Rangers Rainout is Middle Finger to All Fans

by Rev Halofan on Oct 9, 2011 11:04 PM PDT in Et Cetera

Got this email just now:This e-mail regards your sponsorship of page on Baseball-Reference.com. Thank you for supporting Baseball-Reference.com. We are writing to let you know that your sponsorship of the following page will expire in 21 days. Clicking the link will take you directly to the renewal page. The 2010 TEX Page ($110 to renew for 1 year). Last year I tweaked a few Rangers fans for kicks by sponsoring their team page. They could not look at their American League Championship team's BB-Ref page without seeing my name and I sure got a lotta larfs outta it.

But I am strictly minor league when it comes to messin' with Ranger fans. Earlier today, our division rival and their fanbase got shafted in a manner usually reserved for Guillotinings. Rupert Murdoch and Bud Selig cancelled Sunday night's ALCS GAME 2 on Sunday morning due to pending rainout ...and then that day never saw a drop of rain hit the field in Arlington. Memo from Selig to Ian Kinsler: Get the f- off your field on a night that X-Factor will attract more viewers than your curly locks would ever make the nation's couch potatoes swoon for.

There is absolutely no way that a speculative rain forecast would have inspired Fox to postpone a Sunday Night American League Championship Series Game that involved the Red Sox or the Yankees. A National League Championship Series game? Mets, Phillies, Cubs. Anyone else, they'da done the same, hung the fans out to dry... even if the weather stayed dry.

The Dallas/Ft.Worth/Arlington market is supposedly the 5th largest in the country behind NYC, LA, Chicago and Number Four Land. The Dallas Cowboys have a national reputation - they even once got mentioned (mockingly) in a Dead Kennedys song so they transcend their own sport, the Dallas Mavericks are the reigning NBA champions and the Rangers are the reigning American League champions (still hurts to type it but I gotta). What does this get Rangers fans? Not a damn thing but the chump treatment.

As much smack as I have talked about the team and their fans, watching the Rangers fans get flat-out sodomized by the league and Fox is too much. Imagine a freak October rainstorm makes for a soggy game one Saturday in SoCal. You bought six Sunday Game Two tickets on SchlubHub, Pops was driving down with your hot stepmom and her two cougarette friends, your Angel Bro had pitched in for the ticket fees and the six of you were gonna make it a day and a night to remember. Then suddenly the league and Fox decide that since it might rain and get no ratings because the Yankees or Red Sox were not involved, the six of you would each have to untangle your complicated lives with twelve hours notice and regroup on Monday afternoon for your planned Sunday night party. And then of course, Pops is at the swingers club on a sunny Sunday and you are home with the National League and Rosy Palm. There is one word for this: willful neglect. That is two words, yeah yeah yeah, but it adds up to one: BS.

Leave it to Fox and MLB to actually make me feel sorry for Rangers fans. How many people are stuck with tickets to Monday's game that they can't use because they gotta go to work Monday? Too many for me to laugh at, enough for me to pause and hum some Phil Ochs... Oh, there but for fortune go I...

This could happen to any team at any time. And not just rain; It could be a brush fire in some canyon nearby blocking freeway visibility, a smog alert, anything and we would get the shaft from Fox if we were not the supporting act for New York or Boston. And then the problem could disappear and we would just have to adjust our lives accordingly with nothing.. not even like a free "I survived the rainout that wasn't" teeshirt or cap. No Boston/NYC = no ratings ...and baseball is thus an afterthought, as are the tens of thousands of fans who made plans to see the product in person.

Texas Rangers fans ...This is a shame and y'all deserve better.

However, Go Tigers.

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Comments

Those back woods conservative Rangers fans deserve what they get for worshiping

the Murdochs, Seligs, and George W. Bush box seat hogging capitalists. Maybe it takes something like this for a few of them to wake up and smell the coffee, but I doubt it.

Reminds me a little bit of last year’s Super Bowl situation with the fans that were sold tickets to the football game that did not include seats because nobody got around too seeing that they got competed and inspected in time.

Napoli's 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th homers of the year (four more than Jeff Mathis' career total) rained down on Angel Stadium like knives from the ceiling.

by 44FAN on Oct 9, 2011 11:24 PM PDT reply actions

no politics

i would not have bet “one post” would have won the “over/under” count of when the thread becomes political.

by Rev Halofan on Oct 10, 2011 12:01 AM PDT up reply actions

I read all the hoop-la over at Lone Star Ball about this before you posted your article.

They are naturally quite fired up over the game being cancelled. I guess that is more what inspired my comment.

Napoli's 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th homers of the year (four more than Jeff Mathis' career total) rained down on Angel Stadium like knives from the ceiling.

by 44FAN on Oct 10, 2011 12:12 AM PDT up reply actions

real smart post...

considering the Angels play in Orange County!

by firebird81 on Oct 10, 2011 7:59 AM PDT up reply actions

oh, great

politics.

