Subject: New York Mets

• Strong Arm? We Shall See.

  November 13, 2006

• Mario Brothers, Meet Bill Buckner

  April 14, 2006

• Texas Rangers '08 Schedule Released -- We'll Be In Last By April 7!

  November 13, 2007

• Reading the Mitchell Report, Way Too Quickly, So You Don't Have To

  December 13, 2007

• New Dallas Cowboys Book To Be Full of "Dynamic Characters" and "Lots of Misbehavior"

  January 25, 2008

• Your Texas Rangers Are Bidding on Hosting the 2015 All-Star Game

  January 28, 2008

• Three Dots and a Cloud Of Dust …

  February 13, 2008

• Texas Rangers Making Contingency Plans In Case This Uptick is a Mirage

  May 8, 2008

• Just How Did Josh Hamilton Wind Up the Texas Rangers' Savior, Anyway?

  June 2, 2008

• Sure, the Rangers Are Fun and All. But There's Still Some Fixin' To Do.

  July 30, 2008

• Be like Mike

  Amidst so much business talk, Michael Irvin remembers that it's all just a game

  August 5, 1999

• Cowboys About to Get Farked Over

  This morning, I sort of casually mentioned that Your Dallas Cowboys had come up with one of the worst ideas in the history of goodbyes: allowing fans to choose the last song ever played over the Texas Stadium public address system following the Ravens game. That's the ballot pictured above -- and, yes, those are the actual official choices. Well, as has been pointed out to me repeatedly this morning, the New York Mets did something similar for the final Opening Day game ever played at Shea Stadi

  December 15, 2008

• A Christmas List for Jon Daniels

  Here in The Sportatorium, every now and then we like to talk baseball. I mean hard-core, balls-and-strikes baseball. By "every now and then" I mean this morning. And by "we", of course, I mean seamhead colleague Sam Merten. Sam, the floor is yours: For those of you distracted by Sean Avery's antics, the format change at Live 105.3 FM and the drama at Valley Ranch, Rangers' GM Jon Daniels and his colleagues spent most of last week in Las Vegas for baseball's Winter Meetings. Daniels has be

  December 18, 2008

• Wrapping Up Jon Daniels' Third Year As Rangers GM

  Armando Galaragga was the only thing of value Jon Daniels was able to get from the Alfonso Soriano trade. Then he gave him away for a player the Rangers released. Whoops. You want more hot-stove baseball talk from Sam? Merry Christmas ... As mentioned yesterday, Jon Daniels is entering his fourth year as general manager. He started off with a bang in year one, trading Alfonso Soriano in his first move and dealing Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez less than two weeks later. Unfortunately, he re

  December 19, 2008

• The World's Top 10 Left-Handed Athletes

  Right is wrong and left is ... right? Seems to be. It's not exactly a bass-ackward revolution, but left-handers are doing okay for themselves in sports these days. Or are they? The idea struck me last week when I saw highlights of college quarterbacks Josh Heupel and Matt Leinart winning BCS National Championship Games. They disappeared = Bad. Then I watched this year's game and saw Florida's Tim Tebow will his Gators to a title. He's one of the best players in the history of college football&n

  January 14, 2009

• Damned Rangers

  August 22, 1996

• Here's the pitch

  November 6, 1997

• So ... Will the Sheets Hit The Fan?

  With the New York Mets signing Oliver Perez, the Texas Rangers' chances of landing free-agent pitcher Ben Sheets just got stronger. Likewise, their radio signal for 2009 is also beefed up. The announcement that Rangers' weekday games will be broadcast on 105.3 The Fan means that 110 of Texas' 162 will be in crystal clear, high-definition radio on a 100,000-watt signal that can be heard from Waco beyond the Red River. KRLD 1080 AM, which has broadcast the Rangers' games on its 50,000-watt si

  February 4, 2009

• Stopped short

  March 5, 1998

• A bush league of their own

  May 21, 1998

• The spring of our discontent

  March 25, 1999

• The Fandom Menace

  April 15, 1999

• The new old sound

  April 22, 1999

• 10 Questions: Kenny Bowers

  Tom JenkinsBowers (left) with his vodka-pouring bartenders in a 2006 photoHe is synonymous with seafood in this market, having been associated with, oh, Daddy Jack's and Rockfish and Big Fish Little Fish before opening his own multi-purpose place, Kenny's Wood Fired Grill.Recently the Boston native added a new bar space (banking on the cougar image to attract the right crowd) and Kenny's Burger Joint in Frisco. So he's been busy.Bowers came to Dallas way, way back--so long ago the Cowboys still

  March 24, 2009

• New-Look Rangers!

