Mrs. Michael Kirkman

In late-September 2010 I went to Arlington to see the Rangers play the Mariners. It was just days after they had clinched their first playoff berth in 11 seasons and I wanted to see one last game before October.

Still being the Summer of the Claw and Antlers, I went to the Grand Slam Gift Shop to get a C&A shirt.

That’s where I witnessed an interesting exchange.

I was standing near a rack of shirts, trying to decide whether I wanted a red one or a blue one.

(I went with blue, because that was the original.)

There was an employee standing nearby, offering help to any customer that might not know where to find something. He was approached by a woman carrying an AL West Champs T-shirt. She asked if they had any shirts with different players’ names* on them.

*If you’ve never seen a division champs T-shirt, they often have a list of players on the back, players that contributed to that season’s success. I guess the idea is that you might look at it in 10 or 20 years and fondly remember Cristian Guzman‘s 7 hits in a Ranger uniform.

The man told the woman that those were the only shirts that they had.

It turned out that the woman was Michael Kirkman‘s wife, who was upset that her husband was not included on the back of the shirt.

“Is Chris Davis going to be on the postseason roster? Is Clay Rapada going to be on the postseason roster?” she asked incredulously.

It’s true what they say. When you go to the ballpark, you’ll probably see something you’ve never seen before.

…

Here’s a short scouting report on Mike Napoli from his days as a minor leaguer. For some reason, I find it really funny that he played for Rancho Cucamonga.

Press on, Rangers fans.

(Leave a comment or find me on Twitter @BleacherSeatsTX. Thanks to Baseball Reference for their invaluable resources.)