Back to school.

Mom didn’t throw out my baseball cards and my walk to school wasn’t uphill both ways, but I was the kid whose bedtime story was quietly told by Mark and Eric on WBAP, on a transistor radio two feet from my pillow, and the story was different every night.

During the school year, at least. As far back as I can remember, I was able to use the Ranger game as a bedtime clock in the summer (“Hello win column!” “Lights out.”), but while school was in session, I was spending those early season months listening to baseball as I fell asleep, dreaming on what would finally be that season, or riding out the final month once classes resumed.

Rangers baseball in September never really mattered, but that didn’t matter.

Those were the days of Danny White vs. Gary Hogeboom, Zork and Escape from Rungistan and Intellivision, and the Texas Rangers sitting 24.5 games out on the first day of school.

Of checking the mailbox for a new Baseball America so I could tear toward the back pages looking for Tommy Dunbar’s three-week old Tulsa batting average, and of dot matrix letters (with SASE) to Joe Klein and then Tom Grieve, suggesting trades for Mike Boddicker or Kal Daniels that they might not have thought about.

I assure you I never gifted Joe or Tom a trade idea as bad as Josh Donaldson for Brett Lawrie, Kendall Graveman, Franklin Barreto, and Sean Nolin. Even at age 13.

It’s a different time now. Ever since our fifth-grader started Kindergarten, Rangers games have mattered when school started back up, and not just in terms of bedtime negotiations. With the exception of last year’s disaster (we were days away from learning that Ron Washington was stepping down), a pennant race was developing locally every day, and for a baseball fan there’s no better gift than that.

The Rangers were off yesterday. They have another off-day late next week. Then there’s just one more on the schedule, less than two weeks before the regular season ends and gives way to another day or two or three off for 10 teams, and more than four months off for all the others.

No team in the American League has more home games remaining than Texas, and now we can consider that a very good thing. Only one AL club has more road games left than do the Astros, who own the worst record in the league in ballparks where the rules don’t allow them to walk off with a win.

Houston has lost nine consecutive road series, and will need to win both tonight and tomorrow afternoon in New York to avoid a 10th straight before heading to Minnesota.

The Rangers, on their third-to-last scheduled off-day, gained ground in the division last night (Yankees 1, Astros 0), and put further distance between themselves and the only one of the four teams legitimately in pursuit of their Wild Card spot that played Monday (Royals 8, Orioles 3).

The Twins and Angels are 1.5 games back of Texas, the Orioles and Rays 2.5 games back.

Texas trails Houston by 3.5 games, with seven head-to-head battles ahead.

School is back and the games matter a lot. That’s the best.

There are only two teams in the AL with better records than the Rangers since the All-Star Break, one of which is Toronto, led by an insanely hot offense. Texas is using yesterday’s off-day to skip Martin Perez’s turn through the rotation this week, and while the primary reason is to carefully regulate the lefthander’s workload as he returns from Tommy John surgery so that he can be relied on into the fall, it’s probably no accident that the move means the Rangers will throw only one lefthander (Derek Holland, tonight) against the heavily right-handed Jays lineup.

Toronto kicks the series off with its two left-handed beasts, Marl Buehrle and David Price.

Mike Napoli: This is why.

Baseball’s most terrifying offense against one of its best home teams, at least of late.

Let’s go.

School.

Meaningful baseball.

Every day.

Let’s go.