Longest continuous trades in Rangers history

1967 - Rangers draft Toby Harrah
1978 - Rangers trade Harrah for Buddy Bell
1985 - Rangers trade Bell for Duane Walker and Jeff Russell
1992 - Rangers trade Russell + 2 for Jose Canseco
1995 - Rangers trade Canseco for Otis Nixon
1995 - Nixon released

1986 - Rangers sign free agent Juan Gonzalez

1999 - Rangers trade Gonzalez for Francisco Cordero + others

2006 - Rangers trade Cordero for Carlos Lee and Nelson Cruz

1969 - Rangers draft Jeff Burroughs
1976 - Rangers trade Burroughs for Adrian Devine + 4
1977 - Rangers trade Devine for Al Oliver and Nelson Norman
1982 - Rangers trade Al Oliver for Larry Parrish and Dave Hostetler
1988 - Rangers release Parrish

ARod, Mark Teixeira and Juan Gonzalez helped get these Rangers to the World Series

It's interesting to sometimes look at players and wonder how we got them.  Due to the trading process, one player can be linked to past generations for years back.  Here are some of those:

1986 - Nelson Cruz -




Aquired on 7/28/2006 for Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, Francisco Cordero; Cordero aquired for Juan Gonzalez on 11/2/1999; Gonzalez signed as a free agent on 5/30/1986

1986 - Cliff Lee -
Aquired on 7/9/2010 for Justin Smoak, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke, Mathew Lawson.  Beaven was drafted in the 1st round in 2007 due to a compensation pick from Houston for signing Carlos Lee.  Lee was aquired with Nelson Cruz on 7/28/2006 for Laynce Nix, Kevin Mench, Francisco Cordero.  Cordero was aquired for Juan Gonzalez on 11/2/1999.  Gonzalez signed as a free agent on 5/30/1986

1996 - Michael Young -
Aquired in a trade in 2000 for Esteban Loaiza.  Loaiza was aquired in a trade for Todd Van Poppel and Warren Morris.  Morris was drafted by the Rangers in 1996.

2000 - Frank Francisco -




Aquired on 7/1/2003 for Carl Everett. Everett aquired for Darren Oliver on 12/12/2001. Oliver signed as free agent on 1/27/2000

2001 - Jeff Francoeur -
Aquired in 2010 for Joaquin Arias.  Arias was aquired for Alex Rodriguez in April 2004.  Rodriguez signed with Texas in 2001.

2001 - Josh Hamilton - Aquired 12/21/2007 in a trade for Edinson Volquez.  Volquez signed as free agent on 10/29/20012001 - C.J. Wilson -
Drafted 5th round

2001 - Elvis Andrus -
Aquired in a trade in 2007 for Mark Teixeira who was drafted on 6/5/2001

2001 - Neftali Feliz -
Aquired in a trade in 2007 for Mark Teixeira who was drafted on 6/5/2001

2003 - Ian Kinsler
Drafted in the 17th round

2006 - Benjie Molina -
Aquired in a trade in 2010 for Chris Ray.  Ray was aquired in a trade in 2010 for Kevin Millwood.  Millwood signed as a free agent in 2006.

2007 - David Murphy -
Aquired in a trade for Eric Gagne in 2007.  Gagne signed as a free agent in 2007.

2007 - Tommy Hunter -
Drafted in the 1st round as compensation for Mark DeRosa

2007 - Julio Borbon -
Drafted in the 1st round as compensation for Carlos Lee

World Series Strangers No More!

Every excuse you've ever used for the Rangers just got thrown out.  "They can't pitch in that ballpark" - GONE.  "It's too hot in Texas" - GONE.  "They never win after the All-Star break" - GONE.  

The fact is, this team never had the TEAM that was built for a true pennant push until this year.  There are so many things to like about this team that it's impossible to state them all.  One day, you'll read a book about these Rangers or maybe even see a movie about them. 

This team overcame the following:

1.  Josh Hamilton's fall off of the wagon last year.

2.  Ron Washington's cocaine admission in March that happened last year.

3.  The bankruptcy of the team by owner Tom Hicks

4.  Never having won but one playoff game

5.  A fanbase that would rather talk about Cowboys training camp in July than the 1st place Rangers.

6.  Your top two starters to begin the season (Scott Feldman and Rich Harden) not make the playoff roster

7.  Your closer Frank Francisco was demoted after a week on the job and replaced by a rookie

8.  The back and forth court battles that came down to a late night standoff in a Fort Worth courtroom.

9.  Virtually no catcher to speak of until July.

10.  and on, and on, and on.....

I pick the Rangers to win the West every year, so this year was no surprise.  But I think all of us that truly follow this team and drool when pitchers and catchers report to spring training knew that something special was going to happen in Arlington this year.  And tonight by beating the Yankees to find themselves in the World Series for the first time, should now have them known for something other than introducing nachos to Major League Baseball.

