Pirate Galaxy » toward a future that values the ways

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The ever-changing roster of the Texas Rangers figures to have a new look when the club begins a pivotal four-game series against Cleveland on Thursday at Globe Life Park.Texas, which is in first place in the American League West despite getting shutout four times this month, will try to add some pop to the offense as outfielder Carlos Gomez is expected to be added to the roster in time for the series opener.The former All-Star was released by Houston on Aug. 18 after a dismal start to the season. Texas signed Gomez two days later and sent him to Triple-A Round Rock, where he hit .308 in three games with a pair of extra-base hits and two RBI.Texas isnt expected Gomez to be a savior for an offense that has struggled this month despite adding Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Beltran. Hes not guaranteed a starting spot in an outfield that has two fixtures in Nomar Mazara and Ian Desmond.But Gomez, who was an All-Star in 2013 and 2014, was worth the risk for Texas despite his .210 average in 85 games with Houston this year.Texas manager Jeff Banister is hoping getting dumped by American League West rival Houston serves as motivation for Gomez.For a player of his caliber, for a team to not want you, then not be claimed, has to be a wake-up call, a punch to the nose, if you will, Banister said. Hes still passionate for the game. Can still run, throw, hit for power. He has an opportunity to show the rest of the baseball world that hes still a relevant player, with a team that has a lot to play for.The first-place Indians have a lot to play for, too. The only team with a better record in the AL than the Indians is Texas. Cleveland comes into the series 5-5 in its last 10 games and losers of consecutive games in Oakland.While the Indians have a 5 1/2-game lead over Detroit in the AL Central, they know theyve got to get things going against a Texas team that is 39-20 at Globe Life Park and leads Seattle by 6 1/2 in the West.Like the Rangers, Cleveland is in an offensive downturn. The Indians scored three runs in their three games against Oakland.Hopefully we just had like three days of amnesia, Cleveland manager Terry Francona said. Those things happen. Its not fun when it does, but it happens. Fortunately we won one game 1-0, but we have to give them some (the Athletics) some credit. They did a number on us.While the Indians may not be hitting the ball well, the series in Texas will provide one Cleveland player with a chance to play where hes had a lot of success. Mike Napoli helped the Rangers to the World Series in 2011 and to the playoffs last year before signing with the Indians. This series will be the first for him in Texas since the postseason.Its a place that Ill always love, Napoli said. But Im going there to compete and try to help our team win in any way. Ive got a lot of friends on the other side, but when I step across the lines its time to compete and try to win.Køb Fake Yeezy . Pirlo limped out of Sundays 1-0 win over Udinese after just 13 minutes. Juventus says Pirlo underwent tests on Monday which revealed he has "a second-degree lesion to the collateral medial ligament in his right knee. Fake Yeezy Danmark . Supported by three-run homers from Jayson Werth and Wilson Ramos, the young right-hander went seven strong innings in the Washington Nationals 8-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night. http://www.yeezyskodanmark.com/yeezy-boost-danmark-outlet/yeezy-boost-350.html . Now tied for second in the league in shootout goals, the 24-year-old likes to see what the opposing goaltender has in store before he ultimately lands on a move. Yeezy Sko Danmark . The Canadian squad, skipped by Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg, got on the board first with two in the second end, and followed that with two more apiece in the fourth and sixth ends. Adidas Zx Flux Dame Danmark . Deulofeu injured a muscle in his right leg in Evertons 4-1 win over Fulham in the English Premier League on Saturday. Barcelona says that its team doctors will "co-ordinate" with Evertons medical staff as Deulofeu recovers.In November, espnWs weekly essay series will focus on giving.Election week is a week of choices.Different versions of our future present themselves with uncharacteristic clarity. One voting lever summons one path, another triggers something different. Elections compress the uncertainty and chaos of everyday life into a constellation of impossibly discrete points of light.Yet the choices that precede freedom are far more frequent and require far more courage than quadrennial electoral rhetoric suggests. Its not elections every four years that provide our freedom -- its the choices we face every day: how we speak up, how we show up, how we struggle to belong to each other.Unlike elections, no one tells us how or when to make these kinds of choices -- they come without solicitous phone calls or TV ads. There is no day marked on the calendar. One seldom receives a sticker for making choices that require conviction. One may, in fact, receive the opposite -- wrath, skepticism and disapproval from others.Take, for example, Megan Rapinoe, midfielder for the U.S. womens national soccer team. Rapinoe took note of the eerie political alchemy that transformed when San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick decided to kneel during the national anthem.Im disgusted w/way Colin has been treated & the fans & hatred he has received in all of this [sic], Rapinoe tweeted. It is overtly racist. Stay in ur [sic] place black man. Just didnt feel right to me. It needs to be everyone confronting problems in our country, not just people of color.She realized Kaepernick could not face this alone and decided to kneel during the national anthem in solidarity with him. Her job, like Kaepernicks, became threatened.Yet, despite professional blowback, including consternation by her teammates, Rapinoe has continued to kneel. Her decision isnt about her identity. It isnt about Kaepernicks identity. She kneeled --- just as Kaepernick did -- for one simple reason: we belong to each other.ddddddddddddWe cannot stand for a world in which some peoples lives are continually made invisible, denigrated, humiliated, endangered for their existence.And we dont have to wait every four years to make choices about how to build that world into existence -- we can make a different future for ourselves even when there is no election by speaking up and standing up, like Rapinoe and Kaepernick have done.James Baldwin said that to ignore what is happening in ones own backyard was the great device of whiteness.My whiteness and Kaepernicks blackness, in fact, depend on one another. My liberation belongs with his; his freedom belongs with mine. Kaepernick took a stand. Rapinoe took a stand. And by doing so, they -- like many others -- takes steps toward a future that values the ways our lives are connected to one another.These kind of choices are all around us, every day, regardless of election season. They are available to us on the football field and the locker room, this week and next, no matter who wins or who loses the election. Rapinoe and Kaepernick gives us courage to speak up for each other. They give us examples of choices and actions that remind us how we are connected. They give us a vision for how to use our voices and our bodies to build a world wide enough for all of us.The light they offer us has doesnt depend on elections. It depends on our choices to speak up for one another.Eleni Schirmer is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madisons department of Educational Policy Studies and Curriculum and Instruction, where she studies social movements and education. Her writing has appeared in Jacobin, The Progressive, Labor Notes and Education Review. ' ' '