The Texas Rangers and Me

Hey Ya'll,

Had to steal the blog away from Bas for today. Baseball season is fast approaching in the US, for those of you who don't know I am a huge Texas Rangers Baseball fan. I'd love to tell you the story about why. I've always been a fan, but an incident happened about 14 years ago that made me a Rangers fan for life.

My Mother used to take me and my friends in my childhood to the games, she was a big fan, too. Well, after years of misery...the Rangers finally made it to the playoffs for the first time ever in 1996. My Mother had been ill for a while at this point. She had diabetes and had no feeling in her feet and hands, she needed a walker to get around. All this happened after she and I had taken care of my Grandmother with Alzheimers, my Mom had developed kidney issues almost immediately after my Grandmother's passing. My Mom had two things she loved the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers. When the Rangers finally made the playoffs, she was just overwhelmingly excited. I decided that I was going to try to get tickets.

Now I was just a waitress back then, not making much money so the best I could afford were the nosebleed seats....wayyyyyyyy up top. The Ballpark in Arlington where the Rangers play was a brand new stadium that had only been open for 2 years at this point. I told my Mom about the tickets and she was ready to go.

The night of the game we drove to the ballpark...I tried to let her off at the front gate because parking was at least a kilometer away..but she wanted the whole experience and wanted to walk from wherever I had to park the car. Remember, she was using a walker. We parked and walked up to the front gate. Now I hadn't ask for handicapped or special services, keep in mind. The ballpark was crazy with activity...first playoff ever, ballpark employees running all over the place.

That's when everything happened. As we entered the ballpark one of the employees came up, he didn't ask if we needed help....he helped without asking....within 2 minutes of entering the ballpark..someone had arrived with a wheelchair. They proceeded to take myself and my Mom up a special elevator and took us directly to our seats. We didn't ask for the help, they just showed up. More importantly they never forgot about us throughout the game. Periodically they would come and check to see if we needed refreshments, wc breaks, etc. They were doing all of this with 49,000 other people in the ballpark. My Mother, whose eyes were also bad could barely see what was happening on the field...she could see her favorite player though..Rusty Greer. More than anything else though she got very caught up in the excitement of it all. Not to mention the simple fact that the ballpark staff was treating her like a queen. Rangers lost that game and didn't go any further in the playoffs that year, but it didn't matter. At the end, the staff showed back up with the wheelchair and not only took us to the front gate, but also used a clubhouse golfcart to take us to our car.

We never asked for any of this and to this day I will never forget how special they made my Mom feel. She wasn't just the fan up in the nosebleed section, that night they made her feel like the most important fan there. She couldn't hardly see the game and they lost....didn't matter...she had the time of her life that night and she deserved it. And as I far as I'm concerned the Texas Rangers more than deserve my loyalty. I don't care how bad they're playing or if they ever make it to the World Series...they'll always be my favorite baseball team after that night. Now that being said, they make it to their first ever World Series...I'll be watching!!!!!