Ranger Ramblings

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Mar 182009

I haven’t said much about the Rangers or baseball for that matter since December. To be honest, I’m rather surprised I haven’t. This time of year is always exciting for me. Baseball has always been my favorite sport (and one that I personally played from T-Ball through High School) and despite being a fan of the Texas Rangers, I always watch/listen/attend the game no matter what. Even though I know the season will likely end in disaster.

This season, however, is different. For the first time in a long time, I’m actually positive about this season and expecting some great things. Y! Sports has a good article that sums it up and I figured some commentary on it would be a good kickoff to my baseball musings.

First off, you have to start with the pain…the absolute horrible pain that is being a Ranger fan:

To be a fan of the Texas Rangers is to live in your own peculiar sports hell.

It’s not just that the people in charge have made some horrible decisions over the years. It’s not just that they’ve made some bad trades or fired some good people. It’s not that the Rangers have had some really bad owners and general managers. Hey, every franchise has had its bad moments.

The thing that separates the Rangers from pretty much every other MLB franchise is that they keep making bad decisions. Year after year. Generation after generation.

Even the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays and Florida Marlins have had their day in the sun. The Rangers never really have had one.

It is sports hell. The above is a reason I would always become furious at fans of the Cubs and previously the Red Sox that would always whine about their “curses”. You see, our franchise doesn’t have the luxury of falling back on a damn goat or Babe Ruth to blame our trouble on. We are just bad. Give me the “curse” of going to the playoffs with some form of regularity any day. Actually, let me put it this way — pop quiz: how many playoff games have the Rangers won?

One. That’s it. We won the first one and we have gotten our asses handed to us anytime we peeked our heads into the playoffs. If a Ranger fan talks about “the glory days”, this is all we get to remember:

In 37 years, the Rangers have won just one playoff game. That was their very first one—on Oct. 1, 1996. That was the beginning of a nice run. Under general manager Doug Melvin and manager Johnny Oates, the Rangers made the playoff three times in four years.

Those were the great years.

So to sum up, our playoff record is 1-9. We have played 10 playoff games total. Those were good times. Name me a franchise that has such a playoff record in the past 37 years, let alone are able to call such a record “the great years”. In the past 37 years, the Royals have won a series, the Cubs have actually won a playoff series, and the Marlins have won not one, but TWO world titles (the second coming after they blew their first team up). Hell, even the Montreal Expos have won a playoff series before they moved to Washington!

I even went through and checked the books on this one. Unless I am blind, I cannot find a franchise that has been worse off than us with postseason wins. As far as the Rangers franchise goes, you have to crawl back to the Washington Senator days to find any postseason success — World Champs in 1924 and a total of 4 playoff wins in the 1925 and 1933 World Series.

By the way, those wins occurred when the only playoffs were the world series…just ouch. [EDIT: and those Senators later became the Twins after the 1960.  The Senators had another franchise start up in 1961 that later became the Rangers after the 1971 season.  So really, you can't even attribute this success to the Rangers, double ouch.]

Sure the Cubs may have the longest current drought in between World Series wins, but at least they have actually won playoff series and made several playoff appearances (and won a handful of games too) since their last title.

The ineptitude of the Rangers is simply one of a kind.

Next, you have the horrible, HORRIBLE trades and personnel decisions that we have suffered through:

That is, unless you count the time owner Brad Corbett mistakenly traded one of his best players, Oscar Gamble.

Corbett was a charming, aggressive owner. He fancied himself a George Steinbrenner. Problem is, he didn’t have Steinbrenner’s money or his judgment. So, he got confused on the waiver-wire rules and ended up being forced to trade Gamble.

In the 37-year history of the Texas Rangers, that mistake might not even rank in the top 10. Yes, it has been that bad.

There was a general manager named Eddie Robinson, who once traded for an aging outfielder named Lee Mazzilli. To get Lee Mazzilli, he traded away the organization’s best two young pitchers—Walt Terrell and Ron Darling. Robinson wanted Mazzilli to play left field. Mazzilli called left field “an idiot’s position.” Mazzilli played 58 games for Texas before Robinson was forced to unload him. Meanwhile, Darling and Terrell combined to win 247 major league games, none of them for the Rangers.

