first of two

it's a tough time to be a ranger fan.

i don't talk often or much about sports, not here anyways, so i s'pose today will be a bit of a departure from that, mostly because of all the big stuff that's going on with the rangers lately. having grown up in dallas, i've always had a bit of a soft spot for the local teams. even after being out of the area nearly six years, i still follow all the same teams i did when i was a kid, although i don't guess there's anything remarkable about that. the first sport i ever played in life was baseball, i think i was seven when i signed up for t-ball at the Y, and i'm pretty sure a big reason for why i did that was because the summer before i'd discovered the rangers on channel 11.

so i'm still a ranger fan, in fact, out of all the hometown allegiances i've developed, the one i have to the rangers is strongest. not that i'm necessarily fair-weathered as far as the other teams go, i could name nearly every one of the rag-tag bunch of scrubs the mavericks ran out for most of the 90's, which means i can tell you who tim legler is, or mike izzulino, or greg dreiling, or darren morningstar, or bruno sundov, well you get the point. similarly, i followed the cowboys when they were 1-15 and alternately known as troy aikman and a bunch of guys named broderick, back when a loss by less than three touchdowns was considered a good game. those teams would lose, and sometimes they'd lose a lot and i didn't like it, somehow, however, when the rangers were winning i cared just a little bit more and when they lost, it hit me just a little bit harder.

so the last four years have been pretty rough on the team, four straight last-place finishes and the whole thing's been pretty abysmal. what's most maddening about the whole thing is that complete ridiculousness of the level of mismanagement that the team's been subject to, which is to say that they'd be better off with huckleberry hound and snaggle puss at the helm than tom hicks (owner) and john hart (general manager), giving huge guaranteed contracts to guys who have showed up only to absolutely suck and end up, for all intents and purposes, stealing money and letting productive guys go in the name of payroll flexibility.

anyways, over the weeekend they got rid of alex rodriguez which i guess for the past few months has been more a matter of "how" and "when" than it's been a matter of "if." ironically this pretty much more than undid the only sound baseball decision those dopes have made in several years. what's most sickening about it is the near total disregard for the intelligence of the fans who've spent their money supporting the team on the part of hicks and hart. once again, they invoke the payroll flexibility deal, which basically means that since they pretty much screwed the team by giving outrageous contracts to guys who totally blow they subsequently have to get rid of the guy with the biggest contract, who ironically is the only one with a substantial contract who was earning his check.

next year, the proverbial "next year," seems forever away,

feeling: cheated
thinking of: the ghost of charlie hough's knuckleball
music: "guilty by association" steve taylor