This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there: https://www.fwweekly.com/2019/08/13/sports-rush-pizza-beer-and-pudge/ Many a person’s outlook on life has improved via a combination of pepperoni slices and 12-ounce cans. I got an opportunity to interview them together and I asked some probing questions. How did they meet? How does the pair feel about having the same boss? And then something, well, unfortunate happened. You’ll just have to watch the video interview to see how it unfolded. Note: there is a surprise appearance from a Rangers Hall of Famer. We did the chat session at Texas Live! (they add the exclamation point – not my grammatical improvisation).The facility celebrated its one-year anniversary Friday. It was fun. There was 13 Gold beer and Pudge’s Pizza, which you can actually find every day at TL! (my abbreviation, not theirs). Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions. RushOlson.com MintFarmFilms.com Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports
Nolan Ryan doesn’t have to keep a set schedule any more, other than showing up for the occasional interview with a sports blogger. But for years, he showed legendary reliability. He pitched every fifth day into his mid-40s. As an executive, Ryan and his remarkable wife Ruth felt that if they were going to ask fans to sit in the Texas heat, they needed to be willing to do it themselves, so you could almost always find them in the front row at what is now Globe Life Park in Arlington during his tenure as Rangers team president.
Nolan Ryan is also reliable when it comes to his personality. His Texas drawl still sounds the same as it always has, as you’ll notice in the video interview that serves as the centerpiece of this blog post. And he still cares about people, the way I remember him doing when I worked for Rangers under him. A lot of our conversation off camera centered on former co-workers and what they were doing now. He truly cared about who had a baby and who had changed jobs.
I’ve never worked for his sons, who’ve run teams in Houston, Round Rock, and Corpus Christi. But I’d like to think they’ve inherited that sense of loyalty and empathy from him. If so, being a member of the Astros or Express organizations is probably a pretty good job. In this interview, I asked him about his family and what it has meant to see them have success in the sport where he achieved so much. And I also asked him about the current Rangers. It turns out he still follows them and has insight into the type of team they’re fielding.
Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.
José Guzmán posted double-digit wins in four different seasons for the Rangers in the 1980s and early ’90s (and was 2 bWAR or better in those seasons for you advanced stats folks). He also pitched for the Cubs and for the Fort Worth Cats in the the latter team’s last incarnation. He has spent a number of seasons broadcasting Rangers games in Spanish on TV and radio, and will join Eleno Ornelas in the booth for home games again this season.
Tom Grieve told me a story last week about how he let Guzmán borrow his car even though the 17-year old had no driver’s license and didn’t speak a ton of English because he thought so much of the player’s maturity. The pitcher has always commanded a great deal of respect among his colleagues, something I saw and experienced firsthand working with him at the Cats and the Rangers. In this video interview, we hear his perspective on the upcoming Rangers season, and Guzmán also talks about the charity he started to help Alzheimer’s patients and those who care for them. He and his wife run the charity themselves, managing funds and outreach activities. You can find more information about the charity at http://guzman23foundation.com.
Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.
Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez has seen firsthand the devastation visited on his homeland. In this video interview, the Puerto Rican (and Texas Rangers) icon explains about his island’s needs and details an effort he and one of the companies he represents made to help an orphanage there.
In September, Hurricane Maria’s 150+ mph winds and Biblical quantities of rainwater inflicted massive amounts of damage on Puerto Rico. Driving around its capital, San Juan, one still spots uprooted trees, dismantled roofs, and other reminders of the devastation that will require years, and perhaps decades, of refurbishment.
Even at Estadio Hiram Bithorn, the national baseball stadium in San Juan, loss of power forced the local Winter League teams to play day games, and even now many of its large signage frames remain without the content blown away by the storm. Chili-Cook_Rectangle6
The island loves baseball, and many of the sport’s current and former Puerto Rican stars rallied to support their home territory. Rodríguez worked in the hurricane’s aftermath to help get supplies to the island, and has returned multiple times since. On a previous trip, he visited the Hogar Forjadores de Esperanza home for boys, a cause long supported by his endorsee, Sun West Mortgage Company, and brought donated bicycles to its occupants. On this trip they made an even more meaningful donation, and in the video, you’ll see why the facility needed it.
I actually have this dream every so often in various forms, and it
involves the idea that the Rangers have scheduled a game back at old Arlington
Stadium and I am going. Usually in this dream, I am just a fan at the game,
navigating narrow concourses and acres of bleacher seats. Sometimes I am
working, trying to remember where the press box entrance is.
