Rangers Head To Lone Star Beer City In 2013
“The exciting thing for San Antonio is that this is going to be the first time that baseball is going to be played at the Alamodome,” Reid Ryan said. “For the Rangers, to be able to extend the brand in Round Rock and now down in San Antonio is going to be good for baseball and good for the Rangers and their fans.”
And with that quote from Ryan, the people of San Antonio need to get their scorecards ready. America’s pastime is headed to the Alamodome.
The Texas Rangers will invade the city of Lone Star beer for a weekend in March, before the 2013 Major League Baseball season begins.
Officials with the Rangers and its Triple-A affiliate are slated to announce a partnership Friday to play exhibition games on a Friday and Saturday.
They’re expected to say which team will play against the Rangers as well as unveil a plan for the field inside the dome.
Reid Ryan, CEO of the Rangers’ Triple-A Round Rock Express and son of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan (a Rangers owner), are working on the details to be announced.
The Alamodome wasn’t built to hold a baseball field. It’s longer than it is wide because of railroad tracks that run along its eastern wall. But a “short porch” — a left- or right-field wall closer than normal ballparks — could make the chicks that still dig the long ball excited.
The Rangers’ will have an opportunity to expand their brand into a new market. The series also will likely rekindle a widespread desire to attract another major-league team to the Alamo City.
Even if it weren’t Major League Baseball, the city with it’s population could easily satisfy a team a notch higher than the San Antonio Missions, the Double-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. Maybe also put in a downtown stadium.
But bringing in a team that’s in a league above the Missions, who have played in San Antonio for a century, isn’t as easy as simply wishing for one, or knowing there’s a fan base here to support it.
The Missions would have to want to leave San Antonio and have a place to go, and a Triple-A team (there’s one for each MLB team), would have to be looking to move and want to come to San Antonio — not to mention the need for a new facility.
In the meantime Rangers fans who live in the Alamo city won’t have to drive several hundred miles to see them play. At least for a couple of games on a spring weekend in March anyway.
– UPDATE THE RANGERS WILL PLAY TWO GAMES AGAINST THE PADRES IN SAN ANTONIO ON FRIDAY MARCH 29TH AND SATURDAY THE 30TH.