The Rangers have fired some managers over the years. Whitey Herzog once was fired by the Rangers. He went on to establish himself as one of the most respected baseball people ever. Herzog could have worked for almost any franchise. Except the Rangers.

Billy Martin once managed the Rangers. So did Eddie Stanky—for one game. Yes, he managed one game and then hit the ground running. Smart man, that Eddie Stanky.

…

Anyway, when Tom Hicks bought the club and decided he could do better than Oates and Melvin, the salad days were over. In the long, distinguished history of bad owners, Hicks might be at the top of the class.

The Rangers have had just one winning season since Hicks bought the club. He hired a general manager named John Hart. Bad move. He hired a manager named Buck Showalter. Worse move. Hicks bid $252 million for Alex Rodriguez when no one else was bidding more than $100 million. (Wouldn’t you like to play poker with Hicks?)

Agent Scott Boras convinced Hicks that Chan Ho Park would be a nice addition to the Rangers. He convinced him that $65 million over five years would be a good price. Hicks got himself a 22-game winner for that $65 million. Unfortunately, those 22 victories were spread over four years.

Someone hold me.

And those are just the “hi-lites” of our trading stupidity. For instance, San Diego Padre fans, you’re welcome. Glad you are enjoying Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez — especially considering every last person we traded for now no longer plays for us or ever made any significant impact like those two.

We also signed Sammy Sosa…again…after he was on his last legs.

And even this year you could point to the minor league contract of Andruw Jones as a bad signing; however, despite that, there is actually room to be optimistic this year:

When Hicks realized he couldn’t buy a pennant, he tore down the franchise and started over.

The Rangers now have a bright young general manager in Jon Daniels and a farm system loaded with prospects. For the first time since the Rangers had Pudge Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez in the pipeline, there is plenty of optimism that the bad times are over.

The Rangers have a great offensive player in Josh Hamilton and a rock-solid clubhouse guy in Michael Young. They have a 20-year-old shortstop named Elvis Andrus. They have got a healthy Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla at the front of the rotation.

There are also a slew of other young, talented players on the roster as well (Chris Davis, Marlon Byrd, C.J. Wilson, Neftali Feliz, etc). Our farm system is now rated as one of the best in baseball. And the best part about all this, is that the Rangers are actually sticking to the plan this time.

In 2007, everyone moaned and groaned when we heard, yet again, the plan was to rebuild from the ground up. The goal: Championship Competitive by 2010. Now we had all heard this before and watched the management screw it up royally by trading away young talent for aging “stars” and signing people way past their prime for obscene money. All of a sudden, competitive by 2010 seems more than possible.

The Rangers won’t win the West and they may not even be able to grab a Wild Card playoff spot, but there is no doubt this team will be fun to watch. Young minor league talent will start to surface this year and some will be on the roster opening day. The Rangers actually do have an overabundance of talent as some positions and could even become prime sellers come trade deadline. Even better, such trades for once won’t completely cripple our farm system depth as it had in the past.

Things, for once, are indeed finally looking up. Maybe just maybe, our “curse” will finally end.

Posted by NDtex at 9:49 PM

ND Defeats UAB — No one sees it

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Mar 182009

I really don’t have too much to say about the game (was only able to catch the first half), but the Irish did indeed pull out the win against UAB 70-64. Luke played well and the jump shot was falling (41% FG, 40% 3-Pt). Those things usually lead to an Irish victory more often than not. ND even did rather well on the boards as well slightly out-rebounding UAB 36-35.

So overall, a solid victory — but the real story was what was in the stands…or rather, what wasn’t. ESPN reported that the attendance was an all-time ND home NIT low:

The announced attendance was 2,039, the lowest attendance for a Notre Dame NIT game since at least 1992.

If you saw the game on TV (or were one of the few there), you are likely balking at that number as well — if there were 1,000 actually there I’d be shocked. The whole upper tier of bleachers were empty. The lower bowl was barely filled with only the lower area of the student section really being “full” sections.

It was embarrassing to see that on ESPN, but I can’t blame the Irish fans. I’m sure no one expected a NCAA Championship, but the NIT was hardly something we were expecting with this team. If given the choice between St. Patty’s drinking and watching the game in a bar and actually attending the game with no booze for sale, I have a feeling I know which one I’m choosing if I’m in South Bend.