  Kris Benson made the Rangers' roster. Safe to say his wife will show up on a couple of lists in the very near future.Okay, now I'm intrigued. For all the Texas Rangers' promise of a better future, yesterday they made moves geared at providing fans an improved today. I squawked last week about the Rangers not being serious - much less serious contenders - if they trotted out really average re-runs like Frank Catalanotto and Scott Feldman. Well, lookie here, Feldman was shove

  April 2, 2009

• Hatin' On Pinstripes

  August 7, 2008

• Can Nolan Ryan Save the Texas Rangers? Again?

  March 13, 2008

• Odds & Ends

  What good would a 20-year punk scene reunion be without a scuffle?

  August 17, 2006

• The Young and the Peerless

  Baseball's best-kept secret plays in your backyard

  July 20, 2006

• Helluva Swing

  Game 6 redeems Michael Keaton after he almost fouled out

  April 13, 2006

• Doogie Howser, G.M.

  A young dog teaches the Rangers to forget old tricks

  February 16, 2006

• Balls Out

  How to throw a no-hitter on acid, and other lessons from the career of baseball legend Dock Ellis

  June 16, 2005

• Hart Attack

  Everybody loves a winner? Tell it to Rangers GM John Hart.

  March 17, 2005

• The Right's Stuff

  A Texas-based band of conservative warriors tackles the left on its own turf--the street

  September 9, 2004

• Rained Out

  No refunds, Rangers fans, even though the dark clouds of the A-Rod trade threaten the entire season

  March 18, 2004

• White Heat

  As a white player on a black baseball team, C.C. Risenhoover saw both sides of the racial divide

  April 3, 2003

• Fantasy League

  Bill Rossell had two dreams: owning a bar and running a baseball team. The first dream came true. The second is about to. Somebody wake him.

  June 21, 2001

• Push the Panic Button

  The Rangers have their worst season in years. The reaction? Ho hum, wait till next year.

  October 5, 2000

• Broad band

  Dennis Quaid and James Caviezel ham it up as a father and son reuniting via radio in Frequency

  April 27, 2000

• Whitt's End: 5.15.09

  Whether you're at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt's End: *Of the Texas Rangers' hot start - they are 20-14 compared to 14-20 last year - the most amazing feat is pitcher Matt Harrison's back-to-back complete games. If you're looking for Nolan Ryan's stamp on this team, there it is. The Rangers had only five complete games last year and none in '07. Ryan, who had six complete games for the Rangers as a 42-year-old and once threw 239 pitches in a gam

  May 15, 2009

• Neftali Feliz: Deal or No Deal?

  Mark GrahamShould Feliz and his 100 mph-plus heater be headed to Arlington or Toronto?While Ian Kinsler's bat - the first player with both a lead-off and walk-off homer in the same game - last night gave the Texas Rangers a momentary pulse, let's talk about the future of a dominant arm down on the farm. Sam, take it away ... On his blog yesterday, ESPN's Buster Olney made the case for the Blue Jays to deal ace Roy Halladay before the trade deadline if GM J.P. Ricciardi wants to maximize the

  July 20, 2009

• Yeah, But What If Baseball Went To The European Football Table?

  I know the Texas Rangers swept the previously mighty Boston Red Sox and we're all atwitter about the American League West division race heading into August ... September ... maybe even October? But what if baseball were governed according to, say, European football standards? You know, the top teams rewarded with international play and/or advancement and the worst facing relegation to the league below. I can see the initial extended excitement. Actually a reason to watch Pirates-Nationals a

  July 23, 2009

• American Baseball, the European Way

  ​Even if European soccer owner Tom Hicks convinced Major League Baseball to inject the same screwy tables that govern soccer into America's pasttime your Texas Rangers wouldn't be a playoff team. But, alas, they wouldn't be relegated, either. If baseball were run according to European soccer standards--top teams earning international play (or advancement, in the case of minor league squads), the worst facing relegation to the league below--the woeful Pirates, Orioles and Nats would be pla

  October 8, 2009