Day of Rangers

I grew up in the wonderful city of Arlington Texas.  Some people will try to call Arlington a suburb of Fort Worth or Dallas, but come on man, it has almost 400,000 people living in its invisible boundaries.  My dad was a general manager for Winn Dixie, a now defunct grocery store chain.  One of the perks of being a manger was his relationship with vendors.

You see, vendors have the hookups.  We got some pretty sweet stuff, almost weekly.  We'd get bicycles, sweet 90s puffy sports jackets, shirts, luggage, pens and pencils, toys...all with "Nabisco" or "Frity Lay" or "Dr Pepper" on the side...all for free.  Ever see those giveaway things at the grocery store?  Enter to win things?  Well, they usually gave one away to the public and one away to the manager.  We'd also get free tickets to things.  Most vendors had a boss who had season tickets to the local sporting events.  They would exchange these free corporate goodies and tickets for premiere shelf space for their product...hello endcap!

So, growing up, we'd usually go to one or two professional sporting events a month.  They were usually tickets to see the Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars, Fort Worth Fire (minor league hockey), Dallas Mavericks (rarely), and Dallas Cowboys (once).  I grew up with a big love for these teams.  Not only that, but my Mom's family were huge Texas Rangers fans since they came to Arlington in the 70s.  In fact, I'm named after the Rangers' catcher Jeff Burroughs.

I've been a fan of all these teams since I can remember understanding sports...around 1992ish.  In that time, the Rangers had some big players (Nolan Ryan, Rueben Sierra, Juan Gonzalez...and others), but they weren't that great.  I remember going to my first Mavericks game around that time...that year, they tied the Timberwolves for the worst record in the NBA.  The Cowboys were winning.  When the Minnesota North Stars came to Dallas in 1993, they were immediately successful.

I've stuck with these teams through the good and the bad.  3 Superbowl wins, 1 NHL championship, 1 NBA Championship, a few AL West Pennants...but the Rangers are the only team that haven't finished the year as "World" Champions.  That could change tonight.  I really want them to win.  I think they can win, but St. Louis has been a tough place for them to play (granted, we only have 2 games of evidence).

Will you please join me in rooting for the Texas Rangers tonight?  Churches do Super Bowl parties...I'm tempted to throw out the material tonight and do a World Series party!  Pray for me tonight so that I don't get super distracted and that I can focus on the gospel and not baseball.  We may have a spontaneous prayer service tonight...for the Rangers, haha.