For only one day in the three years that we’ve known each
other can I recall Taylor not wearing a Rangers cap. That day, our graduation
day in 2011…
Taylor
is in the sunglasses and Matt is the shorter cat with some decent beard growth.
At the time I had finished up two of my degrees, one in English and the other
in journalism, but my life got a little sidetracked in 2012 when I moved to New York City to be in the Fan Cave
and had to put degree number three on hold for a bit.
Most of his Rangers loyalty came to fruition during the 2010
World Series against the San Francisco Giants. He was able to score tickets to
Game 2 at AT&T Park, but regretted every second of it when I saw him
in Eugene the
next day after the Rangers suffered a 9-0 loss at the hands of the Giants.
Based on my Oakland Athletics loyalty, it was a hard one to swallow for the
both of us.
After graduation Taylor
had gotten on with an advertising firm on the East Coast. Despite seeing photos
on a regular basis on Facebook, I had totally forgotten that Taylor
was living in New York, literally at the base
of the Brooklyn Bridge
on the Manhattan
side. When I got the call to move to New York
for the Fan Cave this important little detail didn’t
creep back into my head until a few weeks into our experience. In fact, it was Taylor that reached out
to me. During one of the few days in which we had after noon games one of the
security guards, Robert, yelled at me from across the room to let me know I had
a visitor. I remember just looking back at him, lifting my arms up and saying,
“Me?” I didn’t know anyone in New
York, let alone get a tip from anyone that they would
be coming to town. As I got up out of the couch I lurched about three steps and
say the bright red Rangers hat I had been so accustomed to seeing at Max’s
Tavern staring right back at me. With a wide grin on my face I opened the door,
gave him a hug and invited him inside to give him the grand tour and introduce
him to everybody.
As it turned out, Taylor and I only lived about a mile away
from one another, so we did our best to meet up two to three times a week for a
beer or even for him to just stop by the Fan Cave
in the evening to catch a few games with us. It was great to have a familiar
face from home around when he could, but since he was busy himself his visits
became less frequent as the weeks rolled by. What I later found out toward the
end of May was that Taylor’s contract with the
advertising firm had expired and he was in a bit of a haste to look for a new
gig otherwise he’d have to move back home to Oregon. This bit of news he told me over
drinks one night at a regular bar we visited, but he did his best to keep a
smile on his face.
Finally, on May 29, 2012 everything came to an end. I was
given the axe by the Fan
Cave and he had booked
his plane ticket home. Neither of us, at the time, knew about each other’s
news. It would be five days before we were able to see each other again, and
the circumstances behind it were accidental. A few days after I had my last day
in the Fan Cave I took in a game at Yankee Stadium
as the New York Yankees were hosting the Tampa Bay Rays. This was during the
period of time when I had also been kicked out of the apartment and moved to a
hotel about a half-mile away, so he and everyone else still associated with the
Fan Cave had no idea where I was staying. The game that night was a gift from
David Price who had hooked me up with tickets on account of the bad news I had
received, a pretty sweet gesture if you ask me. Price wasn’t pitching that
night and the Yankees won 7-0 to tie the Rays for the lead in the American
League Eastern Division. After the game I took the subway back to around the Fan Cave
so I could walk by to see if anyone was still there. They weren’t. Instead, I
was greeted by another one of the security guards and we chatted for a good
hour about everything that had gone down. After we said our goodbyes I headed
back toward the Blue Haven, the bar we frequented, for a night cap before
heading back to the hotel. As I walked in I was greeted by Ricardo Marquez,
Ashley Chavez and Taylor. Most people would normally be happy to see their
friends; however, in this case I was confused to see my friend with the people
that I worked with. As I came to found out Taylor
had stopped by the Fan
Cave to see me, they let
him in and for a solid 15 minutes no one told him where I was. I don’t remember
who he said finally cracked, but dear lord! 15 minutes? I wasn’t upset with Taylor in the slightest.