I have no idea why I have this dream (crowd-sourced psychoanalysis
welcomed), but I do know I had a lot of fond memories of going there as a kid and
watching Major League Baseball.
Of course, the team won’t be scheduling a throwback event at the
old stadium because they tore it down when they built a new facility. The
Rangers are about to construct their third ballpark, but this time the
(tentative) plan involves repurposing
the former home rather than demolishing it.
If they’re going to trade on nostalgia, they should go all in and
bring back one of Globe Life Park in Arlington’s former features. They should
have a baseball museum.
The current facility would be a great place to house such a thing.
How do we know? It already did.
When the place opened in 1994, the Legends of the Game Baseball Museum
occupied a storefront facing Randol Mill on the ballpark’s south side. The
downstairs portion housed exhibits on the game’s great players, its equipment,
its uniforms, broadcasting and more. The displays included artifacts on loan
from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York -
not a small thing for a museum to possess.
The second floor told the story of the Texas Rangers and baseball
in North Texas. On the third floor, one found interactive areas geared toward
young people.
If you loved baseball, you couldn’t help but find the museum
absorbing. Objects owned by Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb stood on view alongside
videos of Nolan Ryan no-hitters and Mantle/Maris/McGwire/Sosa/Bonds home run
chases. If one re-opened such a museum, it would become a must-see for
hard-core baseball fans.
But the longtime fans aren’t why the museum should come back. The
biggest reason is the need to create the next generation of such people. Those
of us who fell for the game at a young age developed a curiosity about it and
began to take the deeper dives into its rich heritage. For me, books on the
game and stories from my father got me fascinated with the game’s colorful
past. That depth of engagement ensured I would want to continue to interact
with the game into the present day, and attend games in any ballpark available.
Before the museum closed after the 2009
season, every school group that toured the ballpark visited it. Schools could
justifiably consider it an educational experience and thousands of children had
a chance to realize how much there is to the national pastime.
The Rangers need baseball fans. This is a football state, and
sports like basketball, ice hockey, soccer, and many others compete for
allegiance. No sport has a history as storied as baseball’s. The Rangers should
use it to their advantage.
Of course, you’d want to update the presentation, and have a plan
for continuing to do so. When you’re competing for loyalty with e-sports and
cellphones, the technological setup has to resonate. One issue the previous
incarnation had was lack of commitment to keeping the exhibits fresh. As a
Rangers employee, it took me years to find the money just to update a few
videos so kids wouldn’t think Roger Maris still held the home run record or
Oddibe McDowell was the only Ranger to hit for the cycle.
Would a new museum work from a business standpoint? According to
museum personnel I talked to before the front office repurposed the space, it
was still profitable to the end. The way it made a lot of its money was through
events (including my sister’s wedding reception), but the Rangers thought they
could make more profit by taking out exhibits and creating a more open floor
pattern. The current Rangers Hall of Fame is the result.
Between the new ballpark and whatever is left at the old one,
though, the team will have plenty of event space to rent. They could easily
retain plenty of short-term profits from parties and corporate functions while
also investing in cultivating the long-term fan base. And you could still host
the right kinds of happenings at the museum, like the Batty at the Ballpark
Halloween event pictured in this post’s featured photo. Note the baseball
displays behind my niece‘s cool balloon/flower headdress.
If you want kids to have big league dreams (sometimes literally),
you have to help them envision such things. A shrine to baseball would put them
in the right frame of mind. Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative
efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad
campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports
entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and
FourNine Productions. RushOlson.com Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports
This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/08/31/sports-rush-a-baseball-firestorm/ 2017’s original baseball schedule had the Rangers and Astros playing this Tuesday-Thursday in Houston. Hurricane Harvey forced the Astros to move those games. Reports indicate Houston proposed playing this week’s games at Globe Lift Park in Arlington and the Rangers would then come to Houston for three late September games currently scheduled for Arlington.
The Rangers offered to play all six games in Arlington, with Houston being designated the home team this week and receiving all the revenue from the contests, which they could then pocket or donate. The Astros declined that option, which was their option as the home team, worried, apparently, about affecting the competitive balance of the games. The Rangers expressed concerns about compromising their ticket buyers who held seats for the late September games and would have little notice to change their own schedules. They also were likely concerned about the 12-game road trip with which they would have been left in September during a potentially crucial competitive period.
The Rangers have come under a great deal of criticism for their stance, with many apparently believing the most compassionate response would have been to swap the series. Here are some factors that could have been considered in making the decision about the games and in evaluating that decision afterward.
