Life Sentences

Loot, loot, loot for the home team?

So how do we, the perennially beleaguered Texas Rangers fans, handle long-elusive success?

What's the protocol for celebration at a moment like this?

Sitting in my recliner tilted into full warrior mode as rookie Rangers closer Neftali Feliz, a fireballer, froze Yankee slugger and former Ranger Alex Rodriguez with an 83-mph slider Friday night, it suddenly occurred to me.  We, us formerly lowly Rangers fans, have never had to deal with the possibility of winning the really big one before. 

In case you haven't been counting, the fourth time -- not the proverbial third -- turned out to be the playoff charm for the Texas Rangers.  The franchise has endured much this year:  Player injuries, a manager admitting a noseful of cocaine, a management team willing to forgive if not forget, more injuries, pitchers that didn't deliver, another who arrived and did (Cliff Lee), bankruptcy, new owners and finally this, an American League Championship over none other than our old tradition heavy nemesis, those Yankees of New York.

But even before former Angels outcast DH Vladimir Guerrero took a flying leap onto the Rangers infield victory pile Friday night, my brother Lannie was already texting celebration plans:

"We're going to go outside and shoot our guns into the air, then we're going to turn some cars over," he slowly texted one thumb at a time.

Lannie was kidding.  There are no weapons in the house, except for sharp tongues which can be lethal and have been known to misfire.

And of course there were no real plans to roll cars or, as New Yorkers might expect of jubilation-drunk Texans, to tip over sleeping cows.

Championship celebrations have gotten ugly in the past, as the enclosed photo shows.  When the Detroit Tigers beat the San Diego Padres in the 1984 World Series, violence erupted outside Tiger Stadium, according to an article posted on the BleacherReport.com Web site.

That's an overturned burning Detroit Police car behind the giddy Tigers fan holding up the World Series pennant flag.

So here's what most of us are likely to do to celebrate the Rangers' American League pennant win as we prepare to brace for the next and deciding step; a seven game winner-take-all World Series against the impressive San Francisco Giants.

We'll head down to local department stores selling official Rangers Championship t-shirts and caps.  Or we might, due to tight economic times, see how the knockoff shirts and caps look at the discount stores.

That's about as wild as we plan to get.  With one possible exception.

If Tammy Nelson (click here for photo), the "Beach Blanket Babylon" singer who warbled "God Bless America" with the outrageous San Francisco skyline hat on during the game in S.F. last week, strolled through our neighborhood, I'd be awfully tempted to tip that monstrosity over, Golden Gate Bridge and all.

(Detroit World Series riot photo courtesy:  bleacherreport.com)

Desperate horsewives

If anything, Monmouth Park (Oceanport, N.J.) track announcer Larry Collmus seemed a little bored Sunday (Aug. 22) as the horses filed into the starting gate for the seventh race.

The names of at least three of the entries perked him up some, though.  Especially when he mused that Little Miss Macho appeared a little slow out of the gate.  Two other steeds, however, made this call one for the party reel of all time.

You may have seen snippets of the finish of this showdown between ... sorry, I can't spoil it.  It works much better if you hang with the call all the way to the finish line.

There's only one thing that could have possibly made this afternoon at the track better:  If the race was called the Tiger Woods Sweepstakes.  After all, there's lots of high-dollar mudslinging.  And, just for the record, the Tiger/Elin divorce was finalized the next day.

Now, "And down the stretch they come!!!"

 

(Horse cartoon courtesy:  classichorse.com)
 

Oh, my aching Olympiad

CSI:  Plano -- That's my shoe print on the right, but what monster made the other print?

These are the Other Winter Olympics.

The object here, in an unusually frosty and snowy North Texas of '09/2010, is not to bring home gold.

My mission, as one of the forced-to-participate Other Winter Olympians, is to just get home by the fire. (Thank God we have a fireplace.)  Call it survival of the fittest?  I think not.

Granted, these Olympic games came upon us suddenly and with little warning.  On Christmas Eve, and on Feb. 12 (when our Canadian neighbors were boo-hooing about an unusually warm winter and not having enough snow to send skiers skidding down a mountain), Old Man Winter took a jog south.

So, with no training, absolutely no equipment and no corporate endorsements, I gamely competed in the following Other Winter Olympic events:

Tracks of Our Fears Cross-Driveway Alpine Stomp

Let the official police report reflect that on the morning of Feb. 12, when my wife and I woke up to about six inches of fluffy snow on the ground, I was merely walking down the driveway when I saw Them.

Them was a row of large one-footed tracks, which remain unidentifiable to this day despite utilizing extensive modern, high-tech investigative techniques (a k a Googling the Internet).

In the picture above, that's the critter print on the left and my Size 10 shoe print on the right.  It's not a rabbit, hawk, possum, dog, cat, duck, squirrel, coyote or wolf, according to our in-house/out-house investigation.

I've decided it's either a blood-sucking chubacabra or Bigfoot.  OK, Mediumfoot, since my comparison shoe is a Size 10.  Whatever it is, we're scared.

Short-Crack Guest Bathroom Light Panel Install

I got extra style points in the one-man bobhead because of my creative footwear.

This event seemed simple enough.  Replace the plastic panels under the lights in the guest bathroom.  It seems easy, just like Curling (but no need for a broom). 

Go to one of those warehouse home stores, though, and you'll discover that you can't just buy the little panels.  You have to buy a sheet of paneling and cut them to fit. 

Easy, just take it to the We Saw It For You section of the store and let a helpful trained employee zip it into shape for you.  Wrong.

They won't cut it for you because "The saw would just tear holes in it."  So they recommend a $10 bright yellow and black "professional" cutting knife that amounts to a handle and a razor blade.  That way you can go home and spend two or three hours tearing chunks out of it yourself.

I couldn't even get the blade to lock into place in the shiny handle with the black grip (and no instructions).  So after much anguish I Googled the problem and discovered this on-line review.  I'm telling the absolute truth:

"Whatever you do, don't buy this product.  The blade won't lock into place." 

I didn't medal in this event.

One-Man Bobheading

The Canadians couldn't even think of adding this event in Vancouver this year because there's not enough snow.  But in Plano, Texas on Feb. 12, the snow was so thick and so heavy that large tree limbs were cracking and falling.  In our back yard, the snow-laden Magnolia tree limbs were drooping near the breaking point.

So I sprang into action in the North Texas One-Man Bobhead competition, shaking the limbs to free them from their heavy burden.  I actually got quite good at it after about six or seven dumps of snow in my face.

I gave myself a silver medal (a quarter) for my valiant effort.  It would have been only bronze, but I got extra style points for my imaginative snow boots (picture above on the right) fashioned by Walmart plastic bags I placed over my size-10 Crocs and laced up with rubber bands.

Gotta go.  More snow's headed our way tonight.  I need to run to Walmart for supplies, a k a plastic bag galoshes.