Impressions.

First impressions: 1. Eric Nadel and Dave Barnett sound great together. And Rangers baseball, courtesy of 105.3 The Fan, sounds awesome in FM. 2. As for Neftali Feliz, yes, it's tougher up here (a run on three hits and a walk in two innings), but in his first career effort against big league hitters, he struck out the side in his first inning of work and added a fourth punchout in his second frame (Felipe Lopez, who had also fanned as Feliz's first opponent the previous inning). Two swinging, two looking. 3. Kirby Puckett hit 207 career home runs, but none in his 583 rookie year plate appearances. Max Newberg was held goalless in his three-year-old debut soccer season, but in this year's opener, a few hours ago, he drilled the net from about 15 feet out. He acted like he'd been there before, I'm proud to say, but I'll never forget the smile on his face as his teammates swarmed him. Second impressions: 1. The second airing of MLB Network's "Josh Hamilton: Resurrecting the Dream" documentary will be at noon (Central) this Wednesday. Go set your DVR. 2. Max Ramirez, in his second camp with the Rangers, is now 2 for 4 this spring (having just doubled to left center to set up what would be a two-run eighth to give Texas a 5-3 lead over Arizona). Unless Ramirez comes back up in the ninth, his .500/.500/.750 line will be frozen for a while, as he departs tomorrow for Team Venezuela World Baseball Classic duties. Ramirez was just announced yesterday as a member of Baseball America's "All-Winter League Team," coming off a .291/.391/.618 run in which he led the Venezuela Winter League in home runs (15 in 220 plate appearances) and was second in slugging. Third impression: Eleanor Czajka has loaded edition number three of Ryan Tatusko's "Back Field Diaries," along with the first two entries, on the Minor Details page, linked at the top of www.newbergreport.com. =========================================================== To join the free Newberg Report mailing list so you can get e-mail deliveries of every edition of the newsletter, daily minor league game recaps, and frequent Newberg Report News Flashes, go to www.newbergreport.com and click the "Mailing List" link on the top menu bar. (c) Jamey Newberg http://www.newbergreport.com If you want to be removed from this list, please e-mail me at newbergreport@sbcglobal.net