InsidetheRopes: A Good Day

Today was a memorable day. Two big things happened that made it a day that ranks pretty high up there: Opening Day at The Ballpark and the National Championship game.

Chan and I got up around 8 a.m. this morning and left for The Ballpark in order to get there for early batting practice. It's funny because this is really the only day that we can watch Josh Hamilton, Michael Young and Ian Kinsler take BP because they usually bat before they open the gates to a regular home game. But with the combination of the game starting at 1:05 p.m. and our season ticket holder's pass, we got to go in 30 minutes earlier to watch them take some swings. Chandler caught three homerun balls and I caught two, so it was a successful outing.

As I mentioned before, my family has season tickets to the Rangers' games. We have four seats in right-centerfield just above the 407 feet sign.

In my opinion, these are the best seats in baseball. Here are my reasons: 1) Front row seats have a lot of advantages such as leg room, no one sits on from of you and there's a good chance of you catching a homerun. 2) Close proximity to the players. We sit on the end of the row level with the Rangers' bullpen. It's awesome to watch them warm up before the go into the game because you are literally 2 feet from the catcher. 3) A combination of the last two reasons.

We do not have to worry about some drunk guy having to walk in front of us every inning which does not seem like a big luxury until you have sat somewhere else. You can also hang signs from our seats to show your support for the team and try to impress those watching on TV by getting your sign on the broadcast.

Every year on Opening Day I make a sign to hang up in front of our seats. We usually welcome the newest member of the Rangers by simply saying" Welcome AROD, Soriano, Juan G or Buck."

All of those have gotten on TV which is pretty cool to me. This time I made one that said "Welcome Elvis"

referring to our new 20 year old short stop Elvis Andrus. And once we were successful in our efforts to be on TV,the day got better.

The Rangers jumped out to 7-0 lead on the reigning CY Young award winner, Cliff Lee. Hank Blalock continued his dominance on Opening Day with his fifth homer in seven Opening Day starts.

The best part of the game to me was Kevin Milwood. He threw 113 pitches in seven strong innings of work allowing just one run on five hits. If he can pitch like that every time out, the Rangers may have a 20 game winner as their ace.

The 8th and 9th innings were perfectly

pitched by veterans C. J. Wilson and Frank Francisco as the Rangers won and captured their first Opening Day win since 2003.

There was a real feeling of excitement throughout the stadium as people were exiting the park. Kevin Milwood has given us some hope that he may indeed be the ace that we need. The hitting was powerful and timely and the bullpen was absolutely lights out in the last two innings. Sounds like a winning recipe to me.

And this was just the beginning of an amazing week.

The game ended at around 5 p.m. and I had to jump into my car for a 16 hour drive to Augusta, Georgia. My plan was to drive about five hours that night and stop in Mississippi at some random hotel to watch the end of the national title game between UNC and MSU.

As I have stated in this blog many times before, I thought North Carolina clearly had the best team in the nation. Even with the crowd on Michigan State's side I had faith in my last remaining Final Four pick.

I could not pick up the game on my radio so I had to rely on my brother's interpretation of the game from a big watching party in Dallas. He reported to me that that UNC had jumped out to a 17-6 lead. I began drive a little faster in order to get to my hotel so that I could possibly catch the end of the game.

This team has six possible pro prospects. That in itself is amazing. Their defense was smothering and their offense was a well-oiled machine. UNC set a championship game record with a 21 point lead at halftime at 55-34.

By the time I got to my hotel the celebration had already begun even though there was still five minutes left in the game. As the game came to a close, the seniors for UNC, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Tyler Hansbrough left the floor to a standing ovation from the Carolina faithful.

UNC would go on to win 89-72, completing a run of winning every tournament game by double digits; a feat that has not happened since 2001 by Duke. This team was one of the most complete we will ever see in college basketball and it showed on Monday night.

As my day ended, I sat in my hotel room waiting for the best part of the tournament.... One Shining Moment. It's so cool to look back on something that the entire nation has been enthralled with over the last month. Seeing it put together in a video is really something special for me...

not