Our Texas Rangers

The World Series starts tonight. And our Texas Rangers are playing. I still can't believe it!

I grew up in a family of sports fans. Some of my earliest memories are eating Thanksgiving dinner between the Detroit and Dallas games, watching college football games on New Years, and listening to Texas Rangers games on the radio. In the summer of 1976 I can remember our family going to a Ranger game to sit in the bleachers. The unusual thing about that trip? It even included my baby sister who was only a few weeks old!

All that to say: we are not bandwagon Rangers fans. I had a t-shirt replica of that old baby blue jersey. I was a card-carrying member of Jim Sundberg’s Junior Rangers. We had bats from bat night. T-shirts from t-shirt night. Gloves from glove night. For our family of six, we could sit in the bleachers and take our own food and have a fun family night that didn’t cost much. (I don’t think I had anything from the concession stand until I was an adult!)

When my husband, a huge fan of baseball in general, arrived in Texas, he immediately became a Rangers fan, joining a group at work with season tickets. We attended the opening day at The Ballpark, me more often in the bathroom than in my seat since I was newly pregnant with my third child. (Maybe that’s why baseball is his favorite game.) We won the lottery draw for the seats to the All-Star Game played there, too. We even attended one of the ill-fated playoff games in the 90s.

As our children got busier and we moved further from the stadium, we gave up our seats, but that didn’t change our love for the Rangers, our hope every spring that this would be the year. And now it is. Such a sweet victory for a life-long Ranger fan and her twenty-three year Ranger fan spouse. The only thing better: A World Series win.

Let’s go, Rangers!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

There are many good places for people watching. But few places afford such prolonged instances of people listening than a baseball game. Think about it. You sit in close proximity with many strangers for anywhere from three to four hours, with only occasional demands on your attention. Because even if you love it, you have to admit that baseball is a slow game. Sometimes very little happens. So people talk.

As a writer, I need times to people listen. It helps my dialogue writing, in tone, implication, word choices and cadence. It helps my characterizations, for there are so many different kinds of people and I can learn so much about them by the things that come out of their mouths. It can also help my plotting, for you can’t imagine some of the outrageous stories people relate to each other in the midst of a crowd of strangers.

For a multi-tasker like me, that makes a baseball game the perfect activity. I can be with my husband and kids doing something they enjoy. I can appreciate the action of the game. And in the lulls, I can listen to those around me and spin out situations and characters that might someday find their way into my stories, even if only in fragments.

So will this make you think twice the next time you have a conversation in the midst of a crowd? Writers’ ears are lurking everywhere! And for me, the ballpark scores a homerun on nearly every visit!

The Young and the Older

Since I live with a lifelong baseball fan, we have been watching Stephen Strasburg’s debut as a pitcher in the major leagues. If you aren’t a sports fan, let me give you a recap. Strasburg is a 21-year-old pitcher who has had phenomenal stats in the minor leagues and was brought up last week to pitch for the Washington Nationals. And he did not disappoint. In his debut, he pitched 7 innings, struck out 14, and walked 0.

But what I love about his story is not that he came in and performed as expected. It is a much smaller piece of the puzzle—and it involves two of my favorite baseball players of all time.

When the Nationals brought up this young guy, they wanted to pair him with a veteran catcher. They chose 38-year-old Pudge Rodriguez. Pudge came to the big leagues in 1991, as a highly touted 19-year-old catcher for the Texas Rangers. Even now, with almost 20 years in the majors under his belt, I’m sure Pudge remembers very well the kind of pressure attached to one so young and talented. And I’m sure he also remembers the value of a veteran player paired with a rookie in the battery.

In 1991, the rookie Pudge caught the 44-year-old Nolan Ryan—who also threw a 14 strike out game that year! (Which, to me, is as amazing a feat as one pitched by a young guy.) Of course I can’t say for sure that Nolan Ryan, even indirectly, influenced some of the calm and maturity Pudge brings to Stasburg, but given the character of both those guys, I’d say it’s a safe bet.

And isn’t that cool? Young guys learning from those that have had longevity. And two players toward the end of their careers not threatened by the attention surrounding the up-and-coming.

But then the Bible tells us that this is the way it should be. The older realizing they still have something to give by telling the younger generation of the faithfulness of the Lord, by encouraging them as they begin their journey through life. The younger ones understanding and embracing the value in the experience of those who have lived longer on this earth. And it proves yet again that illustrations of the truths of God can come from even the most unlikely of places!

Vintage Baseball Game

We went to a vintage baseball game yesterday. They played by the rules of baseball from the 1860s. Yes, you read that right. 1860s, like during the Civil War.

It was fascinating, really, like watching baby movies of a grown up you know. You see bits and pieces of the person that is familiar to you, and yet it is so very different.

How was it different? For one thing, they didn’t use gloves or any other protective equipment! The ball was a bit bigger and softer than it is now, but playing baseball with your bare hands isn’t easy—especially for the catcher! Because of that, the rules were a bit different than now. A ball could be caught for an out not only straight from the air, but also on one bounce! That included foul balls and foul tips.

The pitcher had a bit more leeway then. Besides pitching underhand, no count of balls was kept. The official only called strikes when the batter swung and missed. Even foul balls weren’t counted as strikes!

Of the two teams we watched play, one regularly plays in these types of games and one was formed for this event. It took the newbies a couple of innings to get the hang of things, but they did. And it really was fun to watch. Our hometown rookies even ended up winning by one run in the ninth inning.

If you enjoy baseball and ever get a chance to see a vintage game, I highly recommend it. It isn’t often you get to “experience” a bit of history, so take advantage of it when you can.