The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers will play a three-game series at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the reason this is happening is asinine.
Astros president Reid Ryan, who released a heartfelt statement on Sunday as the city of Houston was buried under water, explained the reason for this odd situation on Monday.
“You’ve got a major storm that’s disrupted everything,” Reid said, per Mark Berman of Fox 26. “We went to the Rangers and said hey let’s switch series. You guys have our home series. We’ll take your home series. They rejected that and didn’t want to do that. The Rangers wanted us to play the next 3 days at their place, but they did not want to trade series with us. They wanted all 6 of our games at their park. The fact that the Rangers refused to go home and home with us, we had to look at all the options that were out there. We had to look at our players best interest and we had to look at the integrity of the schedule.”
It’s hard to figure out why the Rangers wouldn’t work with the Astros during such a tumultuous time. Many athletes who play for the Astros and the Houston Texans have family members who are currently stranded in a city that has been destroyed by one of the most devastating hurricanes the United States has seen.
Really, there’s no good defense. The Rangers should have bent over backwards to assist their fellow MLB ballclub. We’ve seen many examples of people working overtime to make a difference during this extraordinary natural disaster.
The fact that the Rangers didn’t follow suit is a disgrace.