With perfect weather for baseball, the Texas Rangers opt to play indoors | Opinion

Sunday afternoon was the type of day a mom or dad tells their kids, “Go outside! Now. See you at dark.”

Sunday afternoon was the type of day you hope and pray for if you’re selling your home.

Sunday afternoon was the type of day we need more of after the last year we’ve had, all stuck inside.

Sunday afternoon was the perfect day for baseball.

And yet Sunday afternoon was the type of day the Texas Rangers closed the roof at the Globe Life Mall.

The Texas Rangers’ 2-0 loss to the San Diego Padres on Sunday is something we all expected. What we did not expect is that 85 degrees is too hot and uncomfortable to play outside.

“With the high temperature expected to be in the mid-80’s today, the Globe Life Field roof will be closed for Sunday’s game,” the Rangers said before the game.

It’s not late May. It’s not June, July, August or early September. It’s April 11, and Sunday in Arlington was too warm for outdoor sports.

There are two things you can expect if you attend a Texas Rangers home game this season: A 75 percent chance of watching a no-hitter, and a 95 percent chance of watching indoor baseball.

We got ourselves another Astrodome.

What is the point of spending an extra hundred mil’ to add a retractable roof if it’s going to be closed on a day that God created for us humans to be outside?

And weren’t we told that in the time of COVID the best alternative is to be outside?

Of the many disappointments thus far for our local ballclub this season, the fact that the Rangers are choosing to follow the path of the Dallas Cowboys with their roof is the most distressing.

Since Arlington helped Jerry Jones build the $1 billion AT&T Stadium in May of ‘09, the roof has been closed far more than it’s been open for Dallas Cowboys home games.

That’s the trend across all of the teams that have the luxury of a retractable roof; the roofs are closed typically to accommodate network TV cameras and eliminate shadows.

Thanks to COVID, the Rangers have had mostly bad luck since Globe Life Hay Barn was available to be open last year; it wasn’t their fault that in their first season at a new park they couldn’t allow fans inside to watch.

Sunday, however, they had good luck with the weather, and they made a bad choice.

The standard is set: If it’s 85 degrees and sunny, the Rangers are a dome team. That’s why the Rangers closed the the top of their barn.

No one worships at the altar of air conditioning more than we Texans do; my plan is to be buried in an air conditioner. Sunday was a day the Rangers should have kept the lid open.

Or open it up and blast the AC.

Rangers owners Mr. Ray Davis and Mr. Bob Simpson can swing the bill. It’s covered in the price of tickets. Parking. A beer, etc.

We only get so many of these types of days before 96 degrees qualifies as a cold front, and we fantasize about moving to North Dakota.

Sunday is the day that inspires people from North Dakota to move here. The same for people from Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan, etc.

The day is coming, soon, when we have no choice when the heat will leave us no choice but to move back inside.

Sunday is the type of day we all yearned to have for nearly the last year — watching a baseball game outside with our family or loved ones.

The Rangers may stink, but we all missed the chance to watch them play in person.

Purists hate it, but indoor baseball is now as much a part of baseball as analytics and four-hour games. The Rangers, and Arlington taxpayers, built a stadium to create the option to play outside when the weather permits.

Sunny and 85 does not permit it.