I don't know if anyone got a chance to go to the Texas Rangers Mid-Winter Banquet last night, but it was a pretty well put together event. 

Before I go into my observations from the evening, I wanted to mention a conversation I had with Chuck Morgan while waiting for the valets to bring our cars around last night. 

I was standing next to him and the conversation went very close to this:

JS: Chuck, are you excited about what Mr. Greenburg is going to let you do at the park next year?

CM:  (eyes light up like a kid in a candy store) Yes!  We had a meeting yesterday and he asked me what I wanted, so I told him! (BIG GRIN)

JS:  That's Great!  I am a big fan of what you do at the ballpark!

CM:  Well, it's about to get a LOT better!

You could really see the excitement in his eyes and hear it in his voice... AWESOME!

After the jump are some highlights:

The Good:

• Martin Perez won the Minor League Pitcher of the Year.  Since he doesn't speak English well (or at all?), Elvis Andrus came up to translate.  Martin went on for about 2 minutes without pausing to let Elvis translate and Elvis finally had to stop him... I know you had to be there to see the humor, but you could really feel Elvis' personality there.
• Eric Nadel (who also understands Spanish really well) told us afterwards that Martin had said that Elvis should have won ROY, but Elvis was too modest to translate that part.  That to me just shows the character of the 21-year old.
• I have to admit that I don't know much about Norm Lyons the Rangers' VP of Community Relations, but I definitely need to learn more about him.  He sure does seem like the epitome of good guyness. 
  
• They brought up T.R. Sullivan to present Michael Young with Player of the Year, but he called up the mother of Carson Leslie.  Carson is the kid that MY became friends with via Wipe Out Kids' Cancer.  There have been a ton of news articles about their friendship.  Anyway, Carson died at 17 a couple of weeks ago.  Being a parent, I couldn't imagine being able to function at all after losing a child, much speaking in public 2 weeks after the fact.  It was a very touching moment and I got choked up.
• If I were using solely social polish to choose the 25th man... Craig Gentry (Minor League Defender of the Year) would be on the team... he was oozing with charm... plus he has a cannon of an arm.
• It was awesome hearing Chuck Morgan's voice telling us to find our table as we were entering.  Very comfortable.

The Bad: 

• I actually always liked reading Jim Reeves.  They had a roast for him last night consisting of Jim Kern, Tom Grieve, Gil Lebreton, and Dale Hanson.  Those guys should stick to their day jobs... well except Hanson who was actually pretty funny.
• I LOVE Eric Nadel... but he shouldn't do comedy.  He should do baseball.  
• Justin Smoak needs an interview coach.  Man I love him being a Ranger... but his posture / speaking leave a lot to be desired.

The only other observation I will leave you with is that Neftali Feliz' earrings had to be 3 karats each.  He would turn his head and it looked like a spotlight was shining down from the head table.

Well, I know I missed some stuff, so hopefully everyone will add their observations below.