Ah, the Feeling of Summer

With tomorrow being June 1st, I have a feeling of anticipation, of excitement.

I always do, every since . . . well, every since I was a kid, I guess. For me, as a child, summer was the most exciting time of the year. It wasn't Christmas, wasn't my birthday, or anything like that. It was summer . . . because summer meant school was done . . . for a couple of months, at least.

It's funny that I still have a sense of excitement and anticipation, many years after my final day of school, with June being one calendar day away.

As a kid, summer also meant getting to stay up late and watch baseball. It normally meant going to a Texas Rangers game, or two, or three. And when I was younger, summer meant playing baseball. Pretty much, to me summer = baseball.

The Texas Rangers have always been my team. Win or lose, rain or shine, through thick and through thin, I have been right there with them. Through division championships, through relievers throwing chairs into the stands, through no-hitters and perfect games (I was at Kenny Rogers'!!!), through Oil Can Boyd, through having first-half leads to fading back after the All-Star break, through it all, I've been there.

Fortunately, I was also at one of the biggest World Series games ever to be played in Arlington.

The idea of the Rangers playing in a World Series has been laughable for most of my life. The Rangers are the lovable losers, the "Aw shucks, we'll get 'em next time" team. The fact that they played and had a really good shot (it still hurts) at winning a championship still blows me away because just like I dreamed about summer for nine months out of the year, I also dreamed about the Rangers playing in a World Series.

But just like summer eventually came around on the calendar, the Rangers also eventually had some World Series success:

And like so many things in life that we dream about, it was . . . well . . . awesome.

I had the unbelievable fortune of being able to be at Games 3 & 4 of the '11 World Series. Game 3 was not too much fun, on the Rangers side. But Game 4 was incredible. I still have the front page of the newspaper hanging in my office, commemorating what a historical game it was.

It's fun . . . and fulfilling, in a way, to be able to actually see something that we have hoped and dreamed about come to fruition. The World Series being played in Arlington actually happened.

And once again, just like it does every year, at midnight tonight, June will happen.