[Air Force's sexual assault prevention chief arrested for sexual as]

I guess his attitude is "assaulting female military personnel bad....assaulting civilians OK"

When you put it that way, this pops into my head . . .

-- The Franchise

[Minute Made Park - a review]

Don't tell that to every Rangers bandwagon jumper in DFW. They'll make sure you know that this is a baseball town for sure. Nevermind the fact that they were nowhere to be found in Arlington as recently as 2009.

There are more "true" Rangers fans than some may think. A lot of us stayed away during the 2000's because of bad ownership that refused to do anything worth a crap with the team. Tom Hicks was nearly the death of this team and the day he left with "empty pockets" never came soon enough. The guy was a horrible owner and then had the sac to tell the media that the team's routine sub-.500 seasons were the fans fault and would have been remedied if "the fans had shown up."

Sorry, but the dude basically said back in 2004 that he will continue to put crap on the field until the fans start showing up to watch said crap. Then, he would think about investing more into the team. (My paraphrasing but it's the same basic message)

When Nolan/Greenberg took the team over, and they *gasp* actually lowered ticket prices from what Hicks had done, fans started showing up again. Yes, there was a winning product being put out at that time, too but there was also a fresh wind that started blowing into town at that time. The guy focusing on "making money" instead of "winning games" had finally left town and the focus was on a title. Dang, we came close . . . twice.

Also, an entertaining read (which even I question but find interesting given it's a pretty big publication like Forbes): http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/07/baseball-fans-loyal-forbeslife-cx_mw_0807sport.html

-- The Franchise

[Plant explosion in West]

I'm sure everyone's tuned into the details now, but man . . . Not much else to say than simply, pray, love, run to help -- whatever your method of help is, just do it. West is in chaos right now. A beautiful, charming little town that pretty much anyone that has ever driven south on I-35 is familiar with.

Just devastating . . .

http://www.wfaa.com/news/texas-news/powerful-exploson-rocks-town-north-of-waco-203508001.html

-- TheFranchise

[Have you seen sad Josh?]

You'll probably enjoy this, too: https://twitter.com/Josh_Hamilton_K

[Texas Rangers poll]

That ending had me nearly in tears. Man, I wanted that so bad. Still a great win that went a long way to negate Sunday's disappointment.

-- Franchise

[New Baseball Stadium]

So do I understand correctly that you have to have 3000 for a regional? So why would be build 200 short of that?

I'm willing to bet it will be expandable. For example, N.C. State hosted a regional at Doak Field last season. Doak has a listed capacity of 2,500 but is expandable to 3,000.

I would see U.N.T. doing something similar in the event that the team plays well enough to even consider hosting a Regional/Super Regional.

But that's all in the future. I'm just giddy about the prospect of having a team and a stadium, period!

-- Stephen

[Inoke Ngalo Euless Trinity]

I got to call two of his games last season as the color man. That kid is all over the place. He would be an excellent pickup for the Mean Green.

And yes, he's Tongan. If only Coach McCarney would get me to have a word with Ngalo and Coach Lineweaver . . .

-- Stephen

[Sweet t-shirt]

If I was a young, smaller t-shirt . . . that would be the t-shirt I'd wanna be when I grow up . . .

[Educate your self on the sport before it comes to Denton]

+1 -- I consider him "The Standard" on college baseball. The guy is awesome.

-- Franchise

[Is this really going to happen?]

Good Lord, I can't wait!

[Is this really going to happen?]

I'm sure you read that I stated the mid-week games are a great glance at the future of a program, and that we can expect to see local teams for those games. My point was that you aren't exactly going to see Matt Purke, ca. 2010, pitching on a Tuesday night. It's more likely to be a rotation of freshman getting in 2-3 innings apiece or a Matt Purke ca. 2011 rehabbing an injury.

Agreed. My intent was to piggy-back on what you were saying. Sorry if my text got in the way of my message.

In fact, I was really just trying to shoehorn in an Emmitt Smith reference.

And yes, your Purke illustration is an excellent example.

-- The Franchise

[Is this really going to happen?]

Hi everyone,

I've "lurked" for a couple of days but found this to be the perfect opportunity to chime in.

I just have to say that this stuff is making me uuber-excited.

I'm a new student at UNT (seriously, this is my first semester) and have been hoping for a while that the Mean Green would restart the baseball program. The fact that this is coming true has me seriously giddy.

I used to be a sportswriter following another nearby university and followed their baseball team a lot. I grew to LOVE college baseball. To find out The Mean Green aim to join those ranks makes me proud. I can't wait for opening day.

For those that love baseball but aren't familiar with the college game, you're in for a treat. As oldguystudent alluded to, it doesn't get much better than a Friday night or Saturday matinee college baseball game. On opening night, I will for sure be at KRAM1 ballpark. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

But don't "poo poo" the mid-week games entirely. Those are still going to be the one/two game sets (sometimes home and home on back-to-back nights) with some really good local programs (DBU, TCU, Oklahoma, even UTA is decent).

This is excellent news.

-- The Franchise