By LexBlog Admin on February 15, 2008 Posted in Park Cities People
On February 6, 2008, the Texas Rangers named Nolan Ryan as their new president — the best news for area fans since the team last appeared in the postseason in 1999. Baseball in these parts has been in a downward spiral for a long time. Our home team has finished last or next-to-last every year for the last eight seasons in the American League West division.
All baseball fans know Nolan Ryan as the greatest power pitcher in baseball history. What many fans don’t know is that during the last eight years, he has proven himself to be a superior professional baseball executive.
As one of the two principals in Ryan-Sanders Baseball, Ryan has made minor league baseball a wildly successful business in Texas. His Round Rock Express first took the field at the Dell Diamond in April 2000, and his Corpus Christi Hooks began playing ballgames at Whataburger Field in 2005.
These teams have established themselves as model franchises since their formation, such that Ryan-Sanders is now recognized as the preeminent enterprise in all of minor league baseball.
Both teams have consistently shattered minor league attendance records, established unprecedented rapport with the leaders of their business communities, re-energized baseball’s standing as a huge spectator sport in both Central and South Texas, and fielded competitive and even championship teams at the AA and AAA levels.
Will Nolan Ryan now be able to transfer all his success at Round Rock and Corpus Christi to the major league level for the Texas Rangers? Here’s why it’s a good bet he will.
- Ryan knows that marketing bells, whistles, and gimmicks don’t fill up a major league ballpark. The only thing that produces sellout crowds on a consistent basis is having a perennial pennant-contending baseball team. Achieving that will be his singular focus as president. He has been successful at every venture on which he has focused, be it business, sports, family, or anything else, and he doesn’t plan to start failing at the age of 61.
- Though Jon Daniels will remain with the Rangers as general manager — and supposedly will have final authority over team personnel decisions — the Ranger GM’s authority will most definitely be monitored, for the first time in years, by a pure baseball man who knows as much or more about talent evaluation than anyone else in the game. It is inconceivable to think that Mr. Daniels will make any material decisions about who’s on the Rangers’ squad without first obtaining the Nolan Ryan stamp of approval.
- Ryan knows how to handle the media and how to treat fans. Daniels’ predecessor as general manager, John Hart, had a dismal record on trades and free agent signees, and he also established himself as being one of the game’s most aloof and arrogant executives. He cultivated no relationship at all with either the press or the paying customers. Ryan is the opposite extreme from Hart — accessible, friendly, and shrewd. It is easy to pull for a man both smart and forthright.
- Nolan Ryan has singular stature among people at all levels of baseball — at both the major and minor league levels; among owners, executives, players, and agents; and with the game’s analysts, pundits, and fans. Anyone who claims to be smarter about making baseball decisions than Nolan Ryan is operating in a serious delusional mode.
Put all these components together and Texas Ranger fans again should have much to cheer for in the coming seasons. As long as Tom Hicks has the good sense to act in accordance with Nolan Ryan’s operational game plan, hope in Mudville for all North Texas baseball fans is here to stay.