No Words Can Describe, But This Is My Best Effort

The boys of September have done it again.

Yes, I said it. The boys of September. You can figure that nickname out, I have faith.

Again, the Rangers pull out the heart's of their fan base, throw it on the ground (the pitch was called a ball in the process), and trot off into the sunset.

Last year, the Rangers were the feel good story of the year. No one expected a World Series team, and they somehow got past the Rays and Yankees to surprise the world before bowing out after just five games.

2011 was a different story. The Rangers were expected to be a playoff team, and expected to do well in them by their fan base.

They did well, until once again bowing out. This time, in the 9th inning of Game 6.

A good closer doesn't throw a pitch that can be hit 300+ feet, especially in a 2 strike count. Period. End of story.

I'm a Neftali Feliz fan, but what in the world were you thinking?

Whatever, we still have Game 7 right? Wrong.

I made an effort to not watch any ESPN or listen to anything but The Ticket radio station out of DFW all day because I knew they would rule the Rangers out.

But then again, everyone kept harping on "Well the Rangers haven't lost consecutive games in 46 contests!"

The Rangers also weren't in Busch Stadium against Chris Carpenter in any of those 46 games, so I wasn't sold.

I just didn't have a good feeling about it, and turns out I was right. They started out hot, but it turned into a game of Rangers walking to the plate, guessing, and turning around to head to the dugout.

I was confused by that. The Rangers took almost every first pitch, and almost every first pitch was a strike. Then they'd watch the next (Especially Elvis, every time), as a fastball sped right down the middle. Their at-bat would finish with them trying to dig a curve ball out of the dirt almost every time.


I've got to tip my hat to the Cardinals though. They showed up when they needed to show up. Chris Carpenter put the team on his back (Is that term overused yet?) and got it done in the biggest game of his life.

The Cardinals bullpen slammed the door closed, something the Rangers bullpen probably saw as foreign.

And even though this was the greatest season in Texas Ranger franchise history, I'm still not happy with it.

Last year was the year to GET THERE. I know I'm ready to WIN ONE, and I know the 300 other fans that showed up to games back in the mid-90's feel the same way.

I don't mind the bandwagon fans, I wrote a post on that last October.

But I am proud to say that my parents raised me as a Ranger fan from birth. As I put on twitter earlier, I even named my hamsters I got in kindergarten after my two favorite Rangers -- Pudge and Juan (who we later found out was Juanita...)

So yeah, it may be "the greatest season in history", but it wasn't. It ended with a loss, which the Rangers have in common with every other playoff team except for the Cardinals in 2011.

I'm tired of saying "That's how baseball go", so I'm not going to say it. I'm done with that.

MAKE the baseball go where you want it to go instead of heading to the plate guessing and gazelle-jumping into the right field wall as Freese slides into third.

I stand behind Ron Washington. I stand behind Jon Daniels. I stand behind Nolan Ryan.

However, I do not stand behind the mindset I saw from that team in the last 12 innings. Whoever needs to fix that problem, fix it.

See you in the spring, it's now fully football season at Oklahoma State.