A defiant shining of feel-good news: It’s the 12/20/17 Rangers Upset Update

I reached into the glove compartment and procured a paper towel to wipe yesterday’s life off my glasses. wipe, wipe, rub, rub. It was going to be a full day, and I needed to see clearly.

I turned the windshield wipers on high and tried to keep the deluge of December precipitation off my windshield. swish swash, swish, swash. Traffic was like the Hunger Games this morning, and if I were to avoid adding to the carnage, I needed to see clearly.

I winced and reached for the dial to turn off the news emanating from the radio, allowing the silence on the inside of the car to be overtaken by the cacophony of the raindrops pelting the roof. click, brrattabattabatta. I had seen clearly enough for one morning.

I try to live life with clear glasses, a clean windshield, and open ears, even when it would be easier to ignore the story. I try not to look away just because something makes me uncomfortable. I try to fix my stare on the discomfort, to shine some light that will make the darkness squirm. I aim to let the discomfort with injustice drive me to work for change, and let the heartbreak scrub off the callouses, even if it hurts. That’s how I try to live.

But sometimes, I hit a wall. Sometimes a torrential downpour sounds optimistic by comparison.

So today’s Upset Update features only feel-good stories about the Rangers. (Besides, you’ve already heard the bizarre news of the latest Rangers injury by now, anyway).

1. Cole Hamels and his wife literally gave away their house. Camp Barnabus is a ministry in Missouri that allows kids with special needs and chronic illnesses (and their siblings) to have a summer camp experience that they might otherwise never get to have. You should really click on that link and just see some of the photos and read about the organization; they’re great.

The house is huge—roughly 32,000 square feet with 10 bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, and an 8-car garage—and has a playground, a barn, 100 acres of land, and over 1,700 feet of shoreline on Table Rock Lake. The estimated worth is over $9 million.

“We can’t even begin to express how humbled and floored we are by this gift,” said Krystal Simon, Barnabus’ Chief Development Officer. “It’s a game changer for our organization and for all of the individuals who we serve. God is so good.”

The gift is just the latest in a long line of donations by the Hamels Foundation. Go take a look for yourself.

2. The Rangers visited the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas today after their visit to Cook Children’s Medical Center yesterday. Elvis Andrus, Joey Gallo, Matt Bush, Robinson Chirinos, and a slew of coaches, broadcasters, front office members– heck, even owners Ray Davis and Neil Leibman were in attendance for this, the Rangers’ 15th annual visit.

Here’s Elvis Andrus talking about what the visit means to him, and the added significance now that he has a child of his own.

3. The Texas Rangers MLB Youth Academy at Mercy Street Sports Complex is finally complete! You’ve heard about the before, of course, as each phase was completed, but now the task has been finished, and is open for baseball and softball. Here’s the handout we got at the event:

The indoor field looks gr– Sorry, *ahem* Adrian Beltre Field, inside the Indoor Globe Life Training Center looks great (the naming of these things is always tricky). But the weather accentuated the benefit of having a roof, as a few hundred people watched the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The facility, by the way, is the ninth such facility. The other eight? Chicago, Cincinnati, Compton, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. Three more—The Bronx, Kansas City, and San Francisco—are in the process of development. The purpose of the facilities? To provide free (or reduced cost) opportunities for youth to participate in practice, training, and camps. The indoor facility ensures that the thwack, thwack, thwack of mitts and baseballs doesn’t even have to stop on a day as dreary as this one.

4. Austin Bibens-Dirkx was re-signed to a minor-league deal today. Of course he was. How were we going to get through a booster shot of feel-good stories without Austin Bibens-Dirkx? The 32-year-old recipient of the 2017 Rangers’ Rookie of the Year award (oh yeah, that was announced today, too) went 5-2 with a 4.67 ERA last year, and was one of the best surprises of the last season, and hopes to make the big league club again in 2018.

Incidentally, word came out today that Bibens-Dirkx pitched the second half of the 2017 season with a fracture in the palm of his right hand. That news never came out during the season, but it might have accounted for why he struggled a little more in the second half of the season than the first.

Also signed to a minor-league deal, Erik Goeddel, formerly of the Mets. Goeddel is an interesting under-the-radar signing; the 28-year-old right-hander had an exciting 2014-15, striking out 40 in as many innings, walking 13, and brandishing a 2.48 ERA. But his ERA jumped a little in 2016 and a little more in 2017, when he allowed 17 earned runs in 29 innings (5.28). Still, his strikeouts remained in line (a little higher, actually) than his career mark of 9.4 per 9 innings pitched. Goeddel has started just one game at any level since moving full-time into a reliever role in 2014, so he is likely a bullpen insurance signing.

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The rain has stopped now, and I am at home, watching my son create armor out of construction paper. He has already contributed to the house’s Christmas decorations by adding a “fire” to our non-functional fireplace:

I have come to a new perspective as I sit here and write. The Hamels’ gift, the very existence of Camp Barnabus, the Rangers’ trip to the hospital, the impossibly huge task of building a baseball academy for low-income youth… perhaps the key to making it through the day is not in closing my ears, but in opening them even wider. To see the good that exists, standing in opposition to the bad, shining a defiant light into the gaping maw of the darkness and refusing to stop.

Yes, sports are a distraction. But on days like this, I’m reminded that they enable us to be so much more.