Texas Rangers: American League Champions!!!

American League Champions 2010

Late October in Texas is when the sports-minded Texan is full throttle into football, any kind of football - pee wee, High School, college or the NFL. Basketball season is just beginning and the NHL is in the first few games of its season. Pro sports in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have produced World Championships galore. The Dallas Cowboys have played in eight Super Bowls, winning five of them. The Dallas Stars have appeared in two Stanley Cup Finals and brought home Lord Stanley's Cup in 1999. The NBA entry in the Metroplex, the Mavericks finally made it to the NBA Finals a few years ago. The Texas Rangers? Let's just say that October for the Rangers usually means planning a long vacation to Mexico or the Bahamas. Until this year! I am going to write a sentence that until about 11:15 EDT last night was nothing more than a fantasy- or a drunken dream. The Texas Rangers are going to the World Series! I didn't stutter and your ears ain't flappin'. The Rangers are the American League Champions and as such, will travel to either Philadelphia or San Francisco in their quest to win the Fall Classic.

As I was watching the last couple of innings of Game 6 of the American League Championship Series against the Yankees last night, a flood of memories rushed through my mind. I was at the third game the Rangers ever played in Texas, at old Arlington Stadium in 1972. I don't even remember whether they won or lost, I was just excited that Major League baseball had finally come to the Metroplex.

Here are some of those memories:

• The '72 Rangers sucked. Bad. I think this was the team that was so bad they were called The Strangers by local Media. It was that bad.
• Jeff Burroughs was the MVP of the American League in 1974. 
• Jeff Burroughs vs Reggie Jackson pre-game Home Run Contest. I'll tell that story another time.
• Ten Cent Beer Night in Cleveland in 1974. Hilarity, beer-tossing and a riot ensued. Ten Cent Beer Night never happened again.
• Burn a Disco Record Night in Chicago. I don't remember the year, but on paper it looked like a good idea. It wasn't.
• Rangers pitchers wife-swapping. BTW, the guys who did the wife swap came to Texas from, you guessed it, the Yankees. 
• David Clyde.
• Eddie Chiles
• Eddie Stanky - Manager for a Day.
• Nolan Ryan. I was lucky enough to have seen Ryan pitch as an Astro and a Ranger. The meanest SOB to ever chunk the rock, except maybe Bob Gibson.
• The ball bouncing off Jose Canseco's head over the fence for a homer.
• Oh, yeah! The guy who went into a catatonic trance in the locker room! Roger Moret? Help a brutha out with that one.
• Eric Nadel. The Best Baseball Announcer I Have Ever Heard. Period. The guy is amazing.

If you've got a memory of the Rangers you'd like to share, please do so. As always, the comments are open

After 39 years of mostly ineptitude, weird plays and weirder players, the Rangers are the American League Champions. And they beat the Damn Yankees to get there. The sight of A-fraud's knees buckling when Neftali Feliz froze him with a curve ball to end the game is Shakespearian in its drama.

Other than the game itself, one moment stood out to me like a Klan member at a Juneteenth celebration. When Josh Hamilton accepted the ALCS MVP trophy from Mrs. Autry, he thanked God for his success and the crowd cheered! Loudly. God bless Texas and kick some Philly/San Fransissy ass!!!

Plus One: Boring, Gas and Ding Dong

The Sign Says It All

Every once in a while, especially on a Friday, I'll use a little Google-fu and come up with some of the funnier and most unusual names of towns across America, like here and here. According to the feedback I've gotten on these posts, you guys seem to get a kick out of them. It's been several weeks since I've done a funny town names post, so I figured it must be time to do another one.

