Cool.
I opened the back door with a cup of coffee this morning before the sun had snuck over the trees, and it felt like fall.
And when it feels like fall after a lot of months of not feeling like fall, I think not about 3:00 kickoffs like the Pavlovian feels I grew up with, but instead about playoff baseball, which made this morning’s mid-70s feel even more awesome.
My thoughts raced back to September 26, 1996, when I got off a plane at Love Field, back in town from day-long depositions somewhere, and my buddy Gregg picked me up and drove recklessly toward Arlington, breaking at least half a dozen laws that probably included where he ultimately parked his car.
We got to The Ballpark in Arlington probably an inning or two into Game 159, pitting Texas against California, just in time to see the Rangers slap a third-inning four-spot on Angels starter Jim Abbott, who came into the game with a 2-17, 7.72 record. It would be Abbott’s final game before sort-of-retiring (he’d take a year off before returning to baseball in 1998).
The Rangers were playing their 25th season, without a playoff appearance.
It was cold that night. Gregg and I bought tickets near the top of one of the 300’s sections, and it was damp from a day of rain, and it was windy. By time we got to our seats temperatures were in the 50’s.
It was cold and it was September and the baseball game meant everything. That was new. And awesome.
After Texas erased the early 3-0 deficit with that third-inning uprising (run-scoring, opposite-field Pudge double; run-scoring E-8 off Rusty’s bat; run-scoring E-5 scorched by Juando; run-scoring Nuschler sac fly to left), the club tacked on single runs in the fourth and fifth, necessary because trade acquisition John Burkett, in his 10th Rangers start, would surrender California runs in the seventh (a Rex Hudler homer) and eighth (an RBI single by Ranger-killer Tim Salmon) to narrow the Texas lead to 6-5.
Abbott (who hadn’t completed a game all season, for the first time in his eight big league seasons) retired the Rangers in order in the eighth, and I’m pretty sure we all stood for the ninth, giving our trembling knees a new position from which to tremble.
Jim Edmonds stepped in against trade acquisition Mike Stanton to lead off the ninth and ducksnorted a single to center. Garret Anderson bunted Edmonds to second. J.T. Snow barreled a 2-2 pitch to center, but Darryl Hamilton hauled it in. Two outs.
Angels manager John McNamara summoned right-handed hitter Todd Greene off the bench to hit for Jorge Fabregas, and Johnny Oates went to Mike Henneman, the first-year Rangers closer (in the final season of his 10-year career), who trotted in sporting an 0-7, 6.08 mark.
McNamara pulled Greene back and inserted left-handed hitter Jack Howell, who I had way too many unwanted baseball cards of, and when Henneman started him off 2-0 and eventually walked him, it got colder.
Up stepped California shortstop Gary DiSarcina, whose place in Rangers history had been cemented two years earlier.
Tying run on second. Lead run on first.
Ball one.
Strike one, called.
Foul ball, strike two.
And then a fly ball as high as the 300’s sections, intercepted by Rusty Greer on its way down in short left field.
Ballgame.
Seattle had already lost its day game on that Thursday, as Mike Jackson and Norm Charlton and Rafael Carmona gave up four Oakland runs and the lead in the eighth, and so when Greer squeezed the final out that night, it gave the Rangers a 3.5-game lead on the Mariners in the division, with three games left on the Texas schedule and four left for Seattle.
I was there the next night, too, as Texas had one of the weirdest playoff-clinching celebrations ever, following a 4-3, 15-inning loss during which the Mariners had fallen meekly to the A’s 1700 miles away, 8-1. The final score in Oakland, from a game that started an hour and a half later than Texas-California, was posted on the left field fence in Arlington at about 11:52 p.m.
The Rangers lost their game 51 minutes later. And celebrated.
It wasn’t perfect. But it was.
Juan Gonzalez didn’t factor in heavily in those two games, going 1 for 10 with a walk and three strikeouts as he rounded out what would be his first of two MVP seasons.
But man, a week later?
The man hit .438/.526/1.375 (1.901) in the Rangers’ four-game playoff series against the Yankees, blasting five home runs and driving in nine runs.
Because of the ugly episodes against New York in 1998 and 1999, most probably don’t remember that that 1996 series was one Texas could have and probably should have won — winning Game One in New York, squandering a 4-1 lead in Game Two and losing that one in 12 innings, coming back home and blowing what was a Darren Oliver masterpiece at home by giving up two runs in a ninth inning I don’t care to recount, and spitting up a 4-0 lead at home in Game Four, falling 6-4 and seeing its season end.
Juando homered in Game One.
Juando homered in Game Two. Twice.
Juando homered in Game Three.
Juando homered in Game Four.
Juan Gonzalez was The Man.
His age 23 season (.310/.368/.632), which wasn’t one of his two MVP campaigns, was as crazy-great as Josh Hamilton’s MVP season, at least by an OPS+ measure (169 vs. 170).
Hamilton had one other season with an OPS+ over 140.
Gonzalez had four others like that.
In a way, happily, that 1996 ALDS seems like a lifetime ago. I didn’t have kids then. Now I have one learning how to drive.
And I have another one who, at age 11, is far more into The Great Game than I was at his age, but he’d never been to a baseball card show — until yesterday.
Man, it was great to see Igor.
Wish he had more of a presence these days. I’ve gotta believe it’s his choice to stay away as much as he has. He didn’t even show up for his Rangers Hall of Fame induction last month. Wish he did.
That swing. That swagger. That arm. That mullet. That presence.
The imperial standard for walkup music.
Juan Gonzalez was playoff baseball around here, at least until the last five years.
He still is playoff baseball.
It’s Star Wars Weekend at Globe Life Park right now. Kinda fitting, maybe, that my son and I got to see Lord Vader yesterday, in Addison.
We’re zeroing in on first pitch as the Rangers have a chance to reinforce a little #CastleDoctrine this afternoon and sweep the Rays, perhaps drawing even closer to a playoff spot that not very long ago seemed out of reach. Texas hasn’t been this close to the division lead (4.0 games) since June, and with the Angels losing 16 of 22, the Rangers — having won 8 of 12, plus 9 of 10 at home — are now just a game and a half out of the second Wild Card spot.
Gallardo-Smyly here in a bit. And then Cole Hamels goes tomorrow night against Seattle’s Taijuan Walker, as we gather for Newberg Report Night.
It’s 92 degrees here now, nothing like it was when I woke up five hours ago and sat outside, in the crisp silence.
I’m thinking about fall baseball today, if that’s cool with you. A slight chill in the air this morning, another home win last night and a narrowing of the standings, and, hours before that, a handshake and a couple words with one of the greatest ballplayers to ever wear my team’s uniform.
Very cool.