2014 Quarry Unlimited - #16 Texas Rangers Part 2

YELLOW

RED

ORANGE

ROOKIE PROSPECTS

My Top 5 Rangers Cards
1. Roman Mendez (purple)
2. Adam Rosales (yellow)
3. Derek Holland (green)
4. Scott Baker (yellow)
5. Mike Carp (orange)

The Rangers definitely had a nice selection this year, but I guess with 64 cards the law of averages says at least a few of them have to be good.  Roman Mendez and the pigeon is definitely going into my top 5.  The fact that they were the perfect distance from each other to fit within the white border of the card is just the icing on the cake.  The Adam Rosales card would have been #1 on most other teams.  It shows a perfect depiction of how nasty ballplayers actually can be in a dugout.  It's not a pretty place.  The oversize glove on the Holland might have been seen before, but it never fails to be amusing much like the glove on the head photo.  The Baker is just one of those oddballs that everyone seems to remember.  He also has that look of someone that doesn't get interviewed all that often.  With #5 I was going back and forth between the Nathan Adcock "sneering in the rain" and the Mike Carp "arguing with the umpire."  In the end, I went with the Carp because I couldn't let it go that it was the umpire and Carp "carping" at each other.  Wordplay is fun.


Coming tomorrow - #17 New York Mets

Thanx for reading.

2014 Quarry Unlimited - #16 Texas Rangers Part 1

I don't believe there was any team that had to deal with as much injury and turmoil during the 2014 season as the Texas Rangers.  They started the season with their entire 5 man starting rotation on the disabled list and it just went downhill from there.  The Rangers turned in their worst season since 1985 and that was a Bobby Valentine managed club so that shouldn't even really count against them.  This is a team that had made the postseason for five straight years.  Well technically they missed the playoffs in 2013, but they did play in a tiebreaker game for the Wild Card so I'll count it anyway. 

The resignation of longtime manager Ron Washington was the biggest blow to the Rangers season (no pun intended...well maybe a slight one was intended).  In one of the weirder resignations ever, Washington left in early September because he cheated on his wife and apparently quitting his job would make things all better between them.  Tim Bogar became the interim manager and led the Rangers team that was 31 games under .500 to a 14-8 record in his 22 games in charge.  The Rangers rewarded his fantastic stint by passing him over in favor of Jeff Banister, someone with zero experience at the big league level.  Why anyone would want to be an interim manager I will never know.  And Bogar was not even the worst interim manager experience of the season, but we'll get to that story later.

RANGERS TEAM TRIVIA

Total # of Rangers in 2014 - 64 (most in the league…by far)

# of new Rangers in 2014 - 40 (most in the league…by far)

Best score in 2014 - August 5 at White Sox 16-0

Worst score in 2014 - April 20 vs. White Sox 16-2

Border color that worked best with this team - Yellow

Border color that worked least with this team - Red

Position on last year's list - #14 = DOWN 2

Let's take a look at the first half of the 2014 Texas Rangers with the two manager cards leading the way.

PURPLE

GREEN

BLUE

I'll be back tomorrow with Part 2.  As usual, your thoughts are always welcome and encouraged.

Thanx for reading.