The Irish will now play New Mexico at the JACC Thursday night at 7pm EDT/6pm CDT. Hopefully it will be a decent night-cap to a day filled with March Madness.

Go Irish. Beat Lobos.

Posted by NDtex at 4:05 PM Tagged with: ,

To the NIT We Go

NDBB No Responses »
Mar 162009

Well, I’m sure this did not come as a huge shock, but ND did not make the dance after their second round exit to West Virgina in the Big East tourney. Instead, they will make their run at the NIT starting 9pm EDT/8pm CDT at the JACC against UAB on St. Patty’s Day (televised on ESPN2).

All I can really say is thanks for that selection at least for the date because if (God-forbid) we get bounced in the first round, at least the majority of ND fans will be too hammered to care.

Go Irish. Beat Blazers.

Posted by NDtex at 3:04 PM Tagged with: ,

ND Basketball: No Dancing Allowed

NDBB No Responses »
Mar 052009

Every time that I have sat down to think about just how to put this post together it seems another disappointing ND loss immediately follows. It got to the point to where I didn’t even want to touch the subject (mostly out of rage). I figured anything I might say would throw fuel on the fire for a season that wasn’t quite over yet.

Well that line of thinking went right out the window recently.

Just what in the hell happened? This was a team ranked in the top 10 preseason. We had Big East Player of the Year, Luke Harangody, on the roster along with the amazing three-point wizardry of Kyle McAlarney and young players like Ryan Ayers ready to step up and take the team to the next level.

As the season went on, it became painfully obvious that all we really have is Harangody and if he’s on, McAlarney and a bunch of young players still learning. All lead by a coach that still doesn’t seem to know how to manage the clock and how to use timeouts.

Now I have never publicly written on Mike Brey, so let me be clear on my stance on him. He drives me absolutely nuts. My biggest issue with him has always been the management of the clock and use of timeouts. During my time at ND, I would be fuming from the stands as we would call our last timeout with 2 or 3 minutes still left to play. We’d refuse to call timeouts to stop huge runs by opponents, and we’d inexplicably at times call timeouts during our own runs if the opposing side scored.

Oh no! Our run is now 12-4 instead of 12-0! Hit the breaks! Time out! Something is CLEARLY wrong.

Then there is that whole rebounding thing that we never really seem to get right as a team. From the games I’ve been able to watch, it is almost like either Luke is going to be going for the ball or it has to fall in someone else’s lap. For a team that relies so much on the outside jumper for scoring, how we don’t try to have at least more people fighting for an offensive board is beyond me. Even more confusing is why this attitude transfers to the other side of the court as well.

I’m no basketball expert, but when I constantly watch games were our oppenents are grabbing offensive boards left and right, something is seriously wrong!

Most games, we only have one consistent scoring threat and that is Harangody. After that, we rely on our perimeter game. You live on the jumper, you die by it. You need more than one person trying to score from paint. This whole thought of having one guy to pound it in while everyone else fires threes just doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked long-term for us. Period.

Let me tell you, that kind of basketball is painful to watch when it fails. I watched the Mavericks try to make playoff runs on that mentality. The Suns have tried it too recently. The same thing ends up happening year in and year out, those teams don’t win the big one. There must be a strong balance, something to fall back on if your shooters are cold. We fall back only on Luke and then teams swarm him and dare us to fire outside shots in the meantime.

However, I’m saying this about a coach that has been with us for nearly a decade, so I am clearly just spewing venom right? Well thanks to this post at the Rakes of Mallow, it seems like my Brey-hating isn’t completely unjustified; however, it seems that it really should be for reasons that I didn’t see coming:

“You probably can come to the middle on the last three years,” Brey said. “That would be my opinion. You’re 11th and ninth in preseason poll (the last two seasons) and rocket up there. Given what we were going to play and who we were really this year — were you really seventh in the country? Were you really? I don’t ever want to take away from our guys… I don’t quite know about that.

“When you look at the last couple teams, you’re kind of in middle with where we were and who we really were. The last two groups came together at a good time, drew a very strategic league schedule. Now, we delivered. But we drew a very strategic league schedule. There were some teams in the league this year that drew a very strategic league schedule – I don’t think you can say we were one of them.”