After all, how could he know? As for everyone else, that was the first day I
realized that I didn’t have any friends in the Fan Cave,
merely acquaintances.
Taylor and I only got to see each other one more time after
that which came on my second to last night in New York. The timeframe on my hotel had
expired and I was left with not having anywhere to go. I ran through a few
numbers at first, but no one had the room or the availability to let me crash.
All of my stuff was at one of the apartments until my final day, so I was good
on that. Without anyone else to turn to, I hit up Taylor and he happily took me in. It was late
and all of his roommates had gone to bed. Always being the good host he let me
sleep in his bed while he took the couch despite all of pleading I did to just let
me take the couch. Before we went to bed we went up on his roof with a couple
of beers and swapped stories on what exactly happened to us as he and I were
slated to head back to Oregon on the same day. I t was one of the few perfect
night I had in New York.
Both of us knew what was going to happen next, but neither of us cared in that
moment. We drank our beers, smoked a few cigarettes, talk and just stared into
the night sky as the lights of the Brooklyn
Bridge shone down upon
us.
Taylor and I continued to text back and forth to one
another, but we weren’t able to see each other again until July. I had busied
myself with my baseball road trip and he found a temporary gig with a firm in San Francisco. On
Wednesday, July 18th he had a short day at the office, which worked
out swimmingly considering that was the day I was throwing out first pitch for
the A’s. I had hit him up a few days prior to let him know and he told me he
would do his best to get there. I made sure to leave a ticket for him at Will Call
and all I could do was hope that he would show up. The events went off without
a hitch, with the exception of my pitch going a little bit outside. As Josh
Reddick, the other participant and I walked back toward the dugout I heard
someone yelling my name from a distance. As I looked up, I saw a familiar face.
This guy.
Both of my parents, as well as my best friend Laurin Mitchel
had come to town, as well as my friends Tim and Stephanie from San Francisco, so I made sure to introduce
him to everyone. For the majority of the game he hung out with my mom, Laurin
and me and we swapped stories from our time hanging out in New York. The game itself was close
throughout. Taylor’s
Rangers had built themselves a lead against the A’s, but the A’s chipped away
it and tied it up going into the ninth inning. With no runners on manager Bib
Melvin elected to pinch hit Brandon Hicks in the leadoff spot. What no one
expected, including Hicks, is that one pinch hit would lead to his first career
home run as well as yet another walk-off win for the A’s. I was pumped. Taylor, not so much.
After the game we all met up in the parking lot for photos
and to say our goodbyes. We’ve talked a few times since that day, but we
haven’t seen each other since. Taylor got
himself a new job in New York
not too long afterward, so it’s been a bit tough. He’s doing pretty well. I can
only hope to visit him again in the near future.
My timing was a bit off in regard to the Rangers hats I’ve
chosen to rite about thus far. My piece I did on Alex Rodriguez is fine, it’s
this one and the one I did on January 6 that are causing problems right now.
This cap, the all blue with a white “T” and red outline was first introduced as
the Rangers’ road cap during the 2000 season. From 2001-2010 it served as the
home cap. Since 2011 it has taken over as the team’s game style, while the red
cap from January 6 has served as the alternate cap. The reason this causes
issue is because I kind of blew it when I decided to mark up the red cap. If
you go back and look, I wrote all about Michael Young’s career stats; however,
Young hardly ever played under that cap. One guy in particular that I was left
to mark up this cap with did, for many years as that. All three of the numbers
I threw on this cap serve a particular meaning to the 2012 season. One of the
other funny things about this post is that I really should have used it to
write about the team’s all-red game cap as that was the one Taylor primarily wore throughout the time
we’ve known one another. So, without further ado, watch me try to bail myself
out of this little mess I put myself in.
#5- Ian Kinsler was drafted in the 17th round of
the 2003 amateur draft by the Texas Rangers out of Arizona State
University (Go Ducks!!!).
