I'm doing the morning post today because Ben t-boned a motorist last night. He's doing OK but a man who just wiggled from from the grasp of Death has better things to do than read baseball articles.
The big news this morning is of the Rangers supplementing their income by selling the naming rights to The Ballpark for the first time since the ill-fated union with Ameriquest last decade.
I'm writing this at 1 a.m. so if whichever company now sponsoring The Ballpark has been leaked by the time this posts, so be it. Otherwise, the Rangers have set a press conference for 11 a.m. to announce The Ballpark's new name. My guess? Conair Park in Arlington. Nothing evokes The Ballpark like a hair dryer to the face.
Evan Grant's guess? Samsung. Grant has talked about the Rangers selling the park naming rights so much this offseason that I think we can give him points for calling it.
Drew Davison has a blog post up about the naming rights news and includes a brief history of the various names of our favorite baseball stadium.
Richard Durrett continues his Spring Training preview with a look at skipper Ron Washington WHO IS A LAME DUCK BY THE W... sorry, I had to wrestle the keyboard away from Gerry Fraley there.
T.R. Sullivan offers a couple of notes in his now-dusty Notebook about Suk-Min Yoon's workout for the Rangers yesterday and Russell Wilson's spring plans.
On Wilson, Durrett writes that the Super Bowl winning second base prospect hasn't come down from his cloud yet to talk spring plans for now.
Also from Durrett, should Wilson actually make it to Surprise, he'll get the opportunity to take grounders with position-mate Rougned Odor. More importantly, however, Odor gets to see how Jurickson Profar, Elvis Andrus, and Adrian Beltre get after it.
Grant has more on Yoon's bullpen session which also included scouts from the Cubs. Maybe Yoon is the fruit that will bear from transforming The Ballpark into Boudreaux's Butt Paste Ballpark in Arlington...
Jeff Wilson shares this interesting read on the abject poverty many Latin J2 players are plucked from before signing with a Major League team.
Finally, if you're a nerd and want to work in baseball, David Appelman of Fangraphs shares a job opportunity with the Rangers who are looking for a Programmer Analyst within the Baseball Operations.