Dreamin' of Nolan

The Texas Rangers are living in the past. The past may be good, but it doesn’t help the now.

The Rangers put on a pre-game show at Rangers Stadium the night we went to see them play the Kansas City Royals. The show, which featured former Rangers flamethrower Nolan Ryan, got as many cheers from the fans as the team did on the field. The modern-day Rangers looked like they were dreaming about the past on this night, April 17, as the Royals took batting practice off a series of Rangers pitchers for 19 hits and 12 runs in a 12-3 blowout that looks closer on paper than it was.

The pre-game video of Ryan showed him reaching various pitching summits, but the episode that drew the most cheers and laughter wasn’t about baseball. It showed a Ryan pitch hitting Robin Ventura in a 1993 game, then Ventura charging the mound. Ryan, then 46, wrapped Ventura in a headlock and pummeled him in the face. Texans are proud of that sort of thing. Nolan must be proud of it too, because he’s now president of the Rangers. (Admittedly, it isn’t just Texans who enjoy full-contact baseball. The video still gets high ratings on the Internet.)

For us, the best things about Rangers Ballpark, opened in 1994, were its museum and the fireworks show after the game (photo above). We took a tour of the stadium before the game, getting glimpses of some of the corporate boxes, the press box, the indoor batting cages (the Rangers get two, while the visiting team gets one), a Nolan Ryan warm-up room (which he didn’t use professionally) and a three-story museum. The latter is filled with Ranger memorabilia but the best part is a section with baseball memorabilia garnered from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Only 24,000 fans showed up for the game we saw. There would have been fewer except for the post-game fireworks, which matched a lot of Fourth of July celebrations. There had been a heavy rain earlier in the day and the chilly night reminded us of an early-season Colorado Rockies game in Coors Field. The only offense for the Rangers were three ho-hum solo home runs in the 8th and 9th, while Texas had no pitching and made several mental errors on the bases.

The Rangers Ballpark in Arlington (it’s official name) is open to the sky and was built to give it an old-time feel. Oddly, the architects and team killed that feel by placing a multi-story office building just beyond centerfield. The offices appear to have balconies that allow the office-dwellers to watch the game from lawn chairs, although no one wanted to see the Rangers self-destruct the night we were there. I reckon the office owners can invite prospects over and charge it off as a business expense.

Rangers Ballpark is attractive from the outside, with lots of red brick and glass. The architect also recreated a miniature version of the park for youth ball games outside the stadium and there’s a Minute Maid kids playground just inside the front gate. The park lies just down the street from Six Flags over Texas.

Food? We tried to search out what was the most distinctive food at Rangers Ballpark but found nothing worth talking about. Even our tour guide admitted there was nothing special, unless you think barbecue is unique. Better to eat down the street at Humperdink’s, a brew pub with very good hamburgers, Tex Mex and other pub delights.