Subject: Oakland Athletics

• Batters' Uppers

  March 19, 2009

• Zito Finito

  December 28, 2006

• Wake Me Up, Before You Zi-to

  December 13, 2006

• Washington Monument

  November 6, 2006

• The Lone Ranger

  October 11, 2006

• How the West Was Lost (Hint: It Rhymes With "Suck")

  August 24, 2006

• Hello Cowboys, Goodbye Rangers

  July 27, 2006

• Root, Root, Root for the Home Team

  April 17, 2006

• Balls of Fury

  August 23, 2007

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

  November 13, 2007

• Arm-Chair Managing in the Hours Before Ron Washington's Fired

  April 25, 2008

• A Move Tom Hicks Can Be Proud Of? Believe It

  May 7, 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

• The Texas Rangers Are in the World Series! Sort Of!

  October 22, 2008

• Unlucky Luis

  All-Star Tuesday should have been a great one for Rangers second baseman Alicea

  July 13, 2000

• 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

• Damned Rangers

  August 22, 1996

• Hammered

  February 26, 1998

• Out There

  May 28, 1998

• Do over

  July 9, 1998

• Night & Day

  September 17, 1998

• Best Public Sculpture

  September 26, 2002

• Back Back Back: Un-enhanced Performance with Too Many Errors

  Audience Adds New Wrinkle to Raisin in the Sun

  March 26, 2009

• Texas Rangers' Up and Comers

  After a decade of patience, Rangers' fans again believe they're about to be rewarded

  January 29, 2009

• Status Woe

  Insane Rangers again take similar path to identical destination

  October 2, 2008

• Texas Rangers Have Given Their Fans Something to Cheer About, Entering June With The Second Best Record in Baseball.

  June 4, 2009

• Washington Monument

  New Rangers manager injects hope and, yep, even optimism in Arlington

  February 8, 2007

• Hardball

  Will the Rangers strike out against Jennie Bueno?

  November 9, 2006

• Blame Game

  The Buck passes as Rangers go riches to rags

  September 1, 2005

• Monkey Business

  Buzz picks a few nits with the year that was

  December 30, 2004

• Best Chair Throw

  Frank Francisco, Texas Rangers

  October 14, 2004

• Cheer Up

  Rangers fans must remember this: It coulda been worse

  September 16, 2004

• This Week's Day-By-Day Picks

  June 19, 2003

• Dog Days

  Summer is here, which means the Rangers must be in last place

  June 19, 2003

• Play Bargain

  Lots of ball for less bling

  April 3, 2003

• White Heat

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

  April 3, 2003

• Positive reinforcement

  The Rangers and their fans continue to see the team's glass as half full

  June 29, 2000

• Like A Baseball Movie, Minus the Sap: Half Nelson Filmmakers Pour Out Some Sugar

  Sugar follows Miguel "Sugar" Santos through a Major League Baseball recruiting operation, from his home in the Dominican Republic to a minor-league season in an IowaRyan Fleck and Anna Boden's debut Half Nelson was one of the highlights of 2006, a nuanced look at a young teacher in an inner-city school who dismantled the inspirational teacher-movie cliches with just a toke of his crack pipe.The writer-director team's next film, Sugar, gives the same hard-nosed, heartfelt treatment to the story o

  April 24, 2009

• Rangers Survive April, and The Aporkalypse

  Dude is touching 57 on the gun today. Wow.Regardless the outcome of this afternoon's pitching duel between Vicente Padilla and Bobby Bragan, it's already - I'm sorry, I'm being told the Oakland pitcher is actually Dallas Braden - a successful April for the Texas Rangers. Not only has Texas not had any players succumb to the international flu epigdemic - click here to see if you 'fraidy cats been infected - it will make it out of the season's first month with its best record since 2006. An

  April 30, 2009

• Whitt's End: 5.29.09

  Whether you're at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt's End: *Trust me, you'll be elated if David McDavid buys the Texas Rangers. Biggest reason: His dream is not to make more money, but to own a championship sports franchise in the Metroplex. *One of the things McDavid would change, guaranteed: You could wear a "Yankees Suck!" T-shirt to the ballpark. Gawd, we're so over-sensitive, politically correct, soft, safe and silly. It's embarrassing. If "suck" was

  May 29, 2009

• Whitt's End: 6.26.09

  Whether you're at the end of your rope of merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt's End: *Ventured down to the Mavs' draft last night and it was ... sad. Not the selection of Rodrigue Beaubois - though underwhleming - but more the lack of buzz. I remember when a much worse Mavs' organization/team could attract 7,500 to Reunion Arena for a draft party. Last night's official "party" consisted of probably 50 patrons and three ManiAACs at the makeshift Chili's on the corner of t

  June 26, 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

• Feliz Navidad!

  Ladies and gentlemen, the future. Well, at least part of it.​And now you know why I didn't exactly shed a tear that the Texas Rangers decided against acquiring Roy Halladay in exchange for a package that included one Neftali Feliz. In a word: WOW! Merry Christmas, Rangers fans. The 21-year-old righty made a spectacular Major League debut last night in what turned out to be a kick-to-the-crotch 3-2 loss to the Oakland A's, striking out the first four batters he faced and routinely touchi

  August 4, 2009

• Marty Be Freaky. Marty Be Funny. Marty Be Good.

  When he's not busy being all weird and great, he's even trying to improve his blocking. ​To my eyes, second-year tight end Martellus Bennett is the early star of training camp. And I'm not just saying that because he stole the show with his impromptu rapping at The Dallas Observer Music Awards last month. He's making all of us in San Antonio forget about Marty B TV and his getting fined for one profane video and causing a ruckus with another black stereotype off

  August 4, 2009

• Texas Rangers: Soar, Then Stoop

  Some days the Rangers seem legit; others full of saline.​Got this "friend" named Newy Scruggs. He has his theory that the Texas Rangers "play well against the big boys." Hogwash I'd tell him, until the Rangers took two of three against the Angels last weekend. Then I watch Texas last night and - yep - I'm starting to embrace all sides of Newy's thesis. Including the flip-side which mandates that while the Rangers play up to their competition, they also stoop down to it. Evidence: Indian

  August 12, 2009

• Neftali Feliz is a fireballin’ pitching phenom who has brought the surprising Texas Rangers Christmas in September.

  September 10, 2009

• Batter Up

  September 10, 2009

• The Rangers May Be Out But They Are Not Down--Not Come Next April

  October 8, 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