The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

I highly recommend Shropshire's Seasons in Hell about his time covering the very early years of the Rangers.

 

Lest we forget, the prospect W threw in to make a deal with the Cubs -- Sammy Sosa.

 

Maybe, but he's already 30. Could be a Nelson Cruz-like late bloomer...who'd better fucking play back in a no-doubles defense if the Rangers are one out away from the championship.

 

The Sosa trade wasn't really W's ... That was "Mr. Ranger," Tom Grieve. I've played golf with him several times ... helluva nice guy (who can't play worth a lick).

 

Theo will be in for sure but my guess is he's not on this ballot b/c he's still so young (not 50 until later this year) and people aren't convinced he won't return. He could also be the commissioner in waiting, which might be a factor as well since terrible do-nothing commissioners don't get in until THEY retire (fucking Manfred is a sure thing).

Dave Dombrowski is the surest of sure things but you've got to retire at some point to get on a ballot and Dombrowski may be the Lou Lamoriello of MLB and just keep building teams into his 80s. Andrew Friedman probably has the inside track after building two World Series teams.

The managerial pipeline is going to dry up with so many guys just serving as sock puppets for the front office. Maddon will surely be on a ballot at some point, but the Cubs' gradual decline and his rough stint w/the Angels won't help him (neither will the fact the Cubs won in spite of his cuteness in '16). Kevin Cash might manage long enough to get on the list, even if he doesn't do any actual managing. A pennant makes Bob Melvin and/or Buck Showalter interesting lifetime achievement-type candidates. Craig Counsell is young enough to build a case and AJ Hinch would get on a very short list of multi-team pennant winners if he ever wins it with the Tigers, but that would be another sign of the end of days (sorry @maumann) and he's never had a winning season w/a team that wasn't cheating.

 

I'm getting to be Joe Boyd of "Damn Yankees." If it takes making a pact with the Devil himself for one more Tigers world's championship, he can have my soul for the right price.

CHEAT, A.J., CHEAT!

 

When Loaiza was with the Pirates, he would often translate for teammate Francisco Cordova. There was some story about a rare Spanish dialect spoken by the former. The story that eventually made the rounds was that Loaiza wasn't really translating. He was just making up what he thought Cordova would say.

 

They probably won't because they've already blown their AL West wad on the Mariners, but the Secret Base guys could probably do one of their multi-part docs on the Rangers.

In a way it's fascinating how irrelevant they have been to the greater MLB narrative. It took them 24 years to get to the playoffs, then another 15 to win a series (or more than one playoff game -- the Yankees beat them nine times out of 10 in a span from 1996-99). Part of the worst division in baseball history. Managed by Ted Williams but had one of the worst offenses in modern baseball history. Nolan Ryan going to town on the top of Robin Ventura's head. Being briefly owned by a future President of the United States. On their third stadium, which looks like a pole barn but finally fixed their biggest adversary: the sun. Alex Rodriguez. Opening their new stadium in the middle of a pandemic and then hosting two other teams to play the World Series.

 

The stories of Brad Corbett's years as owner are worth the price of admission.

 

Plus the home run off Jose Canseco's head weeks before he blew his arm out pitching.

The more we talk about the Rangers. the more perfect reps of the franchise we get. Forget Canseco's knuckleheadeness, how about Nolan finishing off his HOF career there, recording his 300th win and final two no-hitters for the Rangers and going into the HOF w/a Rangers hat...even though he only played five seasons there and battled injuries in the final two years? He's not even a top-24 a/t Rangers player but he's in the HOF wearing their hat! Then of course he became their head executive and built the team that won back-to-back pennants before going back to the Astros, who did win with him on their masthead (albeit not in a position of real power).

 

Also this quote from Corbett's successor, Eddie Chiles, on, well, just being the Rangers in the 1980s.

"Brad Corbett was a terrible businessman, but he’s the best salesman the world has ever known because he sold me this sorry-assed baseball team.”

 

People forget, because they never broke through and won the AL West, that the Rangers were amassing one star after another to build a super team in the late 70s.

They're another victim, if you will, of the very limited playoff field of the time. The 1977 and 1978 Rangers (via tiebreaker) would have been in a playoff that included six teams.

In hindsight, it was really stupid that baseball limited its playoff field. So many clubs have potential memories/legacies that were never allowed to happen.