Fan's insider

Breakfast crumbs: Friday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* No Rangers game last night. Stars and Mavericks quiet. Tired of talking about Greg Ellis being unhappy. Predictable Lakers win over the Spurs. Pretty boring sports night last night, huh? Made for a great night to eat out, though.

* Reading Randy Galloway's column today about the Rangers' lagging attendance and Bryan French's accompanying story about the Rangers' ticket discounts and promotions made me curious, so I looked it up. The Rangers, drawing 24,077 for home games, are 23rd in the majors in attendance.

* Maybe it wasn't just because the Rangers are in town. The Tampa Bay Rays hosted the Chicago White Sox last night in a matchup of first place teams and the Rays still drew only 12,636.

* Mariah Carey's videos are obviously popular, but there's a new one that should attract a lot of hits. She threw out the first pitch at a baseball game in Japan, and let's just say her pitching arm won't go platinum anytime soon. (Disclaimer: I don't speak Japanese, so I cannot be held responsible for anything the announcers said on the video.)

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Thursday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* As good a player as the Cowboys' Greg Ellis is, I think we spend more time talking about him during the off-season than we do during the season. Here we go again.

* After yesterday's 5-3 loss, the Rangers won't visit the Tampa Bay Rays again until August, so let's do one more installment of Rays Attendance Watch. Yesterday's game drew 10,927. The three-game series drew a total of 33,612 fans. Five major-league games last night had a higher attendance than what Tampa Bay drew for the three games against the Rangers.

* Here's something I wish I would have read at a spot other than the breakfast table. The San Antonio Spurs' Brent Barry, on scoring 23 points but the Spurs still losing to the Los Angeles Lakers when Barry didn't get sent to the free-throw line on his last-second shot: "It's like whipped cream on a pile of manure." Revo hit nothing but net in his column today when he says Dwyane Wade would have gotten the foul call on that play.

* If you haven't seen video of the Canadian Hockey League's Memorial Cup breaking in the hands of the new  champs, the Spokane Chiefs, it's worth a look here. Don't worry -- it's a replica trophy. The real Memorial Cup (which has been handed out since 1919, by the way) is at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

* And while we're recommending other destinations on the World Wide Web, here is where you can read the Sports Illustrated cover story on Josh Hamilton. It's worth the trip.

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Wednesday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* After beating Tampa Bay 12-6 last night, the Rangers take another shot at getting over the .500 mark this morning. This is the Rangers' ninth game this season with a chance to go one-up in the win column over the loss column. They are 1-8 in those games. The only win came Aug. 10 when they were 4-4 and beat Baltimore. But that doesn't count because it was the second game of a doubleheader and they only had about a half hour to think about getting over .500.

* Tampa Bay's attendance for yesterday's game was even worse than the first game of their series with the Rangers. It was 10,511. That makes the series total 22,685. That two-day total is less than 10 out of the other 13 games yesterday in the majors drew.

* Pittsburgh Penguins forward Gary Roberts said of the Detroit Red Wings: "We need to find a way to hate that team. They play a game that they're not really in your face. They just play a puck-control game. They don't make you that mad at them." Dude, they've outscored you 7-0 through two games with the Stanley Cup on the line. That should make you mad right there.

* Interesting, interesting. Brent Barry wasn't officially fouled in the San Antonio Spurs' crucial loss last night to the Los Angeles Lakers. The lead referee and crew chief of the officials not calling a foul was Joey Crawford, who was suspended last season for throwing Tim Duncan out of a Spurs game. I'm not saying that's anything more than interesting. But I am saying that's interesting.

* If you read today's Fans' Insider in the print edition, here's the Little League uniforms story from Chicago that sparked that bit of reminiscing.

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Tuesday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table:

* Part of our curiosity was settled when Tampa Bay Rays fans gave Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton a nice standing ovation yesterday in his anticipated visit to Tampa. This morning settled the rest of our curiosity on how local columnists would treat Hamilton. As you can read here in The Tampa Tribune and The (Lakeland) Ledger, the columnists were rather nice, too.

* We're nearing June and the teams with the two best records in the major leagues are Tampa Bay and the Florida Marlins.

* Despite the Rays having the best record, they still drew only 12,174 for their holiday win over the Rangers. That was almost half the size of the next-smallest crowd in the majors on Memorial Day. (Toronto drew 23,157 for a game against Kansas City). According to the St. Petersburg Times, Monday's crowd was Tampa Bay's fifth-smallest this season. And that's for the two best teams in baseball over the past month.

* Took a look at the leaderboard this morning and saw this interesting set of numbers: Number of the world's top 10-ranked players who played at Colonial: 5. Number apparently playing this week's Memorial ("Jack's Tournament"): 6. Colonial made up some serious ground in a hurry.

* This might make Stars fans feel better: Those mighty Pittsburgh Penguins, who had averaged 3.6 goals per game in 14 playoff games, have yet to light the lamp against the Detroit Red Wings in the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals.

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Friday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* If you're headed out to Colonial today, here's what you need to know: The caddie races at the 13th green have an earlier post time this year. Typically, they don't get cranking until the weekend rounds. But yesterday, they were going in full force.