The Business Side If you want to maximize the total number of fans who will see the six total games remaining between the teams, as Major League Baseball might, you play all the games in Arlington, because rescheduled games always draw poorly, as do neutral-site games.
If you want to inconvenience only one fan base instead of two, you leave the September games in Arlington. The Houston fans already, though no fault of their own, have no way to go to a ballgame in their town during the early part of this week. From my experience in teams’ front offices, I can tell you that the argument that most fans holding tickets to the September games won’t use them for rescheduled weeknight games a few days notice is a legitimate one. Hurricane Harvey forced Astros fans to miss games for which they held tickets, Should it force Rangers fans to do the same? Even if one rescheduled September’s games for Houston, there is substantial question as to how many fans would be able to make the games even by that point, given the large number of people whose lives were substantially disrupted. Monday-Wednesday games during the school year are a tough draw anyway.
If you want to maximize the amount of money raised for the relief efforts, you play the three games this week in Arlington. You’ll draw home fans and those who had to relocate from South Texas. You won’t draw much at all in Florida. Whether you donate gate receipts or simply collect donations, you’ll get more for the victims playing in Arlington. So if that’s your priority, you play the games there no matter what happens in September.
The Baseball Side Playing this week’s games in Arlington would place the Houston players closer to their families than any out-of-state option. If one considers this a crucial factor, given how recently the disaster happened, one plays those games in North Texas no matter what deal one has to make. It is a virtual certainty the Astros will make the 2017 postseason. The Rangers still face challenges to do so. Strictly from a competitive standpoint, that would seem to indicate that the Arlington team should be the one to get the on-field advantage here if one is to be had. Many have said the Rangers will be out of the race by the end of September, but you simply cannot make that assumption with so many games left to play.
Related to the business-side items above, what advantage does playing at home confer? Getting to bat last is one, but that can be easily changed for a given series. Being more familiar with the angles of the home park is another, and while that’s not irrelevant, Houston is at least as familiar with Globe Life Park as any other facility other than their own because they share a division with the Rangers and therefore play multiple series there each season. The other advantage conferred is playing in front of a home crowd. A rescheduled series would result in small home attendance numbers for the Rangers this week, so they wouldn’t get much of the home crowd advantage. Houston would be likely to have tiny draws as well for a late-added September series, but they’d have a month to prepare. If the Rangers drew 10,000 (probably a generous estimate) to this week’s games and the Astros draw 15,000 each in September, the latter have effectively used the disaster to give themselves a competitive advantage if one believes fan support aids winning.
You could play a series this week in Minute Maid Park without fans. The field was apparently playable, so if you’re all about competitive balance and you won’t draw good crowds no matter where you play, make special arrangements to do it there. It’s not a good solution, and would probably be harder than it sounds, but it solves the issue of park dimensions and at least makes the crowd a neutral factor. The Astros will, in fact, play the Mets there this weekend.
You could also play this week’s games at a minor league or college ballpark in Texas or Oklahoma. The Frisco Roughriders and Round Rock Express had schedule conflicts, but swapping minor league series is less of a big deal than swapping big league ones, so those parks could be freed up. If you’re not going to draw well anyway, the smaller capacities wouldn’t matter.
If maintaining competitive balance is all-important here, and business considerations are to be put out the window, and if we decide that a 12-game road trip late in the season is unduly hurtful to the Rangers’ chance, then get a third team involved. Have the out-of-the-running A’s flip their September 22-24 home series with the Rangers for the one currently scheduled in Arlington for September 28-30. Then you move the Rangers’ series with the Astros to Houston and still give Texas a balance of home and road games. That’s incredibly disruptive from a business standpoint, but if all you’re concerned about is the on-field stuff, that solves that issue.
Summary Both teams no doubt balanced competitive considerations with fan-related and community-related ones. The situation is a lot more nuanced than knee-jerk criticism would indicate.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.
If you mapped the traffic flow in North Arlington on your
phone Saturday night, you no doubt saw a steady stream of red. The
incoming vehicles weren’t all headed the same place, but almost all of
them had one thing on their minds: sports.
Arlington did something no other city in North Texas can do, and it
might be the first time it’s ever happened. It played host to three
professional sporting events at one time.
None of the teams in question are actually named “Arlington,” but
they all stage their home games there. Major League Baseball’s Texas
Rangers took on the Chicago White Sox at Globe Life Park in Arlington
while the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys played the Indianapolis Colts at AT&T
Stadium as the WNBA’s Dallas Wings hosted the Atlanta Dream at College
Park Center.
