The Snowman

Those of you familiar with poker hands probably know what number 'the snowman' refers to, or, more accurately, which hand you hold if you hold snowmen...  This is my eighth post so far, an average of one every other day since I started, and I will be two posts away from having the blog reviewed for inclusion in the Blogcatalog.com search engine after I have published this.  So what's going on in the world of sports today...?  The Texas Rangers are one win away from punching a return ticket to the World Series after a 7-3 win over the Detroit Tigers tonight, while the St. Louis Cardinals took a 2-1 lead in their series against the Milwaukee Brewers with a 4-3 victory.  When the four teams had been decided for the AL and NL Championship Series, I made the comment to a friend of mine about Major League Baseball surely being thrilled that no teams from the east coast NOR the west coast were being represented any longer.  I also mentioned that I was positive that MLB must be pulling for the Rangers now, so the World Series would at least have the Dallas/Fort Worth television market and the state of Texas watching some baseball games in late October.  A Tigers/Brewers matchup would be interesting because we might get to see some snow in the Fall Classic, but it's going to be Rangers/Cardinals unless something changes fast... 

Now we'll explore that job opportunity that I missed about a year ago, you know, the job of Big 12 Commissioner.  I have been telling everyone I know when the subject of the Big 12 Conference came up in conversation during the past year that the conference should invite TCU to be a member.  TCU was an obvious choice to me after Colorado left for what is now the PAC 12, and Nebraska left for the Big 10.  TCU is a solid football and baseball school and comes with the Dallas/Fort Worth television market (is a theme developing here?).  Texas A&M University did TCU a HUGE favor by leaving for the SEC, cutting the Big 12 down to 9 teams, while selling the other conference members on inviting a school that did not want another team from Texas in the conference.  I have never understood the so-called logic of not wanting to include another school from the Lone Star State, but now TCU has been saved from the massive amounts of travel that being a member of the Big East Conference would have required, plus they slide right into the great spot that the Aggies vacated, which is inclusion in a conference with in-state schools Texas, Baylor, and Texas Tech.  I think that Texas A&M made a mistake by leaving for the SEC, and only time will tell if that is correct.  I think that the leadership in College Station is basically jealous of the Longhorn Network that the University of Texas set up with ESPN, and that their departure from the Big 12 was ill-advised.  The ability of Texas A&M to compete in the SEC is not the problem that I have with the move.  Looking at the Top 25 teams in the football polls right now, you find the Aggies, along with many other members of the Big 12 and the SEC.  The Aggies also won a national championship in women's basketball during the past year, and have many other successful athletic programs.  What I think the Aggies will lose in-state are their rivalries and their relevance, added to the fact that their student-athletes and fans are going to find it more difficult to travel to away games.  I find it hard to believe that a school so passionate about tradition found it so easy to end their in-state rivalries, and when they are playing in the SEC, there won't be any reason for sports followers around the state to care about what the Aggies are doing, because they won't be competing for conference titles against the other schools in the state.  I hope that the administration at A&M really thought this move through, because I know a lot of sports fans in the state that LOVED this rivalry, and now it will be next to impossible for an Aggie fan to EVER say anything to a Longhorn fan, because the response will simply be, "hey, YOU left..."  Have a great day everyone...