Sunday June 27th was a long day. Literally, it was a long day, that’s not a complaint. We left our house at around noon, stopped at a convenience store for water and batteries, and headed to the ballpark. It was a 7:05 start. Why did we leave so early you ask?

Let me explain….

My friend Dirk and I had been talking to a gentleman that is a season ticket holder who mentioned all of the autographs he gets at the games he goes to. At any given moment he can pull a ball out of his bag that has been autographed by a Ranger. You name them, he has their autograph. Naturally, Dirk and I were very intrigued and inquired how he came about them. He then told us that he stands by the parking lot tunnel that the players drive into either before or after games. Some players stop and some don’t, but he says of all the times he’s been out there he has come away with at least one autograph. That settled it, we had to do this.

We had actually made one attempt at getting some autographs prior to this afternoon. Dirk and I went out there after the game on Thurs. 6/10, the only problem was the next day was an away game so all of the players were in a hurry to get to the airport to head to Milwaukee. At least we got a feel of where to go, plus we saw what some of the guys’ rides were.

So that brings us to this day. It was a weekend game as well as a 7:05 start, so we loaded up our daughters to make our first true attempt at getting some Rangers autographs.

Here’s a photo I took of the girls shortly after we arrived at the tunnel….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The area was nothing more than a median, like on a roadway. There are two fairly tall pine trees that offered really good shade, as well as there being a decent breeze to make it even better.

We got there at around 12:30 and there was already about 8-10 other people there who said no one had stopped yet, and only a handful of people had been by so we knew we were in good shape.

Our first autograph would come from the manager, Ron Washington….

The photo on the left is of Dirk, his daughter Kaitlyn, and my daughter Sarah. The one on the right is just Sarah. I took two photos of each autograph so Dirk would have one of his daughter and I would have one of mine. Just a semi-unnecessary explanation of why there’s two pictures of each.

There were periods of inactivity between autographs, and during one of these periods I realized that I was in dire need of a bathroom. I had drank a bottle of Mountain Dew on the way there and was now paying for it. I didn’t want to have to walk anywhere, but I didn’t have a choice. Long story short, I had to walk about a quarter of a mile to a youth ballpark located just outside the Rangers’ ballpark. By the time I returned, the girls had gotten Nelson Cruz’ autograph and just finished getting catcher Matt Treanor’s….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just for the record, I don’t know the lady that’s in the photo, I just wanted to document what Treanor drove. And in case you’re wondering, we got Washington on a baseball, Cruz signed a hat that Sarah wanted to get a bunch of autos on, and Treanor signed a ball. If I had been there, I would’ve had Cruz sign a ball and Treanor sign the hat, but oh well. We were happy to have them period.

The next one that stopped was hitting coach Clint Hurdle….

…. who would sign Sarah’s hat.

The fifth and final autograph for today would come from pitcher Chris Ray….

…. who would also sign Sarah’s hat.

Pretty cool! In all, we were out there for about two hours and came away with 5 autographs. Of course there were guys that drove by and didn’t stop, but that’s understandable. I didn’t expect to get all of the teams’ autos today. We were completely satisfied with what we came away with.

At around 2:30-2:40 we left and headed over to Pappasito’s for a late lunch. Gotta love Mexican food!

After stuffing our faces we headed back over to the ballpark and walked in the gate at around 4 o’clock. There was a pregame concert by Los Tigres del Norte so the gates were opened earlier than usual, but it didn’t matter because when we got out to the left field seats we saw this….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ballpark hosers. Yes, the cage was up but, I’ll admit, I was still a little scared because we usually don’t see them until after batting practice. After about 5 minutes of uncertainty a guy walked out and set an empty bucket by the screen in centerfield. Yes!

I shouldn’t have doubted that there would be BP, but I haven’t ever been in that early before so it threw me off.

Within the next fifteen minutes the Rangers would come out to stretch and throw….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. and five minutes after that, they would start to hit and I was forced to stare at these for at least 10 minutes….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. which, I’m sad to say that I would not get.

I would get on the board though when a kid next to me dropped a toss up into the gap that I would reel up with my device and give to him. He was thrilled, because he thought he was out of luck. When he saw me get it and slowly bring it up, he was ecstatic. I love doing that, because it’s a double win. I get to count it because I reeled it up, plus this kid in particular got his very first Major League baseball. It doesn’t get much better than that.