* I'm a stats guy, but these little nuggets from yesterday's Rangers win make me cringe. Jamey Wright gave up two earned runs in 2/3 of an inning and was credited with a hold. Joaquin Benoit gave up two earned runs in two innings, blew a save opportunity and wound up with the win. And I'm not pointing this out only because Vicente Padilla is one of my fantasy pitchers and the Rangers bullpen cost me a win.

* First baseman Hank Blalock. First baseman Hank Blalock. First baseman Hank Blalock. OK, I think I've got it down. He'll be over there tonight in Cleveland.

* The Cats successfully pulled off the old hidden-ball trick last night in Wichita. The Wingnuts' manager made some kind of remark about how he might try that trick, too, if his team had lost three straight games. And I promise you this: He also would try it at any point when he thought it might actually work, regardless of win streak, losing streak, whatever.

* It's worth a visit to the Wichita Wingnuts' web site to check out the team's logo. Don't tell anyone over at the Cats this, but I may have to buy a Wingnuts cap.

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Thursday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* As much as Ron Washington works his lineup around his players playing on artificial surfaces (Frank Catalanotto missed yesterday's game with a stiff back), I wonder what Washington would do if he managed a team that played its home games on the stuff.

* After watching George Lopez entertain the patrons during yesterday's Colonial Pro-Am, I must admit to a bit of envy. Must be great to be paid to play golf and make people laugh. Of course, making people laugh on the golf course comes much easier for some of us. Especially those of us with a naturally funny swing.

* At long last, I now have seen an explanation (third item) for why I never was a home-run hitter. I played my entire career in Texas and we're too close to sea level.

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Wednesday

Thoughts and notes compiled at the breakfast table ...

* I don't know whether this is actually true, but it sure seems like every year that just when you're starting to get some semi-good feelings about the Rangers, a really bad road trip comes along and ruins the rest of the season. Could this current road trip be the one this season?

* To help make his position switch, Hank Blalock played first base and didn't bat in a simulated game back at the Rangers' spring training home. I don't know, but I'm thinking a major-leaguer can't get too excited about playing defense only in a simulated, spring training-style game.

* Did you read Jimmy Burch's Golf Insider column on Jim Furyk's surprise visit to a Fort Worth family? Those are the types of happy-happy stories sports writers wish we could write every day. (OK -- maybe four or five days a week, then spend the other days playing golf.)

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Tuesday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* Goodbye note for the Dallas Stars: Thanks for making May better.

* Both the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News had columnists write this morning along the lines of "Finally, after six long years the Red Wings are back in the Stanley Cup Finals." Yes, six ... long ... years. My first thought was, "What would they do if they were columnists here." Then my next (and immediate_ thought was, "What will they write if the Lions ever make it to the Super Bowl?"

* Did you realize that the last time the Red Wings made the Stanley Cup Finals, George W. Bush was President?

* Despite everything we saw around here at the end of April, apparently Chris Paul can be stopped.

* After reading Jimmy Burch's feature today on Steve Stricker, Stricker has to have one of the rarest achievements in all of sports with his back-to-back Comeback Player of the Year Awards on the PGA Tour.

* Believe me when I say I am absolutely fine with Reba McEntire being a better singer than I am. Singing's her line of work, not mine. But it bothers me a little that she's telling better Roger Clemens jokes than I am.

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Monday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* I might feel better about the Stars cutting the Detroit Red Wings' lead to 3-2 if now the Stars weren't sounding like the San Jose Sharks and the Red Wings weren't sounding like the Stars right before Game 6 of the Stars-Sharks series that ended, as you may recall, with Game 6.

* I'm trying to decide which weather numbers I like the least: forecast highs of 95-94-96 the next three days or precipation chances of 30%-30%-50%-30% for the four days of Colonial.

* Because we have an audience with all different kinds of tastes, here's one follow-up on the big story over the weekend that the New York Yankees' Jason Giambi wears a gold thong to break out of slumps. And, worse yet, that he shares his thong with slumping teammates.

* Potential job opening: crew member for A.J. Foyt IV. Requirement: ability to close a fuel tank cover. Here's what happens when you don't do that properly. And then your driver winds up on the hot seat (literally), which is quickly followed by your driver saying: "We know who did it. I don't want to single [him] out, but he's probably going to be looking for a new job and it's too bad because he's a good guy."

-- David Thomas

Breakfast crumbs: Friday

Notes and thoughts compiled at the breakfast table ...

* Don't look now, but in addition to being four games out of the A.L. West race, the Rangers are 3 1/2 games out of the Wild Card race.

* Really don't look now, but the Tampa Bay Rays are in first place and the New York Yankees are in last.

* Sounds like Nolan Ryan is the type of boss everyone wants. (Like my boss, it goes without saying.)

* Even though the New Orleans Hornets and San Antonio Spurs are tied at three games each, it's kind of hard to call the series even. New Orleans' three wins -- all at home -- have come by 19, 18 and 22 points. San Antonio's three wins -- all at home -- have come by 11, 20 and 19 points.

-- David Thomas