -- and plenty of offense, an explosive beginning and a nail-biting ending ...
The Rangers may be 0-1 at "Ameriquest Field" and have fallen out of first place in the A.L. West, but there's a lot to like about a trip to The Ballpark ... sorry, the ballpark in Arlington.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20040508025245999