I came within inches of catching my first BP homer on the fly. I leaned as far over the rail as I could but was still about two inches short and the ball fell into the gap directly underneath me. Unfortunately, there just so happened to be a guy walking by down there that would pick up the ball (before I could tell him not to) and toss it up to someone else. Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

That was it for the rest of batting practice for me. Seriously, for both teams. Now if I wanted to start counting toss up “assists”, I would have cleaned up. I must have pointed to 6-8 different kids at various points of batting practice and every one of them got the ball. I even toyed with the idea of pointing to myself a couple times for fun but thought better of it. The kids would get their ball and run off to show someone what they got. That may have been my problem. If I had not pointed and just let them stay around, maybe I would’ve had more gap-retrieval opportunities. Who knows?

If you’re wondering why Sarah wasn’t by me trying for her own toss ups, it’s because she and Kaitlyn were by the left field foul pole up under an overhang in the shade. It was hot. Very hot.

Once the Astros’ BP concluded I walked a couple sections over to where Dirk was and we noticed a ball in the middle of the visitors’ bullpen. It wasn’t placed there, but hit there during batting practice. I asked the closest security guard if I could swing my device out to knock it closer and he said go for it. It was about 6-8 feet out from the wall so it took a few throws but it worked. I would soon reel it up for our 2nd and final ball of the day. Dirk would end up with 3 of his own (all with his device), and I had to fight off a little disgust at never being able to out-snag him.

We next went to track down the girls and go sign up to be designated drivers and get our free soda coupons. There’s two different places in the ballpark and if you do both, you get two coupons which is cool because Sarah and I both would get free drinks.

Along the way we saw the Silver Boot trophy which is what the winner of the two Rangers/Astros series receives….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been told that the boot is a size 13. In case you were wondering…

The four of us didn’t sit together this game. Sarah and I were in the upper deck on the first base side, and Dirk and Kaitlyn were in the bleachers in left-center.

Here’s a picture from our seats….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. of the second appearance of the day by the Ballpark Hosers.

The camera I was using was given to me just that morning by Dirk, so I had to get the hang of using it. I had grown so used to my wife’s camera from using it for a couple years, that this new one was a whole new animal.

Here’s a shot of where I stood during batting practice….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know you can’t tell where I’m talking about, but it was above the “g” in the blue Samsung sign in left-centerfield.

Here, let me test out the zoom and show you a closer look….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come to think of it I was actually across the aisle from the spot above the “g”, but who’s keeping track?

I asked Sarah what she wanted me to take a picture of next and she said the Texas flag, so I obliged….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. with both “Texas” flags.

The pregame festivities included a tribute to Hispanic heritage….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. as well as the TCU baseball team, who had just been eliminated from the College World Series the previous day….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also took a few shots of the Rangers during their pregame warmups….

The photo on the top left intrigued me because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a catcher throw to a catcher. The photo on the bottom right was taken about 5 seconds too late. That’s Vladimir Guerrero getting stretched by the trainer and Josh Hamilton behind him (or above his head, however you want to describe it). Josh had gone about 10-15 feet away from Vlad and got down on his belly and “army-crawled” all the way to him. When he got there, he did something (I didn’t see what) to scare the he!! out of Vlad. I saw him crawling, looked away to get my camera ready, and looked back to see Vlad and Josh laughing. I wish I had seen what he did, but at least I saw some of it.

I mentioned before that Dirk and his daughter were sitting in the bleachers, well I zoomed in as far as I could and this is where they were sitting….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you click on the photo you’ll see two red arrows pointing to Dirk and his daughter. I told him to call me around the third or fourth inning to see if there were any empty seats that Sarah and I could have.

Somewhere around the fourth inning he said there were two available in the row behind him, so we headed that way and when we got there I took this photo of Sarah….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. behind section 53 in left-centerfield.

While sitting in the outfield I took the following two pictures of different angles of the park….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…. and I must admit that I like them both.

As far as the game goes, the Rangers scored early and often accumulating 10 runs by the end of the 6th inning, and that would be all they would need to defeat Roy Oswalt and the Astros. 10-1 was the final. Josh Hamilton hit the second longest home run in the history of the Ballpark in Arlington. It was a 468 foot, two-run mammoth shot to the 2nd deck above the Rangers dugout in right field.

The game was exciting on all fronts and capped off what was an all around great day of baseball.

Time of Game: 2hrs. 38mins.

Attendance: 37,487

Next Game: Wed. 7/7 vs. Cleveland