On April 3, 2006 he made his Major League debut as the Opening Day starting
second baseman where he continues to hold reign to this day. That season he
only played in 120 games and finished a respectable seventh place in the Rookie
of the Year vote after going .286/14/55 on the year. If you don’t remember,
Justin Verlander won it that year with little-to-no problem. In 2008, 2010 and
2012 Kinsler has been named to the AL All-Star team and in 2008, 2009 and 2011
he finished in the Top-26 in the AL MVP vote each of those three years. A
perennial power-hitting second baseman, Kinsler has a .272 career average, 148
home runs, 480 RBI and surpassed 1000 hits for his career a few games into the
2013 season. My connection with him takes place in Boston on Tuesday, August 7th.
I had been staying with my friend Dave Kaufman
(@TheKaufmanShow) up in Montreal,
Quebec, Canada
for a few weeks. Along with two members of the Canadian rock group, The
Arkells, we packed up Dave’s car and made the long journey down to Boston for that night’s
Boston Red Sox game against the Texas Rangers. Another friend of mine, Neil
Beschle, met up with us outside of Fenway
Park, as he would be who
I was staying with for the next week of my trip. I’ll get to a much more
detailed version of the game in October, but all that matters now is that the
Rangers won 6-3. Dave and company were crashing the night in Boston, but Neil and I were going to head
back to his place in Worchester (pronounced Woostah) that night. Not wanting to
leave it on a weird note we all elected to go out for one more beer before
moving on. One beer of course meant two pitchers between the five of us, as
none of us really wanted to hit the road quite yet. Dave had been to a great
bar near Fenway a few years prior and elected that we go there. None of us took
issue with that. Apparently the place Dave had been thinking of originally only
fit about 150 inside; however, the place expanded into three stories, but we
still got our drinks there. The A’s were playing the Los Angeles Angels that
night and as long as I had a television on I was in good shape. About 20
minutes into our time there a group of Rangers fans walked into the bar, and
quite amused at that. I wasn’t in a bickering mood so I kept to the game I was
watching, only moving my head whenever I noticed a large rat scuttle across the
floor. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Dave motioning to me so I got off
of my chair and walked over to listen to what he had to say. “Isn’t that Ian
Kinsler?” he said. I slowly turned my head and made sure to look past the area
he motioned to. “Yup,” he retorted. From this point forward I decided to stand,
mostly because I was curious to see how this was going to pan out. Kinsler was
drinking out of a water bottle and conversing with the group of Rangers fans. I
had gone back to watching the A’s game when I overheard a few of them talking
about my beard. Nothing bad about it, just talking about it. With that, I knew
I had my in. I could tell by his body language that he was ready to bounce, so
as soon as one of the members of the group moved out of the picture, I swooped
in.
“Hey,” I said. “Do you mind if I snap a photo with you?”
This whole exchange was made better by the outfit I was wearing, all Red Sox
gear. “Only because you have an awesome beard I’ll say yes,” said Kinsler. With
everything in motion I handed my phone off to Neil, lifted up my shirt a little
bit and took the photo. Now, the reason I lifted my shirt was to show off the
Rangers tattoo I have. Nothing else weird. Upon doing so; however, Kinsler
looked down after the photo was taken and said, “Wait a minute, I remember you
from Oakland!”
He had spotted me showing off my tattoos prior to throwing out first pitch and
we ended up chatting for a bit longer while all of his friends got photos of
me. Really sweet guy.
#7- This is the guy where I totally blew it and should have
reserved the all-red cap for him. Ivan Rodriguez was signed as a free agent out
of Lind Padron
Rivera High
School in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
in 1988. On June 20, 1991 Rodriguez got called up to the Majors where he made
him MLB debut and played almost everyday from then until the end of the 2002
season. As for the hat; Rodriguez did wear this cap for three seasons; however,
the Rangers wore the all-red cap from 1994-2000 which just so happened to be
his best years with the club. That’s my dilemma. Moving on… In 1991 Rodriguez
finished in fourth place for the ALL Rookie of the Year award, losing to Chuck
Knoblauch. Until 2002, that would be the only year in which he wouldn’t win a
single piece of hardware.
