Texas Rangers announce pregame events for home opener on Friday, July 24
Arlington, TX—After a delay of nearly four months due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Texas Rangers will play their first regular season game ever at Globe Life Field on Friday night at 7:05 p.m. against the Colorado Rockies.
Due to health and safety requirements by Major League Baseball, no fans will be attending games during the opening homestand at Globe Life Field. With these precautions in mind, all public parking lots around Globe Life Field will be closed and tailgating will be prohibited prior or during all games.
Several areas of Texas Live!, which is located on the north side of Globe Life Field, are open to the public. Lot B parking will be available for Texas Live! customers only.
Texas opens its 49th regular season in Arlington and first at Globe Life Field with a five-game homestand versus N.L. West Division opponents. The Rangers and Rockies will also play on Saturday, July 25 at 3:05 p.m. and Sunday, July 26 at 1:35 p.m. The opening homestand concludes with a two-game series against the Arizona Diamondback, Tuesday, July 28 at 8:05 and Wednesday, July 29 at 3:05 p.m.
Facts and figures for Friday’s opening night:
CEREMONIAL FIRST PITCH: The 48th Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott will throw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the season opener. It will be a virtual first pitch ceremony with Governor Abbott making the throw from in front of the State Capitol in Austin, and the event will be displayed on the Globe Life Field video boards.
NATIONAL ANTHEM: The Star Spangled Banner will be performed live by Country singing legend Charley Pride, who has won multiple awards while performing nationally and internationally for more than 60 years, earning him induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. A resident of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Pride is also a limited partner in the Texas Rangers ownership group. He has a rich history in baseball, playing for the Negro Leagues Memphis Red Sox and Birmingham Black Barons from 1953-58 and briefly in both the Cincinnati and New York Yankees organizations, For nearly 50 years, Pride has been a regular visitor to Rangers spring training camps in Florida and Arizona and continues to participate in workouts.
The National Anthem will be preceded by a taped performance of Texas, Our Texas by Joel Lagrone.
DOPPELRANGERS: With the Rangers playing at an empty Globe Life Field for at least the start of the 2020 season, the club has given fans an opportunity for fans to be represented at the games—in a 2D version. DoppelRangers allow fans to have their likenesses located in the lower seating bowl areas behind home plate and the dugouts for at least Rangers July games at Globe Life Field. If fans are allowed to attend games later in the season, the DoppelRangers will be moved to other areas in Globe Life Field.
The 2D cardboard images are created from photographs submitted by fans, who have placed orders over the last two weeks. In that time, nearly 2700 DoppelRangers have been sold and will be in place for Friday’s opener.
DoppelRangers may still be purchased for $50.00 each with all proceeds benefitting the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation. All orders placed at this point will not be completed in time for the first homestand.
DoppelRangers information and order forms are available on texasrangers.com/DoppelRangers. The complete ordering procedure and list of regulations can be found on the landing page.
WHITE JERSEYS FOR FRIDAY: With Friday being the first regular season game at Globe Life Field, the Rangers will wear their new primary home jerseys for the opener. The white top features “Rangers” in script lettering on the front. For all other Friday home games in 2020, the club will wear its new alternate red home jersey.
GLOBE LIFE FIELD DEBUT: Friday marks the first regular season game ever at the new Globe Life Field, this after the Rangers were unable to host a scheduled home opener on March 31 vs. LAA (original Opening Day was 3/28 at SEA).
• Globe Life Field will be the Rangers’ 3rd home park, following Arlington Stadium (1972-93) and Globe Life Park in Arlington (1994-2019)…each of the 3 ballparks will have opened in shortened MLB seasons (1972, 1994, 2020)…according to Elias Sports Bureau, the Rangers’ 3 parks will represent 3 of the 5 all-time instances of a facility opening in a shortened MLB season (1918, 1919, 1972, 1981, 1994, 1995, or 2020)…the others: CLE’s Progressive Field in 1994 and COL’s Coors Field in 1995.
• Globe Life Field will be the first park in MLB history to host an Interleague game for its regular season opening.
• This will mark the 1st time for the Rangers to debut a park with a season opener, as club opened season on the road in both 1972 and 1994 when the previous facilities were introduced…team also would have opened 2020 on the road, before the shutdown altered the schedule.
• According to Elias Sports Bureau, the July 24 regular season debut of Globe Life Field will be the 3rd-latest opening date in a calendar year for a new full-time ballpark (min. 100 games) in the modern era (since 1900).
