Listmania!

If you ever visit my house – and you probably never will,  thus the moniker: Hooch Secret World Headquarters – you would find stuck to mirrors, books, the fridge, a couple of selected lampshades, my purse, my binoculars and by each of the phones little yellow post-it notes with lists written on them. The same thing happens in my cubicle at work and yes, even on the dash board of my car. This is the inspiration for this week’s blog: a few random lists.

Marla’s Top 5 All-Time Favorite TV Shows:

1. Homicide – Life on the Street – I’d turn down invitations to go out on Friday night to stay home and watch this show – for seven seasons it was television at its finest.

2. St. Elsewhere – did you know that Denzel Washington, Mark Harmon and Howie Mandel were regulars on this show? They’ve never released the entire series on VCR or DVD which is a shame – it’s better than just about any medical drama on television today.

3. WRKP in Cincinnati – how often have I referenced this show on my blog? Too often, probably. I’ve seen all the episodes more times than I can count and they still make me laugh out loud – Captain Rutabaga!

4. The Mary Tyler Moore Show – Aside from the fact it set the standard for ensemble comedy and characters (Sue Ann Nivens, Ted Baxter, Rhoda Morgenstern and Lou Grant) and  produced one of the classic comedy episodes in television history (“Chuckles Bites The Dust”). I think most women my age will tell you that the Mary Richards character (smart, single and career minded) was a role model that we appreciated and many of us followed.

5. Star Trek – the original series. Many of you in  the Star Wars/Avatar generation will never understand what an amazing series this was back, back, back in the day.

 Marla’s 5 Preferred Stadium Sections To Sit In During Her Baseball Travels

1. Section 108 - at Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco. Yes, the world’s greatest usher, Dennis, takes care of that section – which is the primary reason I sit there. There’s no screen to mess up the focus on my camera, you can see every corner of the park, and the full moon that rises over right field is always a sight to behold.

2. Section 114 - at the San Antonio Missions Ballpark (Nelson Wolff Ballpark) The lighting in that stadium is absolutely perfect – I’ve taken some of my best pictures there.


3. Anywhere - at Dell Diamond in Round Rock. It’s the best place to see a minor league baseball game. I really hope that rumors are true that this could be the future home of the Rangers AAA affiliate.

4. Section 315 - at  the Ballpark in Arlington -  $10.00 seats on Friday, $5.00 parking, a great view and nice breeze – what more could you ask for? (Section 13 runs a close second – but the price of tickets have become too expensive for me to sit there on a regular basis).

5. I don’t remember the section number, but it was by the bullpen on the third base side of Tiger Stadium You never forget where you sat at your first major league baseball game, the stadium is gone – but the memory remains.

5 More of Marla’s Favorite Places To Dine

1. Bodacious Barbeque – Arlington, Texas
2. Konaki Greek Restaurant – London, England
3. Luminaira – Santa Fe, New Mexico
4. Central Grocery – New Orleans, Louisiana
5. The Burmese place in Greenwich Village - (can't recall the name right now,  this where the New Mexico Bean and Dr. Richards had their wedding reception ) – New York, New York

The 5 Best Episodes of Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…. (Sundance Channel)

1. The Guitar Pull – Season 1 (Kris Kirstofferson, Roseanne Cash, John Mellencamp, and Norah Jones)
2. The Police – Season 1
3. John Prine, Ray LaMontagne and Lyle Lovett – Season 2 (I could’ve done without Ray LaMontagne – which would’ve meant more time with John Prine and Lyle Lovett)
4. James Taylor – Season 1
5. Bruce Springsteen – Season 2 (and I don’t even like Bruce)

The 5 Things Marla Feels That Rangers Have To Do In Order To Contend in 2010

 1. The young pitchers (Holland, Feliz, Hunter) MUST:  be much better and more consistent – if they don’t do that, then the other 4 items on this list don’t matter.

2. Rich Harden has to stay healthy and pitch well, which means he needs to make as many starts as Kevin Milwood did in 2009 (31) but he has to win more games (Milwood won 13)

3. Josh Hamilton has to be the second half Josh Hamilton of 2009 (.288 BA - .754 OPS)

4. Did I mention that the young pitchers need to step up and Rich Harden needs to be healthy and pitch well?

5. The Rangers have to hope that not all of Seattle’s off season moves will work out – otherwise...well, it's too early to start thinking about that

5 Good Books Marla’s Read Recently

1. Dangerously Funny – The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by David Bianculli - it’s about much more than pumas in crevices and David Steinberg’s sermons.

2. An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan – Ms. Morgan’s Jane Austen like style writing is a pleasure to read.

3. Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black - the way Ms. Black weaves the city of Paris into each of these Aimee LeDuc mysteries has me reading these books late into the evening just to see who did it.

4. Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly – it’ll get your Irish up

5. The Newberg Report 2010 Bound Edition – no explanation necessary

The 5 Things Marla Loves About Spring Training:

1. Watching the minor leaguers on the backfields in Surprise – it’s my first opportunity each year to see some of the “new” guys.

