ARLINGTON -- Catcher Bryan Holaday has been a busy man over the past 48 hours, packing his family up after Texas acquired him from Detroit on Tuesday as part of a three-player trade.
And while moving is never easy, at least Holaday and his family will be able to utilize their offseason home on a full-time basis.
Holaday, who will be the club's backup catcher after the Rangers sent catcher Bobby Wilson and Minor League pitcher Myles Jay to the Tigers, lives in Fort Worth in the offseason with his wife Ashley and their two young children.
Holaday played collegiately at TCU and was a high school star at W.T. White in Dallas.
The comfort level with his surroundings is a huge benefit for Holaday.
"This is amazing and I couldn't be happier," said Holaday, who met with the media on Thursday and will be with the Rangers for their exhibition game against the Indians at Globe Life Park on Friday. "I'm settled in now, and it's pretty nice to be able to just come home. It takes a lot of the stress of trying to find a place, not finding a place and stuff like that off you. Now I can focus on baseball."
It'll be a crash course for Holaday, but it's one he's ready for.
"I've got a lot of work to do, definitely," Holaday said. "I've already started to watch video of the staff, trying to get to know these guys. It's going to be a lot of work for the first month trying to understand how these guys want to pitch and how we're going to work with them. I think we're going to mesh pretty well, and we'll get going. My first impression is we've got a pretty good pitching staff. When I sit down with each guy, I'll know more specific details about it."
Holaday never played at Globe Life Park in high school, but he played in two games at the park with the Tigers, going 2-for-6 with a home run. His memories of Globe Life, though, extend a lot farther back than that.
"I was a huge Rangers fan," Holaday said. "In high school, we'd map every Wednesday when they'd have dollar hot-dog day, and we'd come up here and see who could eat the most. It was a lot of fun."
Holaday, who still has an autographed chest protector of Pudge Rodriguez on the wall at his parents' house, said he grew up idolizing several Rangers.
Now the lifetime .251 hitter has a chance to play at Globe Life on a regular basis. It was a possibility that gained steam throughout Spring Training given the Tigers' depth at catcher and the Rangers' need for a backup for Robinson Chirinos.
"I wouldn't say I cooked it up," Holaday said of the spring scenario. "In the back of my head, I was thinking I was going to get traded. This couldn't be a better fit for me. That being said, I was trying to focus on the task at hand and controlling what I could control."
Worth noting

Left-handed pitcher Martin Perez and right-hander Luke Jackson each threw simulated games Thursday morning at the club's Spring Training complex in Surprise, Ariz.
Perez threw 60 pitches in his four innings of work, and Jackson threw 20 pitches over one inning. Jackson was limited this spring because of a stress reaction in his back.