I write about this topic about every six weeks or so as a way to take a little break from the seriousness of everyday life. Believe it or not, there's a guy who's a photographer for a New York magazine who actually traveled around the country to the tune of 38,000 miles and 40 states and found a bunch of towns with odd names. Needless to say, the dude wrote a book about his travels and it's called, "Passing Gas: And Other Towns Along the American Highway. The "gas" in the book's title refers to Gas, Kansas. I found an excerpt from the book and thought you might get a chuckle out of it. I'll cite a couple of towns here, then to read more about Gas, Kansas and other oddly-named towns.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

• " The people of Ding Dong, Texas, don't know how they became Ding Dongs. And
  they're not the only ones."
• "And some towns can't live up to their reputation. A resident of Nice,
  Calif., was accused of being particularly nasty. Jay Leno once held up a
  headline:
  Nice Man Arrested for Beating Wife".

It's an easy read, so if you've got a few minutes to burn (it is Friday and this is as good a time killer as anything),
click here to get a load of some of the places this guy came across. It's worth the time.

Country Music Month: The Texas Connection - Oom Papa Maow Maow

Most people who read this story will associate the Oak Ridge Boys with Tennessee and rightfully so. However, there is a Texas Connection with the Oaks. That would be lead singer Duane Allen who was born in Taylortown, Texas. This current iteration of the Oak Ridge Boys has been together for at least thirty years, except for a few years when William Lee Golden left the group only to rejoin them later. I met these guys when I was the emcee for their concert in Wichita Falls in about 1980 or '81. They were a great group of guys just to sit and talk with and they couldn't have made things easier for me because at the time I was a baby DJ. They put on a good show and the audience loved them and the guys loved the crowd right back. A more detailed bio of the Oaks can be found here on wikipedia.

I was lucky enough to have emceed their show just before the release one of the biggest songs of the year, or several years for that matter. The song? A remake of an old Dallas Frazier hit called Elvira. when the Oaks sang that song at the show, the crowd went ape! Elvira went on to become a super smash hit. The four guys we know as the Oak Ridge Boys today, Joe Bonsall ( a very funny man), Duane Allen, Richard Sterban and William Lee Golden, had some great songs in the '70s and '80s that should be staples on any Classic Country radio station in the USA. That they are still together after all these years is a testament to not only their talent, but to the quality of music they sing and they way they relate to their audience. They are plain old good guys who are happy doing what they do and it shows.

Some of my personal favorites by the Oaks are:

• Thank God for Kids - Written by Eddie Raven, recently re-made by Kenny Chesney, this is a timeless song. I sing it to my little girls sometimes and, like the song says, "I look down in those trusting eyes" and realize how much God has blessed me and what a great job I have as a father. 
• Y'all Come Back Saloon - Any song that has the phrase "late night benediction" in it is classic to me. Damn good song.
• I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes - Remembering a lost love. Joe Bonsall sings and you feel the sense of loss.
• Dream On - Because I like it.
• I'll Be True to You - Lost love found again...but too late. Mucho el sad-o.
• Sail Away - "go to sleep together with the rocking of water"...I am all in on that.

Other than the Statler Brothers, I can't think of another group that has done what the Oak Ridge Boys have done for Country Music. And I don't include Rascal Flats and all those "boy bands" that claim to be country. I don't mean to disparage Rascal Flats and groups like them, but who will be listening to Rascal Flats' music in 20 years? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

Maine Minutiae: Take a Walk on the Wild Side

I have covered Maine Huts and Trails before. It's a great resource for the outdoors-minded during the long, cold, damn-I-miss-Texas winters. But when in Maine, do as the Mainers do. That's where Maine Huts and Trails come in. Their web site gives us an idea of what they're about, "Maine's newest, year-round outdoor adventure destination. We're located in the beautiful and wild, western mountains region of Maine. In time, our system of backcountry eco-lodges connected by people-powered trails will stretch nearly 200 miles from near the New Hampshire border to the Moosehead Lake region." The Moosehead Lake region of Maine is an astonishingly beautiful place.

These huts, while modern in their construction, take you back to a time when snowshoeing and the like was the only way to get around during the harsh Maine winter. I'll let the folks who run Maine Huts and Trails tell you more, "Each hut is "off-the grid" and features state-of-the-art utility systems that generate and store their own power through a combination of alternative energy sources. Each facility will accommodate up to 42 guests plus 4 staff in a variety of room sizes. The huts each provide sleeping accommodations, with a soft mattress and a pillow on each bunk, hot showers, toilets and healthy, homemade meals. These amenities at remote locations along the trails help to manage human impact and provide accessibility for those seeking a 'comfort camping' experience."

