Opening Week in Major League Baseball!

Opening week for the Texas Rangers at home, after starting the season off 2-2 with the Oakland A’s in Oakland, the returned to Globe Life Park in Arlington to set up shop and take on the their , I-45 Rivals, the Houston Astros, and with that.. they begin their Silver Boot Series with them.

However, there is more to this than just the trophy for most wins against your down the block rival.  This is now the Season with a new manager, and a new attitude. Their Slogan is “NEVER QUIT!” to the point where it’s a hashtag and a battle cry with in the club house and on the field.

The weekend is filled with the pomp and circumstance that you would expect, the patriotic bunting along the stands, the introduction of the players along the baselines, then the playing of our National Anthem, the fly over of F-16 Fighter Jets, the first pitch by dignitaries, and then hearing the umpire yell “PLAY BALL!”

Nothing like opening day, or opening week at the home park, you get to see the players for the first time in the season, you get to smell the ball park for the first time, and there is a distinctive smell, that is hot dogs, popcorn, beer, and cotton candy! All of this fills your senses of sight, taste, smell, and feel! You get it all when you walk in the gates!

Then of course there is a matter of the game! In this particular instance, the Rangers didn’t fair all that well in the opening day festivities, where they literally were shellacked by the Astros, and if that wasn’t bad enough—they lose three players to injury on opening day! Starting with Ryan Rua in left field has a sprained ankle… then Shin Soo-Choo goes down with a muscle spasm I the lower back, and starting pitcher, Derek Holland doesn’t even make to the second inning with a strain in his left shoulder! Needless to say the clubhouse looks more like a M*A*S*H unit than a baseball club!

Though after the disaster that started the season—the second game of the series, looked more like what the Rangers were capable of doing, and beating back the Astros, then the rubber game on Sunday, not so much better than the first game, Colby Lewis got the start, and was lit up in the first with a home run, that wasn’t bad enough he gave up four runs in the second inning and before we could blink an eye, the Astros were up four to nothing! Oh let’s not forget another home run this time with a runner on base to give them that four/nothing lead!

The Rangers however pounded it back to cut the lead in half in the bottom of the seventh inning with a couple of hits and a walk sandwiched in there, the Rangers were able to get off the schnied, and score two runs on Leonys Martin’s single to left field that also got him going after starting the season 0 for 18!

So the 2015 Rangers are playing .500 ball to start the year, and looking to keep it at least even, when the Las Angeles Angels of Anaheim come for a three game set to the ball yard, including an afternoon game on the 15^th of April, when it is not only Tax Day, but Patriots Day in Boston, and for Major League Baseball, its Jackie Robinson Day!

That’s not only a day to celebrate a great ball player, and the fact that Robinson broke the color barrier with being the first African American to play Major League Baseball, but everyone in baseball gets to wear HIS number… 42 to celebrate it! HOWEVER! There’s a story behind that.

It starts with the fact that Jackie was getting all sorts of death threats from every major league city the Brooklyn Dodgers were playing, so while in St. Louis to play the Cardinals, teammate Peewee Reese, told Jackie that on the next game, they all would wear 42… that way they wouldn’t know who they were aiming for!

So, the last few years, the entire teams have worn 42 to honor Robinson, then MLB sells the jerseys on their website for charity!

So if the Rangers can keep pace with the rest of the West, than this team might find themselves in the driver’s seat for the Wildcard at the end of the season. HOWEVER! (there’s that word again) this team must find a way to stay healthy and keep everyone in the lineup, and Skipper Jeff Banister will have his work cut out for him, but for right now, it’s still early in the season, and there is a lot of baseball to be played!

SO! PLAY BALL! 

Its Just a thought!