Hey Rangers Fans: Show Some Kinship with Kinsler

If you're a baseball fan, you know that the All-Star team lineups were announced on Sunday. You may have also been surprised, as I was, to find out that the guy who was in the lead at second base, the Rangers' Ian Kinsler, lost that lead at the very last minute to the Red Sox' Dustin Pedroia.

But there's still a chance that Kinsler could be in St. Louis next week, because he's been chosen as one of five players on the American League "Final Vote" ballot (the National League has five as well, each of whom was selected by the respective All-Star teams' managers). So if you want to show Ian some love, go here and tell your friends. As the TV spots say, vote often!

I was surprised to find out that you really can vote as many times as you want; the limit for voting for the regular team was 25 times online, but (having not seen the commercial before I voted the first time) I figured this might be a one-off. But after I voted, it said "vote again," so I did, again and again. It wasn't until I was pretty sure I had already voted 25 times that I wondered if 1) the rules were different for this, or 2) the software was malfunctioning and all my votes would be negated anyway. (I was glad to hear it was the former.)

At any rate, if you're a Rangers fan, go online and give Josh Hamilton and Michael Young some company next week. (And if you're not a Ranger fan, you've probably skipped over this post anyway, LOL.) Voting ends at 3:00 this Thursday, Texas time.

UPDATE: Kinsler missed it by just a little bit, losing out to Brandon Inge of the Detroit Tigers. (KInsler said in the linked article that the division race is more important to him than any individual honor, so it's no big deal.)

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: But there will be a third Ranger in St. Louis next week; Nelson Cruz will join the squad as a replacement for the Angel's Torii Hunter, who recently had to go on the disabled list. Cruz was the next-highest vote-getter among AL outfielders.