Hey fans,

This will be my last short entry before we head into the offseason.  The fall league has 3 days remaining and I am very excited about going home and seeing my family for the holidays.  It’s hard to express how tired we are as players right now.  It has been a 9 month grind and I can’t wait to let my body rest and recoop for a while. 

Although we struggled a bit as a team during this fall it was still a great experience for all of us.  We were fortunate to be a part of a great group of guys that knew how to have fun no matter what the circumstances.  It was a pleasure to get to play against this calibur of player for a couple months.  Although it won’t show on the stat sheet, I am very happy with the way I finished up.  I didn’t get a ton of ab’s, but I feel good about things I got accomplished out here.  There is always something to learn in baseball.  This was a different experience, but I have been around the game long enough to know that it will benefit down the road in some way or another.  Whether it be having to take an at bat cold off the bench sometime, or just to learn more about yourself so you can minimize struggles in the future.  At some point next year I will look back at my time in the fall league to help me with something…it always happens.   

I will be heading back home to Pennsylvania after Thursday’s game and can’t wait to get into the Lake Erie streams to fish for steelhead.  The offseason brings a lot of great times for outdoor stuff like hunting and fishing, not to mention holidays with the family.  I hope that everyone enjoyed reading this blog throughout the fall league.  I enjoyed keeping you all up to date and appreciate your support.  I wish everyone the best during this offseason, and we will see you fans again soon!

Hey everyone. My name is Andrew Laughter (like slaughter) and I am a pitcher for the Rangers organization and currently playing on the Suprise Rafters. I went to college in the sportsman’s paradise at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was drafted last year. This year was a good learning experience for me and a lot of fun. I was excited to get the opportunity to play in the AFL. There is a lot of great talent here and the guys show it off every day. I am however looking forward to this offseason where I will be spending a lot of time in the woods chasing down big whitetails going on the occasional duck hunt. I will mostly be out in Alabama and Louisiana, but im hoping to get out to Mississippi as well. Our Rafters team consists of a few fellow hunters, so we spend some time each day telling hunting stories and expressing our excitement for the upcoming season. While playing in the fall league, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of good guys from other organizations. Especially guys I have played against all year long. Speaking of great guys, our bullpen out here is a lot of fun. We have covered just about every topic possible while here. Everything from politics to any wrestler to ever step in the ring in WWE. Politics took up most of the time though. We had some great debates during the presidential election.

The fall league is winding down (4 days left) and I’m very excited. It will be a much needed break to allow my body to recover from the long season. Im looking forward to going home and seeing my family and friends, and filling up my refrigerator with venison. If anyone has and questions or comments feel free to leave them. I’ll try my best to answer them all. See everyone in spring training. Happy holidays and happy hunting! 

Hey fans,

I havent reported to you in a while.  We have had some internet problems here at the house so I missed last week.  There isn’t a whole lot new to report.  The fall league is winding down and we are still doing a lot of the same stuff.  The rafters club has started to win some games.  We went through a really rough stretch and have since won 4 out of 5 games.  As I said a couple weeks ago, rough patches happen and it’s nice to see our team continue to play hard. 

Our Rangers hitters were fortunate this week to get a visit from our hitting coordinator and our major league hitting coach.  They just came to spend a few days with us and get us some additional work since at bats havent come often.  They wanted us to get a grasp of some of the things we needed to work on this winter so we can really focus on bettering our weaknesses.  It was awesome to get to spend time with the two of them exclusively and pick their brains for a few days. 

I spent the weekend at my cousins wedding this past weekend and am back in time for the final week and a half of the fall season.  Everyone is just looking to do thier best and finish strong before heading home for some much needed time off.  I hope everyone enjoyed reading these blogs and I hope it helped you get a better look at what its like to be in our shoes.  I think I will have one final blog at the end of the week.  Talk to you then fans!