As the premier destination on the web for die-hard Ranger fans, I'm curious as to how often LSBers actually get out to Rangers Ballpark throughout the seasons.  It seems game-day threads are always busy, but how many go to games??  I try to get out to as many games as possible, but I think I set a new personal record this year with 14 games!  If you can remember, please post the number of games you've been to this year, and feel free to count any future games you're planning to attend (vs LAA and TB).

It'd be cool to see how die-hard we all really are...

For the record, I'd love to be a season ticket holder, but between games never selling out and my sporadic work schedule, it's just so easy and convenient to buy tickets on game day at the stadium whenever I'm free.

Anyone else at the game tonight know how we redeem our free game at Splitsville Luxury Lanes?  I'm pretty sure they made an announcment that if the rangers scored between 7 and 10 runs ( thus, 8 or 9) everybody in the stadium got a free game of bowling.  Been wanting to check that place out too (in the Highlands), I hear they ever serve sushi.  Sushi and bowling...

Anyway, I can't find anymore info on the promotion from Google.   Anybody?

Anyone play this series?  I don't own a PS3 (yet), but I'm really thinking about buying one when '09 drops in a couple days.  This year's big features are progressive lighting, so you can witness the day progress into night during your evening games.  Also included is a sound editor for creating your own intro music for batters, HR music, and intro reliever music.

Right now I'm compiling a few lists of music that I want playing for my Ranger at-bats.

per ESPN page 2.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=schoenfield/090224_al&sportCat=mlb

Didn't see this posted, though it is 2 days old, so forgive if it's old.  ESPN did a rundown of the all-time 4 players on all the AL franchises.

The Rangers:

Nolan Ryan, Ivan Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez

Choice quote:

"The four greatest players in franchise history (Pudge, Palmeiro, Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez) have all been linked to steroids or rumors of steroids. In other words, this is kind of like building a Mount Rushmore of Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson."

So my brother-in-law is a huge Ranger fan, and I want to get him something nice for Christmas.  He already has Josh Hamilton's book, but I was wondering if there were any other good "Ranger" or baseball books in general.

He's not that big into reading, but if it's something Ranger-related he'd love it. 

Searching online led me to a book called "The History of the Texas Rangers" by
Aaron Frisch.  Has anyone read this, and would you recommend it?  Not even sure I could find it in a metroplex Barnes & Nobles to be honest.

Finally, other gift recommendations are welcome too, but it needs to be something fairly cheap (no more than $30), and I need to be able to buy it in a store as online purchases won't arrive in time.

So a couple weeks ago MLB.tv was running a 5-day free trial.  It was the typical, use your credit card to sign up, and you have 5 days to cancel otherwise you get charged for the remainder of the season.

My brother-in-law and I both signed up for the service, and called the morning of the 5th day and cancelled, being assured by the phone reps that we wouldn't be charged.  Well, today we both looked at our credit card bills and they charged us $29.95.

So to anyone who used the trial and cancelled:  check your bill!!

The Tokyo Giants, that is...He threw a complete game shutout.

I didn't even realize he went to Japan to play, just turned on the TV when I got home and the Hiroshima Carp were playing the Tokyo Giants.  I usually just zone out because Japanese announcers are awful, but the announcers kept saying "Lewis" and "Texas Rangers" so I turned around and sure enough it was the 9th inning and he was finishing up a complete game shutout.

There's a chance I'm misenterpreting the stats (I don't like reading Chinese characters), but I believe his final line was:

9 IP  /  6 hits /  0 BB / 6 K

He threw 105 pitches.

Always nice to see former Rangers finding success.

I wish the local team where I live (Fukuoka Softbank Hawks) had Colby Lewis.  We got CJ Nitkowski instead!

BTW, here's the boxscore if anyone is interested (it's in Japanese):

http://baseball.yahoo.co.jp/npb/live?id=2008050101