North
Texas hosts a plethora of professional teams. Our 13-county area is
home to more than 200 cities and towns. Frisco is the only other one of them
with three pro franchises (NBA G-League’s Texas Legends, Major League
Soccer’s FC Dallas, and the Texas League’s Frisco RoughRiders baseball
team). The northerners (relatively speaking) could conceivably host all
three in a day if the Legends made a playoff run deep enough to overlap
the start of the RoughRiders’ season, but they have yet to do so.
Based on official attendance numbers, 127,254 people watched live
sports in A-town Saturday. Many thousands more tuned in on their
preferred screens as all three games were televised. A lot of folks paid
attention to Arlington at some level.
Arlington’s civic leaders have bet big on sports. An evening like
Saturday magnifies the good (visitors patronizing local eateries and
opportunities for nearby residents to conveniently attend high-level
athletic contests) and the bad (brutal traffic congestion and locals
declining to brave it to patronize Lincoln Square retailers). The
economic impact studies produced to support such a project are
notoriously unreliable
and much of an individual’s assessment is subjective anyway. In my
case, I like sports, so I enjoyed getting to go to one of the games
while keeping up with the others’ progress online. Some people might
prefer their city host a trio of quilting bees or renaissance festivals.
As you’re determining what you think about Saturday’s big sports
night, does it matter that all three teams won? Sure, the Cowboys were
in preseason, but a win’s a win. And the Rangers and Wings really needed
their victories as they attempt to secure postseason spots. Does being
able to host three Ws in a night make Arlington a city of winners?
Should Arlingtonians talk trash to two-team Dallas or teamless Little
Elm?
This could happen again September 10 if the Wings make the playoffs
and the schedule falls right. That day the Cowboys and Rangers face the
Giants and Yankees, respectively, both outfits having been named for a
city that has hosted 3+ games in a day many times (although the Giants
now play in New Jersey). The Wings could even conceivably host the New
York Liberty if results and seedings so dictated. So if you think you’ll
be in the mood for some live sports that day, come to North Arlington
(I’d show up early, by the way). If you believe you’d like to browse
used books, cruise Collins Street in your hot rod, or stroll through Bob
Cluck Linear Park, maybe pick another day.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for
sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns,
television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities
through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine
Productions.
It’s not an unusual sequence. When a Major League Baseball player
records his 3000th hit, effusive praise follows. We get to see video of
hit number one in his career and endless replays of his milestone.
Since the Rangers’ Adrián Beltré doubled in his second at-bat Sunday,
the kudos have rolled in. Teammates’ quotes have lauded his
accomplishments and pundits have extolled his Hall of Fame credentials.
I took especial notice of a blog post
by Rangers reporter Emily Jones, probably because much of her
experience with the great third baseman mirrored my own. I worked for
the team when he arrived in 2011, and had the privilege of interacting
with him for the purpose of shooting TV commercials and certain other
video and audio projects, as well as the occasional live event.
Like Jones, I wasn’t sure what to think of Beltré when he arrived. He
takes his job seriously, and his facial expression often reflects that,
even in the clubhouse where someone in my position, or Jones’s, would
need to solicit him to participate in some video. He also was an
established star, and that status means you might approach him a little
more slowly than, say, a rookie eager to do whatever anybody in the
organization asks.
We figured out pretty quickly we didn’t have anything to worry about.
He might set that intimidating jaw to good effect in the batter’s box,
but he could break into an infectious grin on a moment’s notice.
photo courtesy Brian Gagnon/Texas Rangers
We saw it shooting a commercial that featured him and teammates Josh
Hamilton and Darren O’Day. Not only did he not mind being there, the
superstar asked if he could wear the goofy foam cowboy hat we had
brought for a prop. We shot some takes with it, although it didn’t make
the final spot. He and Hamilton joked about whether Josh was allowed to
touch his head while wearing the getup.
photo courtesy Tim George/Texas Rangers
Jones mentioned how good he is with his teammates and his family. In
fact, you’d often see him pitching to his son in the outfield during the
afternoons before a game. But Beltré also embraced those he’d never met
before. At another commercial
shoot, the juvenile actor seated next to him had a runny nose. The guy
best positioned to solve this problem was our $96 million infielder. The
father of three did as I am sure he has many times and applied tissue
to nostril, stanched the flow without complaint, and laughed about it
afterward.