"id take 5th Dimention Wormhole Rivera over Wells any day of the week"
-clover_black

by the king of CERA on Oct 9, 2011 11:48 PM PDT reply actions

Blame Selig all the way

This guy is a joke. I hate to agree with LSB but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Fuck Selig.

Tim Salmon: The once and future Kingfish.

by Teixeira Who? on Oct 10, 2011 1:18 AM PDT reply actions

So they cancel this on a SUSPICION of rain, but the 2009 ALDS Game 2 goes on in a F***ING DOWNPOUR?

Oh yeah, the MFY were involved. Never mind.

If the Halos don't care about the way they play, then why should I?

by red floyd on Oct 10, 2011 9:21 AM PDT reply actions

In a FREEZING downpour.

THIS… IS… ANAHEIM!!

by opiejeanne on Oct 10, 2011 10:11 AM PDT up reply actions

Correction. ALCS.

If the Halos don't care about the way they play, then why should I?

by red floyd on Oct 10, 2011 11:28 AM PDT up reply actions

It's pretty clear( it didn't rain)

that the reason it got cancelled and any lame excuse would do, is all about ratings. Of course Fox wanted the Yankees and anything less, would get stuck on daytime TV. And the Old Boy network is not going to critize Selig. Nolan Ryan got the Rangers because Selig wanted him to get the Rangers, and Ryan won’t be saying anything negative about Selig. The Old Boys Rule.

by SanDiegoKev on Oct 10, 2011 12:18 PM PDT up reply actions

I hate to defend MLB and Fox, but......

Moving the game to this afternoon was likely their best option. A night game would have conflicted with Cards vs. Brewers.

Turns out, the weather forecasters were off, but only slightly. While there was no rain at the Ballpark last night, there was heavy rain in both Dallas and Fort Worth and the suburbs in all directions. My town (about 50 miles north of the Ballpark), got about 4".

by Keith Mc on Oct 10, 2011 10:28 AM PDT reply actions

Doesn't matter.

It’s a fundamental principal of sports, practiced in all disciplines, that you never HAND OUT a consequence no matter how obvious.

Unless the storm was bringing heavy lightning activity within 30 miles of the stadium, which would create a serious threat towards human life for fans and players, you suit up and take the field and make any rainfall chase you back off. And even then, you sit and wait for the potential that it will pass and you can reclaim the game in progress. You force the weather to empirically shut down your contest. And, if it does, both sides deal with it. Period.

Against stupidity the very Gods themselves toil in vain.

by Stirrups on Oct 10, 2011 10:42 AM PDT up reply actions

No, lightning wasn't a threat last night, but still......

I believe postponing was the right move by MLB. Had it been a regular season game, I think they probably would have tried to get the game in.

In the postseason, though, these stops & starts that you get with rain delays/postponements place an unfair burden on the pitching staffs it seems to me. Nobody wants to see the number 5 starters or long bullpen guys on the field for an extended time, while the likes of Justin Verlander sit on the bench after throwing only a couple of innings.

by Keith Mc on Oct 10, 2011 11:11 AM PDT up reply actions

Please see ALCS 2009, Game 2.

If the Halos don't care about the way they play, then why should I?

by red floyd on Oct 10, 2011 11:29 AM PDT up reply actions

I thought there were two games in NY that were played in heavy rain.

THIS… IS… ANAHEIM!!

by opiejeanne on Oct 10, 2011 12:05 PM PDT up reply actions

The Angels played in a freezing downpour in NY in 2009.

The game(s) should have been called but weren’t because it was the Yankees and Bud Selig was afraid to lose any revenue from Fox.

THIS… IS… ANAHEIM!!

by opiejeanne on Oct 10, 2011 12:04 PM PDT up reply actions

Opiejeanne and red...Good points about the 2009 series...

I forgot about that one. It does make a difference when the Yankees are involved.

by Keith Mc on Oct 10, 2011 12:47 PM PDT reply actions

heres a quick look at what kinda numbers the 09 ALCS got.

Looking at the five prime-time games, Game 1 gave FOX its best Friday night in ten months, Game 2 the best Saturday night in ten months, Game 4 the best Tuesday night in three months, Game 5 the best Thursday night in seven months, and Game 6 projects as FOX’s best Sunday night in 20 months.

Game 6 of the 2009 AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES averaged a 9.3/15 (15.5 million viewers)

It’s also FOX’s most-watched LCS game, excluding Game Sevens, in five years, dating to Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS (25.1 mill. for the "bloody sock" game, BOS-NYY).

by C.A._Rep_Los_ANGELS on Oct 10, 2011 12:48 PM PDT via mobile reply actions