To see the excitement of the crowd when Nelson Cruz hit the Yankee dagger was absolutely breathtaking to witness.  All I've ever wanted is for my ugly little girl to go to the prom.  And tonight, a limo pulled up...and Nolan Ryan opened the door with white gloves on.

All of us true Rangers fans that have spent summer after summer wondering if we were really a Major League team had everything validated tonight.  Tonight meant that there actually is payoff for loyalty, patience, and class.  I think the great Tom Landry would be way more happy with the Rangers fan base right now than America's Team...that's not even Arlington's Team.

Today is for all of the people in the Rangers organization through the years and the fans that wanted them to be a winner for so long.  These are the names that just come off the top of my head....

Mark Holtz, Eric Nadel, Jim Sundberg, Steve Busby, Chuck Morgan, Tom Vandergriff, Nolan Ryan, Michael Young, Toby Harrah, Buddy Bell, Ferguson Jenkins, George W. Bush, Rafael Palmeiro, Kenny Rogers, Sisters Maggie and Frances, Zonk, Bobby Witt, Jeff Russell, Will Clark, Ivan Rodriguez, Johnny Oates, Rusty Greer, Mike Hargrove, Tom Grieve, David Clyde, Jeff Burroughs, Charlie Hough and so so many more.

Texas Rangers fans, you deserve this.  

Monte, why are you such a baseball fan? Well, it all started......

Monte, why are you such a baseball fan?  Well, it all started when I was 12...the date was October 14, 1986 when Nolan Ryan's Houston Astros traveled to Dwight Gooden's New York Mets for Game 5 of the NLCS.  I was coming home from middle school that day with my best friend Chris Garner, who was a huge baseball fan.  I was very familiar with the Astros since I would stay with my mom's first cousins in Houston in the summer and they had taken me to the Astrodome to see both Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott in '85 and '86.  I never really caught on or was hooked by going to see the Astros in that big dome...I guess to me it just didn't seem like baseball.  But something about this NLCS game http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=198610140NYN grabbed my inner soul and from that afternoon on...I was HOOKED.  Hooked like Stevie Ray Vaughan was hooked on the guitar at age 12.  


I started watching this game somewhere around the 6th inning.  Nolan Ryan and Dwight "Doc" Gooden were standing toe-to-toe locked in a 1-1 tie and both were throwing right hooks back and forth.  The tie went to the 7th, then the 8th, then the 9th.  Ryan had thrown a complete game and then for good measure Doc Gooden freakishly comes back out in the 10th inning!  Charlie Kerfield finally came in for the Astros and gave up the winning run to the Mets in the bottom of the 12th inning and my adopted team the Houston Astros were defeated only to die in game 6 the following day.  But the damage to this 12-year old had already been done.


I grew up playing baseball.  I loved it.  But as most kids in Texas, I grew up watching the Dallas Cowboys and becoming a football fanatic.  I also started to love the hometown Howe Bulldogs just as much.  It was football, football, football and I couldn't get enough of Danny White, Tony Dorsett, and eventually Herschel Walker, but something changed in '86.


Prior to that Astros/Mets October game sat a July 26, 1986 game in Arlington, Texas http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=198607260TEX, which was my first visit to the hometown Texas Rangers' Arlington Stadium.  I knew of the Rangers fairly well due to local hero Danny Darwin from Bonham who had pitched for the Rangers just a few years before.  I remember watching him on T.V. and liking Buddy Bell and Jim Sundberg, but I didn't really know much about them...not nearly as much as the Astros. But all of that changed in October.  I HAD to have a team...and they were the closest thing I could get.


By the time the spring of 1987 came around I was in full-force Texas Rangers mode.  I had learned all of the players and my thirst for information grew and grew and grew.  Pretty soon, my favorite players were "Inky" (Pete Incaviglia), "LP" (Larry Parrish), "Boo" (Steve Buechele), "OB" (Pete O'Brien), "The Governor" (Jerry Browne), "Scooter" (Scott Fletcher), and a young Latin hot-shot named Ruben Sierra may have been my favorite of all.  Then there was Charlie Hough, the old-man who was so old all he could throw was a tired old knuckleball...but was still able to lead the team in wins.  There was a young fireballer named Bobby Witt and the result of the Buddy Bell trade gave us a young strong-armed Jeff Russell.  The "Wild Thing" Mitch Williams was fun to watch with his crazy left-handed leg kick motion and his lack of command of anything.  But watching wasn't the best thing about that Rangers team which was my first.  Listening was magical.


