Busy Monday -- Rangers Still Winless Since We've Been Here

So yesterday was a long day, starting a little earlier than needed, as previously mentioned, since we got out to the fields for BP at 10 AM and learned they don't practice that early on days that they have evening games (which just so happens to be 3 of the 5 Rangers games we will catch while out here). So around 2 PM we made our way back out to the fields again. Below is a picture of one of the streets we take to get out to the fields...




Each time we drive down this road I feel like I should see the big letters H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D on the mountian ahead. Especially since we also see a lot of big palm trees all around...





Whelp, it turned out that 2 PM was exactly the time we needed to get there because as we got over to the big leaguers fields the players were just trotting over to the large workout open field for stretching and warm-ups. We were able to get a few autographs of the "big" names as they headed over to the field to begin workout: Nelson Cruz, Elvis Andrus, & Jarrod Saltalamachia.








BP was good...it was in the mid-afternoon hours, so it was real sunny and I got a little sun on the lowerhalf of my face (thanks hat and sunglasses...HA!), but it was fun! Other autographs I got while at BP included David Murphy, Derek Holland, Chris Davis, Kevin Richardson, & Brandon McCarthy.



Gametime was at 6 PM versus the Giants. I was excited that I was going to get to see Julio Borbon play for the first time since being out in Phoenix (as he was in the split squad game we weren't at on Sunday afternoon). Julio Borbon is one of my favorites, and I just know that barring injury, he will have a 30 stolen base season! Can't wait to see how many double steals him and Elvis will put up during the season with Borbon batting 1st and Elvis 9th...they will wreak havoc!



Here is Julio warming up before the game...

[That's Julio with another of my favorites...Brandon Boggs!!]

Overall the game wasn't a great one. Rangers lost again...8-5. Josh Hamilton got hit by a pitch on his hand, so he left the game early. About the only highlight for the Rangers from the game was Nelson Cruz' homerun. Below are a few pictures of him playing toss between innings.

During the game my friend got a couple text messages and calls from people who were apparently watching the game on the cable channel it was being broadcast on back in Dallas. They must have done a camera shot of Rich Harden leaving the game and signing a few autographs because my friend was in that shot. Overall, with the loss, most the guys obviously weren't to interested in signing autographs, but still some of the great young minor leaguers who finished the game signed some autographs on the way out, so we picked up a Craig Gentry, Marcus Lemon, and Mitch Moreland autograph.

As for today it is an easy, low-key type of day. After the long day yesterday, the easier day is welcomed today -- hey, it's vacation, we are supposed to take it easy some...HA! Today the Rangers are playing the Chicago Cubs and since they Rangers stadium is on the far west side of Phoenix and the Cubs is on the far east side of Phoenix, we figured it wouldn't be worth going to BP this morning because they only let the public in at 10 AM and we figured the players wouldn't be around much later then then because they'd have to get going across town for the 1 PM start. So today we're just catching the 1 PM game at the Cubs stadium. The Cubs stadium was the one we went to last year and spent about an hour driving around trying to find it and then ended up getting pulled over for making a right turn at an intersection that was a no-right-on-red intersection...opps! Well the cop was nice and only gave us a warning. Here's to hoping we don't get pulled over today...HA!

Hopefully today we'll get our first Rangers win since being out here. And for anyone still counting...still no Vlad autograph, but we still have a few days left!