His first two seasons in Texas were my last two with the club. I was
at every home game he played and considered it a great privilege to see
him do something amazing pretty much every night. He was even good at
choosing walkup music that got the whole ballpark control room singing
along in Spanish. He performed remarkable physical feats on the field,
and also showed off a deep appreciation for the game and a fierce
competitive spirit.
I’m reminded of his performance at a Park Place Dealerships Triple
Play charity game show night. The players competed in a version of the
$40,000 Pyramid. Host Eric Nadel gave them a list of terms and they had
to figure out what tied the words together. As Nadel read “Oh . . .
Aaron . . . Mays . . . Sosa . . . Bonds . . . Thome,” you could see the
question marks pop up over the contestants’ heads. But you could also
observe Beltré deep in thought, and he finally rang in. “Players who
have hit 600 home runs” was the answer and he had deduced it. His
playing partner, Elvis Andrus, asked about “Oh,” and Nadel explained it
referred to Japanese slugger Sadaharu Oh, and noted that Yu Darvish
probably could have explained it. I bet the student of the game Beltré
could have, too.
And someday in the future when people are playing games and trying to
name players who have achieved great things in the game, the correct
answer will, on many occasions, be Adrián Beltré.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for
sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns,
television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities
through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine
Productions.
As baseball’s non-waiver trading deadline approaches, we find
ourselves asking important questions. Are we buyers? Are we sellers? Are
we standpatters?
Teams really try not to be standpatters, and not just because it’s
actually not a word. You either want to get better for this year so you
can win the World Series now or improve for subsequent years so you can
win the World Series then.
Should the Rangers be sellers this year, unloading veterans in return
for young players who need seasoning but have high upsides? Or should
they buy talent at the price of their own farm system depth? I’m a
flip-flopper, because while the hometown team is not currently in
playoff position, part of me thinks they could sneak into a wild card
slot, and once in the postseason teams can get hot. Darvish and Hamels
could pitch lights out and Beltre could rake and that
new-bullpen-piece-we-acquired-because-we-decided-we-were-buyers could
dominate.
Or
the team might give up prospects for proven talent and tank anyway.
Both scenarios have happened to clubs before. So if I can’t predict the
future, I decided I would look at the past. Perhaps you’ll remember
some of these in-season exchanges.
On May 30, 1972, that first Texas team traded Norm McRae to the
Tigers for Dalton Jones. McRae never threw another pitch in the big
leagues and Jones hit .159 for the Rangers that year in what would turn
out to be the final 166 plate appearances of his Major League career.
Jones was the older player, so we can characterize the Rangers as
buyers. However, they were 16-23 when they made the deal and would lose
100 games, so they should have been sellers. In fact, Rangers manager
Ted Williams knew Jones from his time with the Red Sox and I’ll surmise that had something to do with the club’s first-ever “deadline deal.”
In those days, the non-waiver deadline was earlier, June 15, and only
two teams per league made the postseason. When the deadline moved to
July 30 in 1986 and the playoffs expanded in 1994 and 2012, mid-season
trade activity increased. The stakes have also risen as prospects have
become an increasingly valued commodity. Deals get made after the
deadline, too, although they are more difficult because other teams can
block the trade by claiming a player off waivers (with the risk that
they may have to take on his salary if his current club decides to
unload it).
The guys in Arlington have made some solid deals as buyers. On July
9, 2010, they sent Matt Lawson, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke, and Justin
Smoak to the Mariners for Cliff Lee and Mark Lowe. Do they reach their
first World Series without Lee? Probably not, so it’s hard to say any
deal had a bigger impact than that one. None of the other players in the
deal really did a lot until Smoak’s breakout season this year for
Toronto.
On July 31, 2015, Jorge Alfaro, Alec Asher, Jerad Eickhoff, Matt
Harrison, Jake Thompson and Nick Williams went to the Philadelphia
Phillies for Jake Diekman and Cole Hamels. Hamels and Diekman have been
key contributors to two playoff teams, so no matter how good the young
players they gave up become, it’ll be hard to count this as something
other than a win.
Perhaps the best deal as a buyer actually worked out more like a
seller’s deal for Texas. On July 28, 2006 Julian Cordero, Francisco
Cordero, Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix went to the Brewers in exchange for
veteran Carlos Lee and stalled prospect Nelson Cruz. Coco became
Milwaukee’s closer and Lee hit ok for the Rangers in an ultimately
fruitless ’06 playoff pursuit. But the deal’s “insurance,” Cruz, became
perhaps the most impactful postseason player in Rangers history.
