7/3 Rangers Wave Report

Headed out to the Ballpark tonight to check out the Rangers and Rays for what looked to be a great matchup. Turned out it was with the Rangers winning 3-1 behind a great effort by Tommy Hunter to shut down one of the hottest offenses in the game.

With it being 4th of July weekend, a Friday night with $10 tickets and fireworks after the game it promised to be a big crowd with a lot of people that don't make it out to very many games. That, unfortunately, meant that the wave was going to be making an appearance. Thankfully there was only one stadium wide wave tonight, several others tried to get going but quickly fizzled out, but it came at a most inopportune time in the game.

It was the bottom of the fifth and there were two outs, with Marlon Byrd standing on second after doubling in Ian Kinsler. Andruw Jones was up to bat trying to keep this rally going. And the freaking wave was going on full force all around the stadium. Here was my view of Jones flying out to center from section 321, row 7.

Take a look at the people sitting below me in the section. When Andruw makes contact with the ball most of them are looking towards their left waiting for the Wave to arrive. Shouldn't this be a time in the game when the entire stadium should be into what is going on in the field? There needs to be a constant noise going on, not people standing up one section at time for no apparent reason.

This is the third or fourth, and maybe more that I can't recall or didn't see, game this season where the wave has been going on at critical points of games. It's a sad situation here and speaks highly of the fan base of this team. With everything that goes on at the Ballpark, never mind the game itself, there should be no reason that these people need to entertain themselves with the wave.

But, at the end of the night the Rangers won, Tommy Hunter picked up his first career big league win, Hank Blalock continued his hot streak and the Rangers could shortly be back in tie for first place in the AL West. Overall, not a bad night.