Fan wins Texas Rangers Swing for your Seats contest
Earlier on Saturday we wrote about the dream scenario the Texas Rangers were offering to fans. The event is called Swing for your Seats, because it allows prospective season ticket holders to literally swing for free tickets for the upcoming season. All the fan has to do is turn one of those three allotted swings per ticket into a home run to win.
Yeah, easier said than done.
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Or maybe not. As unlikely as it seemed, a Rangers fan named Byron Anderson from Forth Worth stepped right up and made his dream come true by driving a baseball straight out of Globe Life Park.
Anderson was one of 20 fans who participated in Saturday’s event. He connected on his final swing, according to Evan P. Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Grant also explains why Anderson got more than three swings as seen in the video above.
A Rangers press release notes that Anderson used a wooden bat for the contest and that all contestants were hitting off a pitching machine. There we no humans involved on the pitching side, although you can feel free to insert a joke about your team’s worst reliever right [here].
As we wrote earlier, those who entered the contest were in some ways betting on themselves to come through in the clutch. That’s exactly how Anderson approached it too, telling the Dallas Morning News that he placed “$2,000 bet on me.” He didn’t let himself down either, and for his accomplishment the Rangers actually upgraded his original half season plan from two seats in the Lexus Club Terrace to four seats in the Lexus Club Box, giving him $8,500 in free season tickets.
That’s one productive swing.
It’s also worth mentioning that the contest rules prohibited current professional and colligiate players from participating, but not former players as we noted earlier. That was good news for Anderson, as he spent some time playing at Tarleton State and would have been ineligible otherwise.
Those rules also allowed former Rangers star Michael Young to partake in the event.
Unfortunately for him, he was not clutch on this day.
The good news for Young is we think the Rangers will take good care of him.
With all of that said though, this day belonged to Byron Anderson. He took the Rangers challenge. He placed a bet on himself. And he won, not only by receiving free tickets, but by living the dream.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
