My trip to RBiA (Complete with pictures)

Well, I finally made it to my first Texas Rangers game at RBiA in over ten years. I bought my tickets over three weeks ago, and was hoping to get to see a home game among 30,000+ Rangers fans, like I'd been seeing on TV over the past few months. Unfortunately, the weather kept a good number of fans away from the Ballpark the night I was there, and while there was still a decent crowd on hand it was far from the large crowds we've become accustomed to this season.

After the jump you'll find my full account of my experiences at the game, as well as some other observations about being back in North Texas this time of year. You'll also find around 30 or so pictures that I took, and a link to the full album.

Click on all photos for a full view.

My Texas trip started with a five day jaunt out to the Texas Panhandle. My dad and I wanted to visit some old drive-in movie theatres that are still operating out there. We're also on a mission to document every single county court house in Texas (don't ask why, we just are), so we spent about four days criss crossing across the panhandle, going from abandoned farm town to abandoned farm town. We also spent a full day at Palo Duro Canyon, which was incredible. They pretty much just let roam where you please inside the canyon, which led to me making my way out to a fairly secluded precipice out on a canyon "peninsula".

Perhaps the coolest part of the trip however, was the incredible lightning storm we got to witness rolling across the plains. We stopped on the side of the road about 5-6 miles south of the storm front, and amidst 40 mph wind gusts I took about 300 pictures of lightning. Here are but a few.

After making it back to Dallas, I was intent on heading to Six Flags. Like RBiA, I hadn't been in a very long time and was anxious to make it while I was home. I wasn't looking forward to waiting in line for hours in the exhaustive Texas heat but I need not have worried. The combination of the threat of severe weather (extremely severe, as it turns out) and a weekday made for a very pleasant Six Flags experience. I think the total wait time for any roller coaster while we were there was around five minutes. Max. Most times we just walked up and hopped on the ride. We were able to ride every major roller coaster three times, while riding the Titan four. Incredible.

The next night (Thursday night, final game against Toronto), was the Rangers game. Once again sever weather was threatening and the crowd was fairly sparse at the Ballpark. I would say that at 6:45, there were barely 1,000 people in their seats. But the place started to fill up as soon as the game started, and I would guess there were around 20,000 people actually in attendance by the end of the game.

On the Ballpark itself: After spending the past few years attending games at Fenway, Shea and Yankee Stadium, I had forgotten just how nice RBiA was. Very roomy, plenty of space on the concourses and the seats weren't too cramped. They even had cupholders!! The food was fairly priced, although beer was it's usual expensive self. The garlic fries I had were marvelous, but the complementary "jumbo" hot dog that came with our seats was disgusting. What the hell happened to the Ballpark Franks?

We had seats in Section 39, along the first base side. GREAT seats, great sightlines to the game and they were only $25, since we bought them as part of a group. The new screens around the park are great, and really add a new dimension to watching the game at RBiA that wasn't there before.

I also stopped by the pro shop, and bought a Hamilton t-shirt and two hats for around $55 total. Not too bad, relatively speaking. I was tempted to purchase a $125 replica jersey, but I'd already spent too much money on my trip to justify. Maybe a Christmas present sometime in the future.

As for the game itself, pretty boring. The Texas offense was hacking and Millwood was outstanding. What's funny, is it didn't feel like a dominating pitching performance, since he wasn't striking out anyone until his last batter. But in the 8th inning, when he left he was given a very rousing salute by the crowd and it was good to see Milly give a nice hat tip back. MY made a sweet play at third, Kinsler had a few nice snags but Elvis..oh...Elvis.

He's smooth to watch on television, but he is ELECTRIC to watch in person. The crowd loved him, and the catch he made in foul territory was just sick. Sick. He came completely out of nowhere. And that play he made at the end of the game was far from routine. So smooth.

I did have one gripe about the night. This is my one chance to see the Rangers play at home, with fellow Rangers fans around me and the first time I've been at the ballpark in years. I was set on having a good, memorable experience and set on taking tons of pictures. About ten minutes before the game started, a family walked in and sat in the row in front of us. Not unexpected, especially since our section was actually pretty packed. Yet this family consisted of the Grandma, Granddad, Mom, Dad and 2 year old kid. The Grandma was wearing a GIANT straw sun hat, and the mom was wearing close to nothing. All of them were obviousl from....rural...areas. Nothing wrong with that either.

Except they never sat still. Not once. They must have gotten up to get snacks and drinks at least 20 times during the game, and 20 more times stood up to buy beer and snacks from the vendors walking the aisles. The kid never sat still, was moaning and crying the entire time and whining for more, more, more candy and soda and his mom never stopped yelling at him. Just flat out yelling. So then he cried some more. The grandparents were hammered by the time the 5th inning rolled around, and were constantly on the lookout for the beer guy. They also went and smoked (the whole family) about 6-7 times during the game. I felt bad for the couple sitting at the end of their row, who must have had to stand to let them by near a hundred times by the time the game was over.

Did I mention that not once during the entire night did they even attempt to pay attention to the game. Not once. Not even a bit, other than occasional drunken slur: "I thought that was a strike". I am all for families going to see baseball games. In fact, a baseball game is perhaps the best sport to take your family to. But if you go, please please please at least try and pay attention to the game.

While it didn't ruin my exprience, it certainly marred it a bit. Kinda likelast year at my lone Cowboys game at Texas Stadium, when the guy sitting next to me puked tequila all over the three rows in front of us.

Anyways, I had a blast. I can't wait to come back. When I move back to Dallas, I'll definitely be attending at least one home game a week.

Here are the best of the pictures.

You can also find my full album here.