Steal My Heart and Hold My Tongue

Congratulations to Mr. Stephen Baker, the man behind Poseur, for naming "Fake Tales of San Francisco" by the Arctic Monkeys as the Wednesday Song of the Day. Stephen's post yesterday regarding the spring training hopes of Orioles fan looks very similar to something that I might compose as a Rangers fan.


My good friend and former roommate Jonathan Smith said that he initially thought yesterday's Liverpool post was going to be a baseball post, but I've been thinking about writing something about the Rangers for a few days now, but I just can't bring myself to do it right now. It's almost as if I have reverted back to the sports fan methodology that I utilized as a 3rd grader.


See, in the summer of 1993, I was 9 years old and I had just discovered the greatness that was the Chicago Bulls. As you will remember, this season was the final piece to the initial 3-peat, but in the NBA Finals the Bulls were up against a very tough Phoenix Suns team. This was the season that Charles Barkley won the MVP, thereby infuriating the ultra-competitive Michael Jordan. When I sat down to watch the Bulls battle the Suns in the NBA Finals I had a fool-proof method to ensure victory. You might ask yourself, "What 3rd grader has the cognitive ability to influence the outcome of a game that is taking place at least a thousand miles from his home?" Well, I did. Or at least I thought I did.


I was utterly convinced that if I wore my Bulls hat with pinstripes and a black bill, they could not lose. If you're struggling to picture the hat, think of the hat that Indy's sidekick wore in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. You know, the kid who ran around saying, "Dr. Jones!!" That kid.


Anyway....I had worn my hat during the entire Eastern Conference Finals as the Bulls defeated the hated New York Knicks, but for some reason, I did not wear the hat during the first 3 games of the series, because I believed the Bulls were going to dominate the Suns. After Phoenix's 129-121 triumph in Game 3, I grew a bit nervous. I donned the hat again for MJ's 55 point performance in Game 4, but I guess I grew a bit too confident because I took the hat off again for Game 5, which was a 108-98 Phoenix victory.


Here's where things got dicey. The series was headed back to Phoenix with the Bulls holding a tenuous 3-2 lead. If you're asking yourself how a little kid could get this wrapped up in a sporting event, just remember this, I cried when the Cowboys were losing 13-6 to the Bills at halftime of Super Bowl XXVIII. This mattered. I knew that I would have to summon up all of my powers to help MJ, Scottie, Horace, Phil, and the boys defeat the Suns. The hat went on my head at beginning of Game 6 and didn't come off until John Paxson's game winning 3 with 3.9 seconds left.
I say all that to say this: I somehow still believe that if I can alter the outcomes of sporting events by things that I do. I know that sounds crazy. You might even say irrational, but somewhere in my psyche, it makes sense. I'm choosing not to write about the Rangers because when I've written about them in the past, things have gone oh so badly.


I've been watching the Rangers since...well, since I could focus on a television. I still remember trying to watch games at Arlington Stadium and realizing that a dark-blue backstop is a terrible thing to stare at from a centerfield camera. I've watched Palmeiro, Sierra, Kevin Brown, Pete Incaviglia, Pudge, Juan, Kevin Elster, Charlie Hough, Nolan Ryan, Kenny Rogers, A.Rod, Hank, Tex, and Michael. I know that we don't have the tortured history of the Red Sox, but in our case, I just wish that I knew what playoff heartbreak felt like. Oh, and don't tell me that those series in the late 90's were "playoff heartbreak". That was something closer to the word "streamrolled."


Here's all I'm asking: Don't break my heart again by tanking in August. I want to know what the pennant race feels like. I want to be able to call my friends and talk about what a genius or moron that Ron Washington is. That's all I'm asking for. Now, that's not too much, is it?