Rodriguez made the All-Star team every season from
1992-2001, not to mention every Gold Glove during that time frame too. In 1997
he finished in 16th place for the AL MVP, in 1996 and 1998 he
finished in 10th place; however, 1999 would be the one year in which
he would take home the prestigious award after batting .332 with 35 home runs
and 113 RBI. The other thing to take into account is that he led the league in
caught stealing percentage (as in him throwing out batters) every year from
1996-2001. After 21 seasons he finally called it quits officially in 2012;
however, his final game was on September 28, 2011.
My connection to him came on the day in which he made his
announcement to retire, April 21. I was asked to write a Top-five list on the
greatest catchers of all-time, something I found to be quite arbitrary
considering that and opinionated piece like that was only going to lead to
trouble and argument. I’ve always preferred to analyze my articles more deeply,
to educate thus negating any mean for argument. For something like this, people
were going to argue no matter what. I, as anyone writing the same list should
have, put Rodriguez on the list at number 3. Besides being a great backstop,
Rodriguez has the most hits all-time for a catcher (2844), not to mention 311
home runs, 1332 RBI and a .296 average. In a nutshell, with one MVP and one
World Series ring to boot, he’ll be a first ballot Hall of Famer. You could
also contest that he is the greatest catcher of all-time, but I think Yogi Berra
will have something to say about that.
#17- Nelson Cruz was originally signed to the New York Mets
as a free agent in 1998, but didn’t make his MLB debut until September 17, 2005
with the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, it sounds weird, but it’s not. The Mets kept
Cruz playing in the Dominican
Republic for three years until trading him
to the A’s in 2000. Cruz played in the Minor League system for the A’s until
2004 when they traded him to the Brewers for Justin Lehr and Keith Ginter. In
2006 the Rangers traded Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, Francisco Cordero and Julian
Cordero for Cruz and Carlos Lee.
Throughout his career Cruz has only made one All-Star game
appearance (2009), but he has been to two World Series. The most iconic of
which was the 2011 Series against the St. Louis Cardinals in which Cruz
misplayed a shot from David Freeze, which could have ended the game, but turned
into a two-run triple. The Cards were then able to win the game with a Freese
home run in extra innings, forcing a decisive Game seven which they won. Blah! Not
being one to just let things go away, I did one of the “jerkiest” things I’ve
ever done; made a hashtag out of it.
My connection to Cruz came on the first game of the 2012
season for the Rangers when Cruz once again misplayed a ball which allowed for
extra bases by the batter. As a result of the Game six of the World Series, and
now this moment, I came up with #NellyCruzed while I was in the Fan Cave.
It has started as a subtle jab, but I then let it loose up other suspecting players
who were guilty of the same defensive misread on the ball. The importance of
this hashtag is that it gave a name to something that should have been marked
as an error but is actually called a base hit despite it being a defensive
mistake. It caught on so much that other Twitter users started using it, and
then commentators started using it, and then MLB Network analysts started using
it until the point where an actual stat was created (defensive misread), but
not actually used… yet. Who could have ever imagined that something so stupid
could spiral into something so big? Actually… I could, as it was merely one of
many things I created which are still being used well into the 2013 season. All
things which I don’t collect a single cent for at that.
I feel a little bad for Cruz, mostly because he's such a pleasant person. He’s a solid hitter, I’ll give him that, but he’s
a pretty fragile dude for as big as he is. He’s off to a stellar 2013 thus far,
hitting .300 with five home runs and 17 RBI. He’s the kind of guy who can
easily hit 30 home runs and knock in 100 or more runs, even though he’s only
done the first half once in his career (33 home runs in 2009). Without Mike
Napoli and Josh Hamilton around to steal his thunder, I don’t see why he can’t
do it. Personally, I hope the best for him. He's great for baseball, great for the Rangers and a whole lotta fun to bust his chops when he comes to Oakland and mixes it up with the right field bleacher crew.
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