The games were on WBAP-820.  It was "The 50,000 watt sports voice of the great southwest!"  Broadcasters were the late Mark Holtz and Eric Nadel.  Some of my most beloved days were sitting on the back porch in the summer of '87 and listening to Holtz call a game on the radio while I kept score in my scorebook.  At the time, I remember being very upset that we only could see road games because that's all KTVT-11 out of Dallas would televise.  I wanted to watch the games so badly, but am so thankful now that I couldn't because of the memories I have of the peaceful summer night of just me and the radio and the scorebook.  Baseball was made for radio.  It's the same argument people make that the book is always better than the movie.  Well, same in baseball.  The images you create in your mind are way greater than what you actually see on T.V.  And add a dynamic and brilliant play-by-play man to that mix and you have magic.  The summer of '87 was absolute magical...even though the team was mostly in the toilet.  But that's the way Texas Rangers baseball was...and I got a heavy dose that year.


I went back to Houston to stay with the cousins again that summer of '87.  This time, I had changed.  I was a Texas Rangers freak.  I remember listening to the radio upstairs of my cousin Netha's house where I could juuust barely pick up that 50,000 watt sports voice of the great southwest.  In 1987, the Rangers started off the season horribly losing a ton of games in April to Milwaukee and Baltimore and found themselves in a terrible hole to start the season.  That night outside of Houston with my little radio, the Rangers had come from behind to win a game and had broke even at .500 and the entire country club could probably hear me screaming.  


From that summer on, it's been a roller-coaster ride of baseball.  I was at the last game ever played at Arlington Stadium and the first game ever played at The Ballpark in Arlington.  I took a trip took a trip at the age of 22 to Wrigley Field for a Saturday afternoon game and flew to Boston the next morning and caught a Sunday afternoon game at Fenway Park and saw Roger Clemens throw a shutout vs. California.  I went to Cooperstown, NY in July of 1999 to see Nolan Ryan and George Brett get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  I've been to nearly every Opening Day in Arlington since 1993.  I was lucky enough to go the the All-Star Game in Arlington in 1995. 

Years into listening to games on the radio, I finally realized that I idolized the announcer Mark Holtz more than I did the players.  It was Mark Holtz' quote of "It's Baseball Time in Texas" before each game that stood out to me...and of course his trademark of "Hello Win Column!" after each win.  On Nolan Ryan Day in 1993, I was able to get Mark to autograph a baseball for me which is my prize possession.  He was so shocked that someone asked HIM for his autograph.  He smiled at me like that made his day.  We both made each others day if that was true.  Mark died in 1997 after a battle with leukemia and it shocked the entire Rangers family.  Years later, I was asked to be a part of a radio broadcasting crew for high school football and I obviously jumped at the chance.  I worked my way up to play-by-play announcer and my touchdown call was "It's Touchdown Time In Texas!" as a tribute to the man that gave me all of those visions in my head of pictures he so eloquently painted in my mind.  I broadcasted for 16 years before hanging it up this year.  


I missed out on tickets for playoff games back in 1996, 1998 and 1999, but I'm making up for it in 2010.  It's Time!

Tips to talking Rangers baseball. Things have changed...

Two topics that you should probably think twice before speaking about the Rangers.

1.  The Rangers ALWAYS fall off after the All-Star break.  

Facts:

The Rangers have had a winning record after the All-Star break in now 3 of the last 4 seasons.  Only 7 Rangers teams in 20 years have had a winning record before the break and then a losing record after the break:  2008, 2006, 2005, 1997, 1995, 1992, 1991.  

7 Rangers teams in the last 20 years have had a winning record in both before and after the All-Star break: 2010, 2009, 2004, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1993.  

The heat in Texas is a factor, but it's a big giant excuse that people love to make for this franchise.  This team for the past 12 years have simply had an abundance of mediocre-to-bad pitchers.  That's the bottom line. It's not heat....it's talent.

2.  The Ballpark is a hitters heaven

Facts:

Yes, there is a great prairie wind jetstream to the right/center alley after early June, but lets simply look at common sense.  For one...since the Ballpark opened in '94 the Rangers have had sluggers in there that just mash the ball.  Some of the greatest hitters of the last 15 years have called the Ballpark home (Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Ivan Rodriguez, Michael Young, Alfonso Soriano, Mark Teixeira, Josh Hamilton).  Those guys crush balls anywhere and everywhere.  Now, lets look at the Rangers pitchers that were thrown out there during the same time.  They were not good...guys like Chan Ho Park, Todd Van Poppel, Aaron Myette, Dave Burba, Rob Bell, John Thomson, Tony Mounce.  Who remembers those guys?  

When you're hitting a ton of homers and scoring a bunch of runs and then giving up a ton of homers and giving up a lot of runs, the Ballpark got a reputation of being a hitters paradise.  It was...for both teams..because of TALENT.  But it's apparent that this is NOT a bandbox.  The Rangers have the lowest team ERA since 1983.  

It's because of TALENT.

