Belove's Amazing Baseball Adventure: Rangers

Welcome to Rangers Park in Arlington, TX. This is a beautiful park outside, as well as the view around the field. The seats are slightly angled toward home plate, making viewing easier, but they couldn't seem to do anything about the HEAT! Fortunately, by game time our seats were in the shade.

Rangers fans pride themselves on being the loudest fans in baseball. The Belove family isn't sure we would take it THAT far, but they are enthusiastic and enjoy expressing their opinion- both positive and negative. They happily cheered on their teams successes, but also loudly expressed their disapproval of marginal calls and strongly showed their appreciation when their own struggling pitcher was removed from the game. The Rangers have a GREAT sound system, and they use it to punctuate great plays, favorite players, and just to add to that beloved noise they seem to enjoy.

One thing we can say, Rangers players really know how to make an entrance!

In contrast to last night's game...
Here was the extent of their guest services in Arlington. They were thrilled to be able to give us a "First Timer's" certificate! Guess the big-market teams already have all the fans they need.

But service was available with personality at our seat from this VERY friendly concessionaire who delighted in teasing, flirting with, talking to, and entertaining the crowd. She made sure the entire section was aware of each anniversary, birthday, or other notable event.

Rangers security is serious about fan behavior! Someone sitting a row behind us was ejected for continually kicking the seat of the person in front of him, and then giving him grief for asking him to stop. The guy in the kicked seat would also have been ejected if we had reported any use of "profanity" (a new word for Carter.)

I can't believe I ate the WHOLE THING!

(-not)

As big as Texas itself, this two-foot-long hotdog is the pride of Rangers Stadium.

But the Beloves did the math and realized that four 6-inch hotdogs would only cost us $17.00! So we had a serving of frugal with relish for dinner. (We also were unwilling to pay the $10.00 entrance fee to the Kids' Zone.) Concessions are all in hallways with no view of the playing field. There is a decent variety of choices (a giant bbq beef sandwich was tempting!) and several full-service restaurants are available for the air conditioning-minded. All concessions are located in a corridor that is separated from the field. Many have monitors, but there is no way to watch the live game while standing in line to get your hot dog. Definitely points deducted for that oversight!

In between innings the Rangers prefer to remind their fans of just how great they are, showing highlights of yesterday, last season, and 40 years of retrospective. But they did include a couple of activities we haven't seen: the Flex Cam (show your muscles, everyone!), a Minnie the Moocher sing-along, and a Know Your Rangers trivia game (do YOU know which crayola color Josh Hamilton would rather color with? Your choices are magenta, burnt sienna, and apricot!) Of course -in classic Texas style- they also included a Texas Legends race, Cotton Eye Joe, and a rousing version of Deep in the Heart of Texas!

Patience pays-off!
(And the green and gold garb doesn't hurt either!) The boys each got TWO balls at this game. Carter, standing above the bullpen, was tossed balls from A's players. Robert, a lone A's fan down the 3rd base line, was tossed one ball and caught one during A's batting practice. Only three games so far, and we are going to need our own caddy.

Overall we give this park merely average ratings. The best part for us was seeing our own OAKLAND A's play. This is the first time we have been able to cheer for our own boys on the road. Even if they didn't win, we were thrilled to watch our own home team do what they do best. See Robert's Sport Report for details.