As sellers, one deal that’s still paying dividends is the July 31,
2007 one in which Ron Mahay and Mark Teixeira went to the Atlanta
Braves. Texas received Beau Jones, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, Jarrod
Saltalamacchia, and their current starting shortstop, Elvis Andrus. They
also picked up David Murphy from the Red Sox that day and he now
contributes as a broadcaster after posting some good years on the field
for winning Rangers teams. photo credit: Brian Gagnon/Texas Rangers
The July 19, 1985 trade of an aging Buddy Bell to the Reds for a
player to be named later and Duane Walker turned out well for the
Rangers when future closer Jeff Russell became the PTBNL four days
hence.
They don’t all work out as well. Robb Nen might been Russell’s heir
as closer had he not gone to the Marlins with Kurt Miller for Cris
Carpenter (not to be confused with future Rangers nemesis Chris
Carpenter) on July 17, 1993. Nen saved more than 300 games for the
Marlins and Giants.
One deal that drives one crazy is the 2011 Chris Davis/Tommy Hunter
for Koji Uehara trade with the Baltimore Orioles. Davis became a star,
which would have been fine if the Rangers had gotten what they needed
from the trade. While Texas did go to the World Series that year, Uehara
inexplicably had the highest ERA of his career pitching three months
for the Rangers and didn’t make the World Series roster. Two years later
he became ALCS MVP for the Red Sox and allowed no runs in five World
Series appearances. Rangers fans may recall a need for a shutdown
reliever in a certain Game 6.
Fans might feel a similar frustration about the August 19, 1983 trade
that sent Rick Honeycutt to the Dodgers for Dave Stewart and Ricky
Wright. Stewart’s talent never emerged with Texas, but he became a star
for the Athletics teams the Rangers chased in the late 1980s.
Another tough one came in 2001 as Ruben Mateo went to the Cincinnati
Reds for young pitcher Rob Bell. Bell never realized his high upside,
but the teenager the Reds convinced Texas to add to the deal became All-Star infielder/DH Edwin Encarnación.
On June 29, 1989, the Rangers traded Tack Wilson and Scott May to the
Milwaukee Brewers for Todd Simmons and LaVel Freeman. None of those
players ever played in the bigs for their new team. And had that been it
for 1989, the year would not have been included in this roundup.
Unfortunately, however, there was another trade that summer. Exactly a
month later, Texas picked up a veteran bat they thought might propel
them to their first postseason berth, plus a serviceable utility
infielder. Harold Baines and Fred Manrique did not get the Rangers
across the threshold. However, Wilson Alvarez, Scott Fletcher and Sammy
Sosa went to the Chicago White Sox in the swap, making this likely the
most notorious trade in Rangers history.
As sellers on July 11, 2003, Texas executed a superb exchange in
sending Ugueth Urbina to the Florida Marlins for Adrian Gonzalez, Will
Smith, and Ryan Snare. And it would have been a perfect example of the
vet winning a ring and the young player developing into a potential Hall
of Famer for his new team, except that Gonzalez had his superb career
with the Padres, Red Sox, and Dodgers after later deals.
More than one player, including Saltalamacchia, has been both
acquired and traded at separate deadlines. Ryan Dempster went to the
Marlins on August 8, 1996 for veteran right-hander John Burkett, which
helped Texas to its first division title. On July 31, 2012, Texas
brought Dempster back at the cost of Christian Villanueva and Kyle
Hendricks. Dempster posted a 5.09 ERA in 12 starts with Texas, but
Hendricks helped push his new team, the Cubs, to a World Series win last
fall.
The guy who went with Dempster to Florida came back to the Rangers on
August 12, 1997 as the Rangers were sellers. Ed Vosberg went to the
Marlins, who were on the way to their first championship. Rick Helling
returned to the club that had drafted him and led the starting staff of
two Rangers postseason teams.
In 1998, the club picked up another one of those twice-dealt guys,
Esteban Loaiza, along with Todd Stottlemyre and Royce Clayton in
deadline deals. Those players helped push Texas to a second A.L. West
title.
Who’s the best player ever acquired by Texas in an in-season deal?
You could make the case for Cruz, Hamels, Lee, or for Michael Young, who
came to Texas with Darwin Cubillan on July 19, 2000 for Loaiza. The
Rangers also picked up future Hall of Fame curveballer Bert Blyleven in a
1976 deal. But this is, in fact, a trick question. The best player
Texas ever acquired was . . . Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez. By the time of his
August 19, 2009 re-acquisition from the Astros, he was no longer the
perennial Gold Glover and offensive force of his first swing through
Arlington. But he’s Pudge and I expect to get no argument from Rangers
fans about this selection.