Mid-summer Ranger Grades and Prediction about 2nd 1/2

Lineup:

1. Elvis Andrus, A; when Julio Borbon struggled in the leadoff position, Andrus took over where he'll be for the better part of his career. He'll be a lot like Pudge in his career...known more for his defensive skills, and VERY under-rated at the plate. He's as complete a ballplayer as you'll find in the major leagues today.
2. Michael Young, A; what would you expect from the all-time hits leader in the organization but for another solid year.
3. Ian Kinsler, B-; lack of power is a direct product of him trying to stop hitting fly balls with every swing. He is a key part of this club and the 2009 version was a disaster. So far, when healthy, he can be a top four 2nd baseman in all of baseball.
4. Vladimir Guerrero, A+; He's a flat out stud. He's putting up career-high type numbers.
5. Josh Hamilton, A; Since he eliminated the "toe-tap" and stopped trying to hit monster HR's in batting practice...all he's done is hit nearly .500 since.
6. Nelson Cruz A-; This guy is a VERY streaky hitter. Beware of him because as good as he will be for a week, he will be just as bad the next week. His DL stints seemed to take place during his normal cold streaks and he went from hot streak to hot streak. At times, he will carry this lineup.
7. Bengie Molina - N/A; I hope things turn around when he catches because the Rangers are 1-6 so far when he's behind the dish. I would expect this to turn around because he's a reliable veteran catcher. He'll be no worse than what we've had...but what we've had has been pretty bad.
8. Chris Davis, F; was the first baseman to start the season and was horrible enough for the organization to call up a kid prospect a year too early. Now that the kid has been traded, he gets another shot. He has tremendous power when he's not striking out everyother at bat. If he can walk a time or two and make contact...he can help this team.
9. Julio Borbon B-; his April and May were terrible. Most knee-jerking arm-chair managers would have sent him down..but he's good. And his 2nd half will prove why they believe in this kid so much.

Starting Five:
1. Cliff Lee, N/A; one start was not good and his stats at The Ballpark in Arlington are horrible. But no worries...this guy is a STUD and a FRONT END starter we've been searching for since Kevin Brown.
2. Colby Lewis, A+; He's as solid a starting pitcher we've had here since Kenny Rogers. The Rangers got a steal when they signed him from Japan.
3. C.J. Wilson, A-; Has transitioned remarkably well from the bullpen to the rotation. He should have a starting roatation spot in the major leagues for another 10 years.
4. Tommy Hunter, A; He doesn't have overpowering stuff. He is remarkably underwhelming. But all he does is dominate baseball games. He wins. And when he's done with that...he wins some more.
5. Scott Feldman, F; He hasn't been inconsistent...he's been consistently bad. He is Ryan Drese of 2005...had one good year and was handed the #1 role and has been a complete failure. Now is the #5 at best.

Other starters
Rich Harden, F; A 9 million dollar disaster. The Rangers are at their best when he's on the DL. He taxes the bullpen and makes everyone worse.
Matt Harrison, C+; Matt would be a #3 pitcher on the normal Rangers team. But this isn't 2003 and the Rangers are deep and unfortunately for Matt...he doesn't fit.

Bullpen:
Neftali Feliz, A; can be a bit erratic, but his stuff makes up for mistakes within the strike zone.
Frank Francisco, C-; was the closer to begin the season, but was awful. Seems to have turned things around in the setup role. Watchout for the blowup inning out of nowhere though.
Darren Oliver, A-; as long as he possesses that curveball, he can pitch until he's 48 like Jamie Moyer. He no longer has the 94 MPH fastball, but when you know how to pitch, it doesn't matter. He's a pro.
Darren O'Day, A+; what is there to say bad about him for the past two years now? he just simply gets people out.
Dustin Nippert, C; he's an average major league pitcher. Shows flashes of brilliance somedays and then gets his socks handed to him on others. Very inconsistent, but a good long reliever.

The Rangers are a good baseball team. They may even be a really good baseball team. The addition of Cliff Lee should not only get them the AL West Championship, but could actually win more than one game in the playoffs for the first time. Their pitching should matchup with anyone in a 5 or 7 game season. Right now, the Rangers are living off of the June that propelled them as one of the best. They must build on that if they want to even have a shot at the post-season. But I suspect, barring injury, this team is destined for a red October.

MLB realignment

Wouldnt it be more fun with these rivalries? Just a dream of full realignment with all DH as follows:

National League Pacific
Seattle
San Diego
LA Dodgers
LA Angels
San Francisco
Oakland
Arizona
Colorado

National League Plains
Texas
Houston
KC
St Louis
Chi Cubs
Chi Sox
Minnesota

American League Midwest
Milwaukee
Cleveland
Cincinnati
Pittsburg
Philadelphia
Detroit
Toronto

American League East
NY Yankees
NY Mets
Baltimore
Washington
Boston
Atlanta
Tampa Bay
Florida