A Ranger for Life

OK, one more baseball post this week and then it's back to the normal topics, whatever they are. I was happy to see in yesterday's paper (which I'm just now getting around to reading) that the entire Rangers broadcast crew is getting contract extensions, and radio play-by-play man Eric Nadel is getting a deal that should keep him with the club for the duration of his career:

Club president Jeff Cogen and assistant vice president for marketing Kelly Calvert confirmed the plan to make Nadel a "Ranger for life." The rest of the broadcast crew – Victor Rojas, Josh Lewin and Tom Grieve – all will receive extensions ranging from three to four years.

[...]Nadel's extension means he'll go over the 30-year mark with the club. Nadel, who turned 55 earlier this month, is in his 28th year with the club. He declined to reveal the exact length of the contract but did acknowledge it takes him to an "age at which many people retire."

It also will put him alongside his boyhood heroes – Mel Allen and Red Barber – in longevity. Both Hall of Famers broadcast more than 30 years each, though neither did it exclusively with one team.

Along with his late former partner, Mark Holtz, Nadel has been synonymous with the Rangers for as long as most fans can remember; his "that one is history!" home-run call joins Holtz's "Hello win column!" among the most beloved phrases in local baseball lore. The rest of the guys--Victor Rojas alongside Nadel on radio, and Josh Lewin and Tom Grieve on television, are also top-notch. (Sure, the people who gripe that Lewin is too much of a "homer" may have a point, but isn't that what a home broadcast team is supposed to do? Save the objectivity for Jon Miller and Joe Morgan and the rest of the national guys.) And with the team still atop the division at the moment, maybe we'll even get to hear more of the broadcast crew this season (he says, optimistically).

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to my good buddy Jonathan; I can't believe we've known each other for a decade now.