Thoughts of Joy

I first started posting on Rangers boards on the internet in July, 2000, when the Rangers were hoping to win their 4th division title in 5 years.

I started my old Blogspot Rangers blog in December, 2003.

I moved that blog over to Lone Star Ball in April, 2005.

More than once during that time, I wondered about the timing of my jumping into the sports interwebs, and how the Rangers had failed to make the playoffs once I started interacting about them in cyberspace. More than once, I wondered if I was going to give up blogging and move on to something else before the Rangers made it back to the postseason.

It has been 11 years since the Rangers were in the playoffs. I had just started the first semester of my first year of law school the last time the Rangers clinched. I certainly had no idea it was going to be 11 years before they made it back to the playoffs.

This team can be frustrating, maddening, infuriating...but it is also a team that I, at least, absolutely love watching, and love being a fan of.

It is a young, exciting team that has overcome a hell of a lot of obstacles this year. The ownership situation. Injuries that have sidelined the team's three best hitters for significant periods of time. The Ron Washington cocaine admission in spring training. The team's #1 and #2 starters flopping and, ultimately, getting bumped from the starting rotation. Having the front office be hamstrung in terms of its ability to add salary. Another slow start to the season.

And yet, through all that, after the first month of the season, the Rangers spent virtually all year in first place. They had opportunities to fall apart, they sometimes looked like they were falling apart, but time and again, they pulled it together and got it back on track.

We're having playoff baseball in Arlington again, and whatever happens in October, this has been a special, magical year.

We are lucky to be fans of this team, and to have gotten to experience the 2010 Texas Rangers season.