This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen for enjoying the outdoors and still have some creature comforts like electricity and a good strong shelter in what can be a brutal climate during the winter months in Maine. Hiking to one of the cabins and drilling a hole in the ice on the lake to do some fishing for some pan size trout to cook for supper sounds like a great experience. I have done some similar things back in Texas, but I'd like to take my two little girls on a trip like this. The things they would learn about surviving in the wilderness would be a valuable lesson for them to carry with them for the rest of their lives. Plus the scenery ain't bad either. :)

Country Music Month: The Texas Connection - The Pride of Wink, Texas

The guy we're gonna talk about today is one of those rare artists whose music crosses over from pop to country to rock and roll and back again. Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas on April 23, 1936 and as a young child moved to Wink, where he grew up the son of an oil driller and car mechanic. Roy received a guitar on his sixth birthday, and by time he was seven, he knew he was going to be a musician. By the age of eight, Roy was singing on a local radio show and in no time at all he became the host. Destiny had called and Roy Orbison answered and little did he know that he was on his way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

It was 1960 when Orbison caught a break. He pitched a song to Elvis and the Everly Brothers and both acts turned him down, so Roy decided to record it himself. The song? Only the Lonely . The song shot up the Billboard chart all the way to Number 2 and Orbison was noticed by everybody in the music business, namely Dick Clark, who, in wake of the success of Only the Lonely, invited Orbison to appear on American Bandstand. Other smash hits soon followed, Crying, Blue Bayou and others. Roy Orbison had come a long way from Wink, Texas and was now a star.

Orbison was very shy man who actually suffered from severe stage fright. Here's where the dark sunglasses come in. the story from wikipedia, "He had no publicist in the early 1960s, no presence in fan magazines, and his single sleeves did not feature his picture. Life magazine called him an "anonymous celebrity".^[29] After leaving his thick eyeglasses on an airplane in 1962 or 1963, Orbison was forced to wear his Ray-Ban Wayfarer prescription sunglasses on stage and found that he preferred them. His biographers suggest that although he had a good sense of humor and was never morose, Orbison was very shy and suffered from severe stage fright; wearing sunglasses helped him hide somewhat from the attention. The black clothes and desperation in his songs led to an aura of mystery and introversion.^[6][30][31] Years later, Orbison said "I wasn't trying to be weird, you know? I didn't have a manager who told me to dress or how to present myself or anything. But the image developed of a man of mystery and a quiet man in black somewhat of a recluse, although I never was, really."[32] Read the rest of the bio, it reveals a lot about Orbison that few people at the time knew.

Here's the obligatory List of  Roy Orbison hits:

• Pretty Woman - People will still be listening to this song in a hundred years. Enuff said.
• Crying - Listed above. Hauntingly beautiful.
• It's Over - Depressing as hell, but I want to listen to it again.
• You Got It - One of his last hits and my favorite Roy Orbison tune.

I remember as kid that my parents had a stack of Roy Orbison records. The thing that caught my eye was his last name. I'm thinking at the time, "that's an odd name", so I played the records to see what an "Orbison" was. I soon found my answer. An Orbison was something that made even a small child "feel" the songs it sang. That's a very rare talent, making a kid "feel" a song. I also recall going out to eat with my family at places that had the small "jukeboxes" at the booths, more like jukebox remotes actually, where you put in a dime and could play three songs. I spent a lot of dimes playing "Orbisons". And that's a good thing.