So now you have an overview of past Rangers deadline deals. If I left
out your favorite Ruben Sierra or Ed Kirkpatrick trade, I apologize.
Perhaps in a few years they’ll be included when I write about how we
just reacquired Justin Smoak or Nick Williams.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for
sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns,
television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities
through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.
Thursday night, someone asked a group of noted play-by-play
men about the most difficult venues in which to call a game. New York
City native Chuck Cooperstein of the Mavericks, the subject of this
post’s video interview, reluctantly cited his beloved Madison Square
Garden’s subpar sightlines. The Rangers’ Eric Nadel noted that he loved
Chicago’s venerable Wrigley Field in general, but not its lilliputian
broadcast booth. (He observed that early broadcasters “apparently were
very small people.”) Brad Sham from the Cowboys placed Washington, D.C.
first. He also named them second, third, and on up through number 32.
Sham explained that the visiting radio booth is low and in the corner
and he has to call certain distant plays using the monitors in the
instant replay booth next door. photo by Carrie AdamsAt the Talk of the Town event, radio announcers for North Texas’s top
four pro sports teams assembled to swap inside stories about their
profession. The audience could submit queries on note cards and the
venues question was one of the first moderator John Rhadigan read. Dave
Strader wasn’t on stage at that point and we didn’t find out his answer
to it. The Stars’ announcer had planned to attend, but a recent
complication in his cancer treatment prevented him from being physically
onsite. It didn’t stop him from participating, however. A few minutes
after the broadcast booth discussion, Rhadigan introduced a classic call
of a Steve Yzerman playoff overtime goal, one Strader had made as the
voice of the Detroit Red Wings. As it ended, the skinny but energetic
hockey broadcaster appeared on the video screen via Skype and described
how they had just watched his final call as a Red Wings team
broadcaster. photo by Carrie AdamsStrader then stuck around virtually, contributing his viewpoint to
every question and clearly enjoying the night. After the event, he
tweeted “Thank you for having me! It meant a lot.” I’m sure the
experience raised his spirits, and it lifted the room up a lot, too.
Perhaps my most enduring memory of a fully enjoyable evening will be of
the occupants of the Dallas Stars’ table, including former Stars forward
Vern Fiddler, watching their colleague on the screen and clearly being
moved by the sight.
In
addition to serving as a pick-me-up for Strader and his Stars
colleagues, the event also benefited five charities dedicated to serving
less-fortunate children. Earlier in the evening, after Sham had
described the challenges of having no depth perception when calling a
Cowboys-Redskins game, he had added a caveat.
“The one thing you won’t hear us do is complain about it. Because one
of the things I think we all understand,” explained the longtime
announcer, “Is there’s a line of people three times around the stadium
who would do it for free.”
Sham and the rest clearly appreciate what they have. In a night filled with great stories, that message was truly a lasting one.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for
sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns,
television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities
through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.
For nearly 40 years, Eric Nadel has described Rangers games for fans listening in their homes and cars (and now on their phones). He’s won numerous sportscasting honors, including the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford Frick Award. His zeal for helping charities matches his enthusiasm for broadcasting, and he’ll combine the two callings July 13. Nadel, along with Cowboys voice Brad Sham, Mavericks play-by-play man Chuck Cooperstein, and, health permitting, Stars announcer Dave Strader, will conduct a roundtable discussion at their Talk of the Town event. In the video interview at the top of this post, I discussed with Eric the event, his bond with his co-hosts, and his take on certain aspects of sportscasting.
As I prepared for the interview, I looked at a list of some of the auction items Nadel had procured for the event, and spotted some interesting names associated with them. I figured there might be some stories behind the donations, so we conducted a second short interview to discuss them (and have a bit of fun).
The Talk of the Town event happens at 3015 at Trinity Groves in Dallas on July 13. Visit thetalkofthetown.org for details and tickets. #DFWTOTT2017
Last Monday, a former serviceman had an exceedingly rare opportunity
to ask a former U.S. president a question. The veteran decided he would
inquire about baseball.
The next night, I attended another event with vets present. I got to talk to one of them, a recent interview subject
of mine. He had a distinguished pro football career, but it was one he
had deferred to first fly combat missions in the Persian Gulf.
This weekend, baseball teams wore uniforms featuring color schemes
more common to platoons of solders than platooning infielders.