When the league conducted a straw poll in June — once the test-the-waters guys were either gone to the NBA or coming back — the Irish were picked to finish fourth. With Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody returning, they were thus thrust into the top-shelf television schedule.

All of which had Brey examining his team’s league gauntlet the day after Christmas, then turning to his wife, Tish, and saying this: 9-9.

“Where do I sign on Dec. 26?” Brey said. “I don’t want to sell us short, but I’ve been through the cycle of the league nine years now. You thrive when you can, then when rotate up into that (difficult schedule), can you survive?”

WHAT?! I have never, ever heard a coach talk like this. So let me get this straight, he takes a look at the preseason rankings and thinks to himself “Wow, are we really that good?” and then says “Nah, we can’t be, got lucky last year with the scheduling.” Then, come Christmas time, he looks at this seasons schedule, chuckles at the June prediction of 4th in the Big East, turns to his wife after Christmas and says ND will go .500, and finally to cap it all off he publicly states all these wonderful thoughts and asks everyone in the nation how they could expect poor little ‘ol ND to survive the big, bad schedule of the Big East.

What in the hell is this? Dumb and stupid doesn’t even begin to describe what Brey said. The fact that he even thinks this is bad enough, saying it in a freakin’ news conference for the whole world to heard and then subsequently laugh at! What a great voice for ND Basketball to motivate!

The University must feel the same way because the press conference is still clearly being hosted at UND.com — oh wait, no it isn’t.

No wonder this team came out constantly flat in big games, lost leads, folded at the end of big games, and couldn’t take care of the easy teams they were supposed to pound. You got a coach taking a look at things and saying “Hey guys, don’t worry, just the schedule do what you can.”

Harangody clearly deviates from his coach. I love his attitude even though at times I think it hurts his game. He often tries to take too much control of the game and attempts to take on double and triple teams that he shouldn’t as well as believing he can surpass obvious height mismatches (see UConn). Now I see why he does it though. Someone has to light the fire under the team, and by God, he’s taken it upon himself to do it.

However, that only goes so far when even your own coach sees that attitude and then benches you at the end of the Villanova game when you are getting beat:


“He was so wired emotionally right there,” Brey said. “I didn’t want him swinging or elbowing anybody at the end of the game. He wanted it so bad. I didn’t want him doing anything crazy. His motor runs at a very high level. I told him, that engine is great, and we want that thing revved up high, but directed at the right things. An elbow or a confrontation, we didn’t need that.“

Wait, wait…so because he wants the game so bad, you are convinced that he will elbow someone and start a fight? Seriously? This statement just boggles my mind. So what if he lands an elbow at that point? Unless Luke is judge a rampaging maniac throwing elbows and punches at every turn, why in the hell are you putting out the biggest fire on the team, Brey? If you don’t have enough trust in your star player to be able to refrain from starting a fight, you have bigger issues.

So in all of this pissed-off posting, what does this all mean for ND Basketball? Well for one, start chanting NIT because that is the best case scenario right now, barring some miracle run in the Big East tourney. A season with so much promise and hope is now ultimately doomed to failure.

But I’m sure Brey has a plan to turn this ship around for next season right?

One solution to mitigate the Big East grind that has mashed the Irish into pulp this year: Going to divisions with 16 teams. It’s an idea Brey clearly wants to put on the table.

“We are the only league that will do the straw poll and then repeat the top teams for TV purposes,” Brey said. “Everyone else, (the league schedule is) projected out already. Could we go to divisions? I think we have to talk about it. There’s a movement and an open mind to discuss it in Jacksonville (at the league meetings) this year. Could we get a rhythm to a schedule? But that’s easy for me to sit here and say.”


Just great Brey, just great.

Here’s hoping to a stronger end to the season, and the Irish play with some fire and pride for the games that remain.

Posted by NDtex at 7:38 PM Tagged with: ,

Jerry Jones Cleans House: T.O., Williams Cut

Misc No Responses »
Mar 052009

Well the past 24 hours have been more than interesting for the Cowboys to say the least. While I’m being a complete baseball nerd and enjoying a bit of MLB: The Show 2009, I got the following text from my sister:

“We just got rid of T.O.!”

