#Secrets

I don't sleep nearly as well these days as I used to (even counting my blogging zenith of 2010-11, where late nights, early mornings and 5-6 a.m. bedtimes were the norm more than they were the exception), and I can't sleep this morning. Lord knows I've been trying to sleep, but it's not happening. I suppose that my state of restlessness makes this song appropriate:

That isn't really what I wanted to get off my chest, though. I've been M.I.A. quite a lot lately, and you all know this, and you all know the reasons why that is, and my absence is plainly and glaringly apparent. It's been bothering me. It's been gnawing at me. I've been the king of this particular mountain for going on six years (with, of course, all due respect to every writer who I have ever had the privilege of sharing this space with -- I wouldn't have made it this far without any of them), and I'm transitioning into a phase of my life where, realistically, I won't be able to occupy that position anymore. It's still bothering me. I'll get over it eventually, and I'll bring in the voices necessary to mitigate that absence, and my presence should, in theory at least, rebound here in the very near future, but it's going to bother me for a while yet. 

The other thing that's been bugging me to no end is that I woke up several different mornings last week with every intention of sitting down and punching out something. Anything. And I rifled through the morning stories, and I stared at my screen, and ... nothing. I simply could not conjure up the motivation necessary to create a post. It was a startling realization. Even during those times when I tired of the blogging grind, the motivation, the hunger, the spark, the whatever-you-call-it that drove me to produce content was always still there, and this has been the first time in those nearly six years where it's been missing. I suppose, though, that it all kind of died at once after what happened to the Rangers happened.

I can work through season-long disappointments and early-September eliminations, because, well, if you can see disaster coming from a mile away, it's much easier to properly come to terms with it. I can work through the dejection of unfulfilled October dreams, provided that you don't go down without a fight. What I'm not so great at working through, though, is a finish like that, compounded by the fact that once late September/early October arrived, the Rangers no longer bore even a passing resemblance to the team that looked like a World Series favorite some 5-6 months earlier. And maybe that explains away some of my recent inability to produce even vaguely interesting content.

Or maybe blogging is a young man's game, and I just grew old overnight. 

Nah, that can't be it.

But at least I feel like sleeping now. Catch you all later this morning.

Report: Terry Francona Will Manage The Indians In 2013

Per Robothal. This puts the kibosh on any hope that may have been out there as far as Francona possibly replacing Ron Washington over the 2012-13 off-season -- hope that was unrealistic to begin with, I think, because I believe the likelihood of Washington being back to begin next season is 95 percent or better.

Does this season (and, in particular, the ending to it) undermine the organization's longer-term confidence in Washington? Yeah, I think so. I don't think he's anywhere near as safe as he was at this same time a year ago. But unless the high-level sentiment towards him is much harsher than I believe it to be, or unless he commits another huge mistake in his personal life, I just don't see any way that he's in legitimate danger of being canned in the next six months.

Randy Galloway suggests that an off-season battle will be waged between the front office and the coaching staff, that the "infighting could get ugly," and that there is "no way" that Wash's job will be in jeopardy as long as Nolan Ryan is involved. There are a lot of things we don't know about the internal dynamic, a lot of half-truths and speculative tidbits leaked through the media that we end up extrapolating further than we should, and, as such, I don't know that we can necessarily disprove what Galloway suggests ... but this, to me at least, sounds like an excessively bleak outlook on things. This also sounds a bit like Galloway reigniting the familiar old "Nolan vs. JD" narrative in advance, and I'm not sure I can see the basis for doing that at this point.

I don't doubt that there's frustration and tension within the upper ranks and within the room, nor do I doubt that there will be some heated debate on off-season personnel matters. I do doubt that this is going to turn into a nasty, factional internal conflict, though -- unless, of course, I'm sadly mistaken in whatever assumptions I hold about the inner workings of the organization, and this really is a scalding-hot cauldron ready to boil over.

Today's Explosive Poll Of The Day

I've had this poll up on the left side of the website for about 36 hours now, and now that I'm bringing a bit more attention to it, I'll be curious to see where public sentiment truly does lie ...

Yes, This Is Josh Hamilton

"I still had a pretty good year," Hamilton said. "Just think if I hadn't taken off June and July. We'll work on that next year."

Today's .GIFs Of The Day

After the jump ...

Click to read more ...

The Rangers Are 92-65

Here's a .gif of what happened to the Rangers tonight that will suffice until I actually write a substantive post:

The Rangers Are 92-64

Not long to go now. One of these days I'll have the time to write again ...

The Rangers Are 91-64

And now Dr. Salmon is gone.

The Rangers Are 91-63

Does it hurt?

Be Well, SeaBass

I've listened to the Ticket for quite a few years on end now, and, in many ways, the lot of their on-air hosts and ticker guys and interns now almost feel like an extended, somewhat dysfunctional branch of my own family. You listen to them on the air every day, you laugh with them, you interact with them, and, ultimately, you turn from a dispassionate listener into someone who actually cares about what happens in the everyday lives of the people at the station.

Which is why I've taken what happened to Sean Bass and his girlfriend over the weekend so hard. I don't know Sean on a personal level, I've never met Sean in person, but he's been a regular of the Ticket airwaves for years, we've interacted with some degree of regularity on Twitter, he reads BBTiA and I listen to Diamond Talk, etc. -- my point being, you don't have to be intimately familiar with someone on a face-to-face basis to really hurt for them in the wake of such a senseless tragedy. We haven't met, but he feels far less like a stranger on the radio and more like an old friend. And this sucks. This is awful.

Be well, Sean. You're in my (and many other BBTiA/Rangers blogosphere readers') thoughts right now.

The Rangers Are 90-62

If I didn't see a win happen, did it really happen?

The Rangers Are 89-62