Country Music Month: The Texas Connection - The Gentle Giant of Country Music

One of the interesting facts about Country Music to me is that so many of its stars come from very small towns and meager backgrounds. Some of Country Music's legends hail from towns called Butcher Holler (Loretta Lynn), Abbott (Willie) and Floydada, Texas, Don Williams. Known as the Gentle Giant of Country Music, Williams was one of the genre's biggest stars in the '70s and '80s with hits like Amanda and You're My Best Friend. Along with those two hits, Williams released a total of 46 singles and only four of them failed to make the Top 10. That's what you call consistency. I was honored to have emceed four Don Williams concerts and I gotta tell ya, the guy you saw on TV is the exact same guy in person - a quiet, unassuming Gentle Giant. I remember one show of his that I emceed in Wichita Falls. I did the intro, the curtains opened and Williams started singing and sang two or three songs. The crowd applauded generously and Williams said three words with that smooth as silk baritone voice of his, "Well, thank ya". The crowd went nuts! It was the weirdest thing. I think the audience liked Don Williams so much because he was one of them - dressed in blue jeans, a faded as hell denim jacket, boots and a well-worn cowboy hat. He looked like a guy you might run into at the Floydada hardware/pharmacy/general store instead of a star musician who had racked up 17 Number 1 hits.

Some my personal favorite Don Williams tunes include:

• I Believe in You - One of his biggest, if not the, biggest hits. It was a monster smash.
• Good Old Boys Like Me - Good song with excellent imagery.
• You're My Best Friend - I listed this one above also, but this probably the most-requested Don Williams song over the 15 years I was a DJ-type guy. During his show, the crowd joins in on the chorus and it was like being at Church. Pretty neat stuff.
• Tulsa Time - This one was written by Danny Flowers, Williams' lead guitarist. In the video at the link, Flowers is easy to spot, he's the very young man wearing all red. He's a good guitar picker, too.

As I was looking up some of Don Williams hits for this post, I got thinking that I can't recall a single song of his that I didn't like. Jump on this link to a YouTube page jam packed with the musical velvet that is the Gentle Giant of Country Music, Don Williams.

Country Music Month: The Texas Connection - Mac Davis

I was a Mac Davis fan the minute I heard, what was for me, his first song on the radio on KLIF, The Mighty 1190, in the early '70s. That song was Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me - a damn good tune. I don't know what's in the water in Lubbock, but it must be something good. Besides Mac Davis, Lubbock has given such superstars as Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings. That's a trio that Lubbock has so kindly shared with the rest of the world and we should be thankful for it.

Scott Mac Davis is one of my personal all time favorites. Besides his great musical abilities, when I saw him in a movie, he was so damn slick. (Audience shouts: How slick was he?) He was slicker than greased owl shit on a glass doorknob. I mean the guy oozed "cool". I remember watching his Emmy-winning TV show back in the day and it was a riot. Great music, some real funny stuff and, if memory serves me right, eefin' and eiffin'. One of my favorite parts of the show was when Mac let the audience give him a subject for a song and out of the blue WHAM! Mac would ad lib a verse that was flat funny. I tried to find some clips of the show, but my search proved futile. Dammit.

Not only was Mac a great singer, he was also a helluva songwriter. You might recognize one of these songs written by Mac - a guy from Memphis did OK with Memories and In the Ghetto. And let's not forget Don't Cry Daddy, another Mac Davis penned tune. Bobby Goldsboro also had a hit with one of Mac's songs, Watching Scotty Grow. The story I heard about Watching Scotty Grow was that Goldsboror wanted to record the song in the worst way, but wanted to change it from "Scotty" to "Brian" or whatever his son's name was and Davis said "No way, Jose. This was written for my son Scottyand that's the way it is". Bobby relented and it turned out pretty damn good for both guys.

In addition to the songs scattered throughout the post here are some other Mac Davis songs I really like:

• One Hell of a Woman    
• Stop and Smell the Roses
• It's Hard to Be Humble (with the Muppets)
• Hooked On Music 

I wish I could list all the great songs by Mac Davis, but that would take a while. I do have for your listening pleasure a YouTube page of them. Look around that page and a flood of memories will come gushing to you. Like Mac wrote, "memories pressed between the pages of mind, memories sweetened through the ages just like wine....sweet memories".