Omahogs- Or, Victory Eludes Me Yet Again

They say it is better to love and lost than to never loved at all, or something like that.  That sentiment sure applies to me lately, at least in terms of my favorite sports  teams.  Allow me to recap :

1)      The Rangers:  Once again, they were fantastic in 2011, and like they did in 2010, reached the World Series.  Like 2010, they lost the World Series, but this time they HAD it.  They HAD it.  A guy can’t complain too much about consecutive WS appearances, but to get one strike away TWICE and come up empty handed was a very bitter pill to swallow.

2)      Razorback Football:  Despite losing handily to Alabama earlier in the year, the Hogs still had a shot at a BCS bowl for the second straight year (In 2010, they had the Sugar Bowl against Ohio State all but handed to them on a block punt at the end of the game.   

      The Razorback who recovered the block punt inexplicably fell on the ball instead of picking it up and trotting untouched into the end zone as he could easily have done.)  In 2011, a victory at LSU at the end of the season would have put them back in a BCS game.  Even though the Hogs had an early lead, LSU was pretty clearly the better team and went on to win easily.   The Hogs went on to get a nice Cotton Bowl win over a good Kansas State team and finished in the top 5.  I can’t really complain about that either, since they never really had a shot at a National Title and finished the year on a win.

 3)      Razorback Baseball:  The Razorback baseball team finished the season barely making the top 25 but got hot in the post season and made it all the way to the College World Series in Omaha (Omahogs is what we call the baseball Razorbacks in these here parts).  I said at the time that I was happy with them just getting there and would not be get stressed about the CWS, no matter how they fared.  Then they won 3 in a row and were in the drivers seat for a chance to play Arizona for the National Championship.  All they had to do was beat South Carolina one time out of two games.  They didn’t, and finished the year ranked anywhere from #3-6 depending on the poll. Again, I'd pretty much take that every year, so no complaining from me.

The good news for all of us is that the Rangers are every bit as good this year as last year, and may actually be better, especially if they can get Michael Young to take his bat out of his butt and get Derek Holland back to being the stud he should be.

Razorback football should be elite again, despite losing the incredible coach but scumbag person Bobby Petrino to his own stupidity.

Who knows with the baseball team.  Dave Van Horn is an elite coach, and I would suspect Arkansas will be a playoff contender again despite losing a few key players, such as Matt Reynolds:

Ahhhh finally some pictures of cards!  Reynolds was the best position player for the Hogs this year, both offensively and defensively.  The Mets drafted him in the 2^nd round and scouts are pretty high on him.  I picked up all of these cards pretty cheaply recently.  The Sterling relic is a very sharp card.

Here’s hoping to a productive MLB career for Reynolds, and to just one of my teams finishing the job and getting me a championship!