All
these cues reminded me that sports and military service are
inextricably intertwined. For one thing, the two pursuits reward many of
the same traits, including toughness, fitness, and team spirit. That a Chad Hennings
(the former football player I mentioned above) could help the Cowboys
win three Super Bowl rings makes a certain degree of sense. That he
would continue to be involved in military causes, in this case the Airpower Foundation‘s Sky Ball, would also seem logical.
Sports teams have long embraced opportunities to use their venues to
recognize the various branches of the military. The Rangers play the
Rays tonight and they will no doubt do their usual memorable job of
honoring servicemen and women. Teams all over the country will do the
same, and their efforts will not be limited to a single important
holiday, Memorial Day. We see outreach to the armed forces in some form
or fashion on a nightly basis from many (and maybe all) U.S. teams.
The freedom to enjoy diversions like sport is ostensibly one of the
things for which soldiers fight. The man who asked George W. Bush about
baseball wanted to know the ex-commander-in-chief’s opinion on the
Rangers (Bush thinks they’ll rally once Adrián Beltré, Cole Hamels, and
Tyson Ross get healthy). The program at the Bush Center that night
involved a presentation
about the former president’s book of paintings and came after a day of
golf for a number of wounded warriors. Bush also helps support the Invictus Games for injured veterans, rides mountain bikes with them, and clearly sees a role for sports in their recoveries.
In a perfect world, they wouldn’t need to recover, but we
unfortunately don’t live in one. Pundits can debate the merits of
specific foreign policies and whether they truly help or harm the cause
of freedom. What is not debatable is that we hope every individual who
travels abroad to fight returns safely to watch his or her favorite team
or participate in his or her preferred pastime. On Memorial Day, it is
important to remember those who have sacrificed. It is even better to be
able to go to a ballgame with them. First pitch is 7:05.
Thursday before the Rangers game, I put a snack cake on Rodney Gadsden’s head. OK, I didn’t actually place it there. That job fell to a girl named
Tochi Zama Emeruen. Both fans had come to the game expecting to watch
the Rangers go for a sweep of the Phillies and also learn about how
weather works. Instead, they found themselves on the visiting dugout,
engaged in hijinks.
“It was unexpected,” said Gadsden, who had come to game as a chaperone for his daughter Sierra’s school field trip.
Every
year, the Rangers team with the meteorology staff at CBS-11 for a
pregame event designed to teach schoolchildren about how weather
phenomena work. Getting thousands of youngsters and adults seated before
the show starts is by its nature somewhat of a drawn-out process, so I
have traditionally assisted team mascot Rangers Captain in performing
games and skits to warm up the spectators as they file in. Rangers Six
Shooters help us select likely candidates to join us atop the dugout.
We usually have a lot of raised hands from which to choose. A couple
of Six Shooters pulled Rodney and Tochi from their seats among the
Newman International Academy traveling party. They had no idea what they
were in for.
They would compete against two other pairs in the morning’s first
game – snack cake stacking. Each adult had to kneel down and each kid
had to unwrap a set of chocolate snack cakes and place it on the
kneeler’s forehead. The first to successfully balance four total treats
would win.
Tochi, who, like Sierra Gadsden, attends NIA, allowed that she was
nervous. She doesn’t like to get up on stage and had never done this
before, although, let’s face it, pretty much nobody has ever done this
sort of thing before. It turns out she’s a natural snack-cake-piler,
though, as she finished first. Rodney did his part by making an effort
to “just stay still and let her do what she needed to do.”
A young lady named Caroline followed Tochi’s effort by managing to
stack three apples in a few seconds (something Rangers Captain and I
really didn’t think could be done). The final game involved kids pulling
all the facial tissues out of a box with one hand and then it was time
for the weathermen and women to do their thing.
“It was pretty interesting just to be a part of their fun and
excitement,” said Gadsden afterwards. When you go to a ballgame, there’s
always more to it than just watching the on-field action. You could end
up on the kisscam, or try some new food concoction, or find yourself on
the dugout with the mascot and thousands of people watching you as you
attempt to pile sugary confections as skillfully as possible.
Rangers Captain and I agreed that these contests worked as well as
any we had done, so expect to see more like them if you attend the
Dallas Zoo’s Wildlife Education Day at the ballgame on June 22, or if
you return to Weather Day next season. One attends such events to do stuff one can’t do at home. For Tochi, that was the best part of her snack-game experience.
“We get to play with food, because our parents don’t allow us to play with food.”