I couldn’t believe it. I flew to ESPN to see if it was true. The irony of the opening sentence was quite delicious:

The Dallas Cowboys have released controversial wide receiver Terrell Owens, sources told ESPN’s Michael Smith late Wednesday.

Oh yeah, more anonymous sources! For all the Cowboys spin of trying to claim such sources were only full of lies about problems with T.O. and the Cowboys, it is once again said “mysterious” sources that break the news of T.O.’s forced farewell. How fitting.

One of my friends (an Eagles fan too at that) pointed out that three years ago, I was happy with the signing of T.O. In thinking about that, I realized that there are really eight steps a fan goes through when T.O. gets involved:

  1. While not on your team, you make fun of him and take pleasure in the horrible things that happen to him.
  2. Your team shocks you by signing him. You don’t know if you should be cheering or be pissed.
  3. You begin to think: “Wait a second, this might just work!”
  4. Season 1 you are singing his praises, have your popcorn ready, and you sit and think that your team found that magic “make T.O.” happy formula. You are loving it!
  5. Season 2 some drama creeps up. But hey, no big deal. That is just T.O.’s competitive spirit and people just can’t see that right….RIGHT?!?!
  6. Season 3 you see the writing on the wall. You start going back to step #1, but then you still try to mix in #4 when things actually go well.
  7. Step #6 drives you mad. You want T.O.’s head on a platter and off your team’s roster.
  8. Once cut, you revert to step #1 in earnest and prepare to laugh your ass off at the poor bastards that will be stuck with T.O. next and watch them follow all these steps like you did.

Here’s my proof of said eight steps:

A picture really is worth a thousand words.

Now, of course I am happy, but I do realize that there is a good chunk of offense walking out the door. However, despite the fact that Roy Williams may not be able to completely “replace” the production at the #1 WR receiver slot, the Cowboys have just gotten rid of the biggest crutch for failure that they have been leaning on for the past two years.

When you have the kind of drama T.O. brings, it clouds the whole situation. Why aren’t things clicking? Is Romo just not a good QB? Is Garret a horrible coordinator? Is Wade Phillips just an awful coach? Do we simply just not have the talent to win? The drama T.O. stirred up made these issues secondary. Problem is, these issues are the heart of the problem and you can’t win unless you fix him. On the same side of the coin, you can’t look at them unless you are focused on them.

With the source of distraction gone, it is time to focus on these issues. Releasing T.O. won’t be a cure-all, but we will sure as hell know what we actually have.

The excuses end today for the Cowboys offense. It is put up or shut up time for all of them.

However, if I encourage those screaming “great, now we have no WR” to look at the bigger picture. We have three supremely talented RB ready to roll for next year in Barber, Jones, and Choice. There is no reason in the world we shouldn’t be running this three headed monster down everyone’s throats next season. We don’t have to worry about T.O. getting his touches now, time to game plan like we did in the Green Bay game last season: run their ass over and launch it over their heads when they sell out on the run.

Also keep in mind, we have one of the best TE in the NFL in Witten. He will definitely command more attention this year, but I still think he will be able to handle it. Witten is Romo’s security blanket. Teams not respecting that connection will get burned.

As for Roy Williams, if he actually has some kind of a breakout, that completely spreads the ball out. Defenses won’t key on him — they will focus on Witten or the run. He’ll have fimiliarity with the playbook this time around and he should have room to work. It is now or never for him to prove he is not deserving of the “bust” label he currently holds.

Worst case senario though is the Cowboys have a bad season. If that does happen though, we should have a clear picture of where we go from that point to rebuild this team. I’d rather have a crappy season and make some actual progress in fixing this thing than to deal with another T.O. drama-infested year and feel like we took 10 steps back once again.

In other Cowboys news, the other Roy Williams (the Safety), has also gotten the ax. I don’t think there should be any surprises there. He wanted out and he hasn’t done anything of worth for years.

The way I see it, Jerry got rid of two anchors weighing this team down and also seemed to reclaim his balls by making tough decisions, especially in the case of T.O.

Today won’t fix everything, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Posted by NDtex at 4:25 PM
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