Lone stars
The Texas Rangers? Yawwwwn. They weren’t even interesting when Chuck Norris had that show about them.
Sure, the Red Sox’ opponent the next three days has had a few great players (Nolan Ryan, A-Rod, P-Rod, Oddibe McDowell) and some decent seasons (three AL West titles in four years in the late ’90s) in their existence, but if you think there’s a more irrelevant longstanding franchise in baseball, you must live in San Diego.
But if you look hard enough, there are at least a few interesting notables, anecdotes, and facts about the Rangers. Eight, to be precise:
1. The Rangers have a mostly well-deserved reputation as an organization that fails to develop pitching, but the reality is that they’ve had a number of outstanding arms the past few seasons and sent them all away. Consider the staff they could have:
LHP John Danks (traded to the White Sox for Brandon McCarthy)
RHP Armando Galarraga (traded to the Tigers for minor leaguer Michael Hernandez)
RHP Edinson Volquez (traded to the Reds for Roy Hobbs – can’t really fault them there)
RHP Chris Young (see item No. 4)
RHP Justin Duchscherer (traded to the A’s for Luis Vizcaino)
LHP Doug Davis (waived in April ’03)
2. I always thought of Michael Young as a home-grown Ranger (until the arrival of Josh Hamilton, he was probably their signature player), but he was actually heisted from the Blue Jays in July 2000 for Esteban Loaiza.
3. Here in New England, we tend to think of goofy, Bill Lee-sucker-punching Mickey Rivers as a dastardly Yankee, but he also had some late-career moments as a Ranger, batting .333 with a 119 OPS+ in 1980. And if you think this is just my excuse to link to a page of Rivers’s greatest quotes, you’d be correct. A sample:
“Out of what, a thousand?”
– Rivers, responding to teammate Reggie Jackson’s claim he had an IQ of 160.
I doubt even that comeback shut Reggie up.
4. Through a series of savvy trades, the Rangers basically turned future home run king Alex Rodriguez into . . . well, nothing. In Feb. ’04, the Rangers sent A-Rod to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and a prospect. In Dec. ’05, Soriano was swapped to Washington for Brad Wilkerson, Terrmel Sledge, and Galarraga. Wilkerson left as a free agent after last season, Galarraga went to Detroit, and Sledge was dealt in another terrible Rangers trade, moving to San Diego along with Young and Adrian Gonzalez for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka. How come no one told me Matt Millen used to run the Rangers too?
5. The Rangers are the subject of one of the most underrated and hilarious baseball books of the past 20 years, Mike Shropshire’s “Seasons in Hell,” a recollection of covering the franchise – and a cast of characters including Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and David Clyde – in the early- and mid-’70s. It gets the official TATB recommendation, which as you know is almost, but not quite, as powerful as a book plug on “Oprah.”
6. The 1993 Rangers, starring Jose Canseco, Juan Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez, and Rafael Palmeiro, might have featured the most artificially enhanced lineup since the ’93 Phillies. And no, that’s not a reference to Palmeiro’s side job pitching Viagra.
7. Worst fight in franchise history: When second baseman Lenny Randle, apparently peeved at losing his starting job to rookie Bump Wills, sucker-punched 49-year-old manager Frank Lucchesi during spring training ’77, breaking Lucchesi’s cheekbone in three places. Randle’s punishment: He was sent to the Mets.
8. Best fight in franchise history: Nolan Ryan, age 46, pounding some sense into that young whippersnapper Robin Ventura in 1993. Legend has it Ryan could be heard yelling, “This will teach you to run across my lawn, young fella!” as he repeatedly walloped Ventura upside the head. Old people love that.
As for today’s Completely Random Baseball Card:
Oddibe McDowell is a baseball legend, and I don’t care what you say. And so was Bump Wills.
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