Sunday, February 18, 2007
Posted by Monte Walker at 7:29 PM
What’s that you say? New to the area? Love baseball? Love heartaches? If you follow this team closely, I hope you have your doctor on speed-dial (and I hope his name isn’t Medich or McLemore).The Texas Rangers are far from feared or respected as the famed lawmen they were named for. The Rangers were new to DFW by way of Washington D.C. The Senators were terrible...and that has carried over for 35 years since (minus 3 great seasons). The Ranger’s first major blunder came in 1973 when the owner tried to turn David Clyde, a young high school kid phenom into a sideshow and ruined him. While Clyde didn’t have much of a career for the Rangers, the Rangers are probably still here because of him. They never had a sellout or anything like it until he arrived. He financially allowed the Rangers to stay in Arlington. In 1974 the Rangers hired Billy Martin and he immediately changed these scrubs into winners...for one year anyway. A trade that landed Ferguson Jenkins who won 25 games almost was enough to win the pennant that year. After that things went south until about 1986 when Bobby Valentine took a bunch of kids and a rocking-chair knuckelballer into late September and danced with greatness. Again that greatness lasted one year.
In 1989 things changed for a bit. George W. Bush gained majority ownership and Nolan Ryan was signed on December 8, 1988 and he put the Rangers officially on the U.S. map. That year they also traded for a slap-hitting outfielder named Rafael Palmeiro and All-Star second baseman Juiio Franco. Kevin Brown and Ruben Sierra were on the rise as a superstars and the farm system was setup for years to come with the likes of Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa (not to mention Dean Palmer and Kenny Rogers). This was a team that could compete for many many years. How do you ruin this? Insert General Manager Tom Grieve and let him trade away Sammy Sosa that year for Harold Baines. Just after the ’94 season, Palmeiro was gone via free agency...Sierra had been traded with Bobby Witt and Jeff Russell for Jose Canseco while Kevin Brown left for greener pastures and Nolan Ryan was retired. Finally after 1994, the Rangers fired Tom Grieve.
The Rangers would have to start over in ’95 with the few good young player they had left: Gonzalez, Rodriguez, and Palmer. Owners George W. Bush, and Rusty Rose let President Tom Sheiffer run the team for a moment after 1994. He hired Doug Melvin as GM and Johnny Oates was brought in as manager. Their first move was to trade Jose Canseco for Otis Nixon. At the time, we were terribly upset for the return we received for such a superstar slugger. Well, after that 1995 season all Otis Nixon did was hit .290 and steal over 50 bases and had the Rangers in contention until late season injuries folded them. The very next season the Rangers won the pennant for the first time in franchise history. They won it again in 1998 and ’99. Hicks takes over during the middle of the last run and decides to stay out of the way of Doug Melvin who had been incredibly successful as the G.M. In walks A-Rod and Hick’s immediately has a man crush. He was prepared to sign him no matter what it cost. As we all know it cost him $252 million, but more importantly it cost him his GM Doug Melvin. Melvin had just drained the team and was preparing for a youth movement by trading Juan Gonzalez for a bunch of your promising kids. Needless to say, Melvin was not on board with the A-Rod signing and he was shown the door. Since that day, the franchise has never recovered. The Rangers tanked in 2001 and Oates "resigned" in May of that year. John Hart was brought in as the GM and basically was a puppet for Hicks who let A-Rod run the show. A-Rod demanded to bring back former stars such as Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro. While that was great...they lacked two major facets of the game in which you must have to succeed....pitching and defense. They blamed the downfall on Jerry Narron (who replaced Oates) and fired him in favor of Buck Showalter. Nothing changed under Showalter except puffy ERA’s and loss columns.
The first step in Tom Hicks finally grasping this game came last year when he hired the kid John Daniels as GM. After one year at the helm, Daniels now has his manager and pitching and defense are now appropriately placed atop the chart of importance. Now, I’m not saying that the Rangers are going to win the west or even be major competitors this year (while I really think they can be). It is refreshing to know that they are finally under the correct direction of a winning mindset of baseball philosophy.
If you’re new to McKinney from another state and you’re a die-hard baseball fan like myself, chances are you have another team that you’re faithful to. That’s perfectly normal - but if you desire to have a stroke by the time you’re 50, please - by all means, hop on this roller-coaster parked right next to Six Flags in Arlington. I’ll be seated right next to you.
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