68-94 - Rangers end 2022 season with 4-2 victory over Yankees

The Texas Rangers scored four runs while the New York Yankees scored two runs.

Every ounce of brain juice that I have that could possibly form thoughts regarding the 2022 Texas Rangers has been squeezed out after the 162 games that were crammed into a lockout-shortened schedule. I’ve got nothing more left in me.

I’m just happy that the team didn’t lose this game by a single run, as appropriate as that would have been. We get a nice little victory and see the season end on a positive note. That’s pleasant.

Ultimately though, sadder than saying goodbye to a baseball season is saying a bittersweet goodbye to Tom Grieve as a part of our baseball lives.

Eric Nadel is a living legend, there’s no doubt about that. Our Hall of Fame radio man is as brilliantly understated as they come and the unquestioned voice of this team. But I was always a TV guy.

I couldn’t get the Rangers on the radio but I could watch on cable at my grandmother’s house growing up. From a rare Jim Sundberg game to Greg Lucas and Norm Hitzges on HSE to Mark Holtz and then Bill Jones who paired with TAG. Those were the voices that drew me in initially.

I could have easily moved on to other things as a child does while trying out other interests, but the Rangers actually started to get good a handful of seasons after I hopped on thanks mostly to the players that Grieve had brought in during his time as general manager.

October baseball was thrilling but it was fleeting. Eventually, the Rangers were back to as bad as they seemingly had always been.

Enter Josh Lewin.

When Lewin was paired with TAG, something unlocked. Even with the team mired in perpetual embarrassment, Lewin and TAG were so thoroughly enjoyable (with a hat tip to Jim Knox, as well) that I stuck with the team through the lean years and had a blast doing so.

TAG always brought digestible, home spun knowledge and stories to the broadcast but there was always a bit of an edge bubbling just below the surface that no one could bring out like Lewin.

It was that dynamic that made me come to love the Rangers more than any record or achievement could ever do. Sure, I wanted the Rangers to win, but I would tune in just to be entertained by Tom Grieve and Josh Lewin. Sometimes I even got to entertain them and that was really fun.

The Rangers eventually split them up and TAG moved into more of a grandfatherly role in the booth but his presence was always charming and welcome. And now, today, Tom Grieve retires after 50 years in virtually every capacity imaginable with this franchise. That’s a unfathomable feat — made all the more impossible by the fact that it’s this franchise — that I can’t imagine we ever come close to seeing something like this again.

The world doesn’t allow for Tom Grieves to happen very often so it was special to have him.

Player of the Game: Glenn Otto finished the 2022 season with a nice outing where he went six innings and allowed two runs on just four hits and two walks with five strikeouts. Bonus points for it to come against the team that traded him last summer.

Up Next: A long, cold winter.