LATEST OPENING DATES IN A SEASON FOR MLB PARKS IN THE MODERN ERA (min. 100 games all-time at park; since 1900)
Date | Ballpark | City
8/18/1915 | Braves Field | Boston
7/31/1932 | Municipal Stadium | Cleveland
7/24/2020 | Globe Life Field | Arlington
7/16/1970 | Three Rivers Stadium | Pittsburgh
7/15/1999 | T-Mobile Park | Seattle
7/1/1910 | Comiskey Park | Chicago
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: After the club played its earliest opener ever in 2019 (3/28/19 vs. CHC), the Rangers will play easily its latest-ever Opening Day in 2020, nearly 4 months after a scheduled lid-lifter on 3/28/20 at SEA.
OPENING IN ARLINGTON: Texas is opening at home for the 6th time in 7 years and the 10th time in last 12 seasons beginning 2009…in overall openers that take place at home, Rangers have gone 16-12, losing 3 straight and 4 of 5, but going 16-9 since losing 1st 3 instances in 1973-74-75.
Texas is 22-26 overall on Opening Day, losing 6 of the last 7 years, including a 12-4 defeat vs. CHC in Arlington in 2019…club won 4 in a row from 2009-12, but has dropped 11 of 16, 13 of 19, and 15 of the last 22 openers overall.
NIGHT MOVES: Globe Life Field will open with a night game at Globe Life Field just as the 1st home game in club history was a night tilt at Arlington Stadium on 4/21/72 vs. CAL (Globe Life Park debuted with a day game on 4/11/94 vs. MIL)…this is the 1st night season opener for Texas since 4/3/17 vs. CLE (8-5 loss), which was a 6:08 p.m. CT start at GLPIA due to an ESPN national telecast…this is just the 13th time in club history to play a home night game in a season opener, with the last instance prior to 2017 coming on 4/9/90 vs. TOR (4-2 win - winning pitcher Nolan Ryan: 5.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R)…club is 7-5 in those 12 games, winning 4 of 5 and 7 of the last 9.
ROOF RECAP: Globe Life Field will be the 12th full-time park in MLB history with either a fixed roof or retractable roof...on that list, 8 of the 12 are now active ballparks, with 7 of those 8 being retractable roof stadiums (lone fixed dome is Tropicana Field).
Stadium Location Years (MLB)
Astrodome Houston 1965-99
Kingdome Seattle 1976-99
Olympic Stadium Montreal 1977-2004
Metrodome Minneapolis 1982-2009
Rogers Centre Toronto 1989-current
Tropicana Field St. Petersburg 1998-current
Chase Field Phoenix 1998-current
T-Mobile Park Seattle 1999-current
Miller Park Milwaukee 2001-current
Minute Maid Park Houston 2000-current
Marlins Park Miami 2012-current
Globe Life Field Arlington 2020-current
MLB games have also been staged at Japan's Tokyo Dome in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2019.
GOING NATIONAL: The Rangers’ opponents over their 1st 3 series in 2020: COL, ARI, SF…this from Elias Sports Bureau: prior to 2020, no MLB team played three different opponents in their first three series and each opponent was from the opposite league…while NYY and WAS both play Interleague opponents for their 1st 3 series in 2020, each of those clubs play just 2 total opponents over the 3 series.
• This is the 2nd straight year and 3rd time overall for TEX to open a season against an N.L. club (14-10 loss on 3/31/14 vs. PHI; 12-4 loss on 3/28/19 vs. CHC)…the Rangers will be the 3rd MLB team to play Interleague openers in back-to-back years (also 2014-15 PHI and 2017-18 PIT), the 1st club to host Interleague openers in consecutive years, and one of 2 clubs ever (also DET in 2016, 2018, 2020) to play Interleague openers in 3 separate years since such contests were introduced in 2013 (leagues were split into 15 teams each that year).
MORE INTERLEAGUE / VS. ROCKIES: This is one of 3 Interleague series in MLB to open the 2020 campaign (also NYY at WAS; DET at CIN)…Texas leads the all-time series with COL, 19-17, including an 11-7 advantage in Arlington (at GLPIA)…this is the 6th time in 9 seasons for the clubs to play at least one series, and Rangers have a 7-3 edge since 2015…TEX has not faced a N.L. West team in over a year (7/17/19 vs. ARI).
LANCE GOING BACK-TO-BACK: After being the starter and winning pitcher in the Globe Life Park finale on 9/29/19 vs. NYY, Lance Lynn is slated to throw the first pitch at Globe Life Field in his 1st career Opening Day start on Friday…his previous earliest start as a member of the season-opening rotation was in the Cardinals’ 2nd game on 4/8/15 at CHC…with Mike Minor starting the opener in 2019, Texas has still not had the same Opening Day starter in consecutive years since Kevin Millwood secured the honor for 4 straight years from 2006-09…Cole Hamels made 2 starts in the interim (2016 and 2018), but not in back-to-back years