2. The fact that Nolan Ryan had the organization start putting the names of all the minor league players on their jerseys at Spring Training – I think he was as confused as I was trying to figure out who he was watching.

3. Jason Botts in Glendale – looking forward to seeing my friend back in the US

4. Jovial evenings of erudite conversation and companionship with good friends at Scoreboards.

5. The fact that 2010 Spring Training is just around the corner.

 Getting ready to make a quick trip to Target for some more post-it notes - - Marla Hooch

P.S. I'm one of those people who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials - the Letterman/Leno ad blew away the competition:

The Newberg Report Wipe Out Kids Cancer Charity Event

Do you know what was the best part of our charity event on Tuesday night?

It wasn't just the great Chuck Morgan - who always knows what say, how to get the crowd into the moment and adds that special touch class (that the Rangers haven't always had) to every event he hosts.

It wasn't just seeing Sean Duncan and his kids there.  Sean  was one the first players who sat and signed autographs at our inaguaral Newberg Report booth at Rangers Fan Fest in the Arlington Convention Center  (was it it really 10 years ago?).

It wasn't just Grant Schiller starting the evening's Q & A with some good questions for Rangers Assistant Director of Player Development Jake Krug.

It wasn't just watching Chuck Greenberg's responses to all the questions and suggestions from the loyal and mighty fans of the Newberg Nation (as one questioner called us); and the fact that he volunteered to auction the Rangers jacket he was wearing that night.  (By the way: in all the time that Mr. Hicks owned the team, I never once thought about refering to him as just Tom.  Mr. Greenberg made a point of telling everyone to call him Chuck, and I felt pretty comfortable doing that right away).

It wasn't just the fan who gave Chuck Greenberg his Ranger cuff links to wear to the first owners meeting he attends representing the Texas Rangers.

It wasn't just Annette Leslie's moving speech about her son Carson's and Michael Young's friendship.

It wasn't just watching professional acutioneer Luther Davis (a fan of the Newberg Report) get the crowd to bid up those charity items that Annette, Cristina Barbosa-Young and others donated.

It wasn't just the first beer that I ever received via text message.

It wasn't just Michael Young giving honest answers and conveying his enthusiasm about his teammates and "something really special" that is on the horizon for Ranger fans in 2010.

You know what the best part of the evening really was?  It was announcing that the combined auction results with a matchng donation from Michael and Cristina raised over $12,000.00  for Wipe Out Kids Cancer.  I know somewhere Carson Leslie is raising a high-five and saying "allright!"

Here's the link to the pictures from Tuesday night's event.

Proud to be a charter member of the Newberg/Rangers Nation -- Marla Hooch
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What You Didn't See On Sunday....

If you got an automated e-mail from this site showing a link to the story on Sunday, I apologize, I had blog entry up for a short time on Sunday night about the Ranger events from last weekend – I had to delete it – long story not worth the time and bandwith to explain.

There are several good wrap-up’s of the weekend events online – I’d recommend you read Grant Schiller’s and Jamey Newberg’s.

Here are just a couple of things I want to add:

Friday night’s banquet was very nice, the food was good (Grant really liked the dinner rolls) and the Omni Hotel is beautiful. I was very disappointed that the Rangers decided to go back to having all the players at a head table set away from the fans. The past couple of years they’ve had players, team officials and other Ranger related personnel seated at each table with the fans. My perception is that many season ticket holders attend the banquet every year, and if the Rangers are really committed to being fan-friendly I think this is the group they need to start with. I think most fans understand that the big corporate sponsors will get Michael Young, Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton at their table – however, I do think the fans who attend the event really enjoy having anyone connected with the Rangers (minor league players, Ranger alumni, media types, coaches) at their table.

Saturday’s Newberg Booth at Fan Fest, although a bit cold was as always terrific. I’ll admit I was a bit miffed when the Sports Service guy came in and turned off the space heaters in our area in the middle of one of our autograph sessions – saying that was uncool is probably a bit of an understatement. The players who signed with us were gracious, humorous and all of them were great with the fans. You can see my pictures of all them using the link in the entry below this one.

Just a couple of other random baseball thoughts:

Jim Reeves is only semi-retired (thank goodness) he’s writing occasionally for Dallas ESPN.com – his column on Tom Hicks is absolutely on target.

I was trying to program my new DVR yesterday and ran across the NFL Pro-Bowl, and I have to ask – why are fans so worked up the record holders in baseball using steroids, but you don’t hear anyone ranting about the same for football? You can’t tell me that those players aren’t using some kind of PED’s – so aren’t their records just as tainted, or don’t football fans care about that?

Finally – a few words about February from Whitey Herzog:

“You sweat out the free agent thing in November then you make the trades in December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January. In February I finally get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms. “


Grant – would you like another dinner roll? – Marla Hooch

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