Rangers Lose Again, and Again, and Again . . . . . .

Call me a fair weather fan, but I have absolutely no desire to see the Rangers lose this year. They have the worst record in baseball right now and are continuing to slide downward.

Last year we went to about 20 games or so, supporting them the best that we can, even though they finished third in their division.

This year, however, we have a new manager that seems to be in over his head, Our GM has not made a decent decision since he's been here and while I'm at it, the owner hasn't made many choice decisions in the 10 years that's he's had the club.

Things were looking up when I heard that there was a potential buyer in Round Rock (near Austin) that I know could whip this team into shape. None other than the great Nolan Ryan. Tom Hicks, the current owner, just looks the other way.

It's time to move on, Tom. Go deal with your hockey team, but leave our baseball team behind, for the love of the game!

Here's a recent article in our local newspaper:

Hicks has stolen something precious from Rangers' fans
By JIM REEVES
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

If you're sitting there wondering how it all could have gotten so bad, so fast for the Rangers, you need to put on the brakes right there, big fella.

This didn't happen overnight. It's been happening for years, which is why it might be time for a little history lesson. If you really want to know why the Rangers are bottoming out in 2007, you have to step into the time machine and go back to 1998 ...

Team presidents, general managers, managers and players have come and gone, but the one common denominator you'll find in the last decade is the owner, Tom Hicks. Draw your own conclusions from that.

I've drawn mine, and it's not a pretty picture.

The saddest thing of all isn't the Rangers' record, or their defensive incompetence (which is mind-boggling) or even their omnipresent lack of starting pitching. The saddest thing is the e-mails and the calls you hear on talk radio from the fans.

They've lost hope. I'm not sure I've ever seen or heard a Rangers' fandom in more than 30 years that's lost hope, but this one has. In the past, hope was the one thing fans could cling to in bad times.

Sure, the team they were watching might be horrid, but coming soon from the minor leagues was a Ruben Sierra or Juan Gonzalez, a Pudge Rodriguez or a Dean Palmer, a Bobby Witt or an Oddibe McDowell, a Hank Blalock or a Mark Teixeira. Even more recently there were the DVD boys and what they might (but won't) represent from a pitching standpoint.

But now... sheer hopelessness. Name me one Rangers' minor league prospect the fans can't wait to see. Eric Hurley? OK, I'll give you that one. But that's it, and that's not nearly enough.

Hope, that most precious of commodities, is what Hicks has stolen from these fans, and without it, the Rangers are fast becoming a joke and a national embarrassment.

That's why team president and marketing guru Jeff Cogen, a decent and smart man, is fighting a losing battle to try to put posteriors in the seats at The Ballpark.

It's not just that these Rangers are bad, it's that the fans can't see hope for the future, either. What you see happening right now all began a decade ago, when Hicks bought the Rangers from George W. Bush and his buddies.

Ah, those were the good old days. The former Rangers owner was on the road to the White House and, back here in Texas, the team Hicks inherited was winning two more division championships to add to the one it captured in 1996.

But that team couldn't stay together forever, and the good times abruptly stopped in 2000. The Rangers have seen the bright side of .500 only once in the last seven years and find themselves mired in a season that already threatens to rival franchise records for ineptitude.

The numbers that Hicks has to take responsibility for are staggeringly bad. Since that division title in 1999, the Rangers haven't finished higher than third place in a four-team division, finishing last four times in seven years. In those seven years plus this season, their combined overall record is 555-638, 83 games under .500. In the last seven years, they've finished an average 21-plus games out of first place.

Behind those gawd-awful numbers are a series of terrible decisions by the owner that have helped sink his franchise into oblivion.

Want a list? Let me give you the short version, in no particular order:

1. Trying to mesh his hockey and baseball front offices (a disaster).

2. Lack of continuity in philosophy and front office personnel, which began with the firing of general manager Doug Melvin.

3. Giving The Ballpark a NASCAR-like look with advertising plastered on anything that doesn't move and some things that do.

4. Building the infamous Gold Club without first checking to see what it might do to the wind currents.

5. Hiring John Hart to replace Doug Melvin.

6. Failing to re-sign Pudge Rodriguez.

7. Signing Alex Rodriguez and Chan Ho Park.

8. Letting Nolan Ryan, the most credible baseball name in Texas, slip away to the Astros.

9. Allowing Hart and Buck Showalter to run off John Blake, the most savvy PR director in baseball, who told them the truth instead of what they wanted to hear. He now does that job for the Boston Red Sox.

Hicks is also responsible for hiring the youngest (and lowest-paid) GM in the game in Jon Daniels and allowing him, in turn, to hire a completely inexperienced (and lowest-paid) manager in Ron Washington.

Not unexpectedly but despite the incompetence of his team, ticket prices have shot up at The Ballpark in the last decade. Ten years ago you could have the best seat in the house for $25. That same seat is now $100 and other tickets have risen from 50-100 percent or more across the board. Let's not even talk about what you pay now for parking and concessions.

In the meantime, the Rangers have drafted poorly, leading to a lack of player development. There's not a single position player currently in the system that fans can expect to make this team next spring.

Yes, Hicks should sell, because he's lost the confidence of the people. But he won't because he now sees the new Cowboys' stadium as another financial windfall, with development coming around both stadiums that Hicks could never get off the ground on his own.

That's a pity, because there's a buyer still interested down in Round Rock, if the Rangers ever go on the market. But Nolan Ryan has to be wondering if his dream of owning a major league team in Texas will ever come to fruition.

"From our perspective, if there was an opportunity in Texas to look at something, we'd still entertain that thought," Ryan said Monday.

Granted, he didn't sound very hopeful, but then, that gets back to the root of the problem around here.

Hope has already left town and who knows when it will be back.

On top of all that, our best player, Mark Teixeira, was being talked about in a trade but is now on the DL.

That's the biggest complaint about this ball club, we get some good players, but instead of keeping those players, the team trades them away for prospects. Prospects that never amount to anything, keeping our team down.

Right now, I think the Atlanta Braves are my new team. I can watch them play on TV just as often as the Rangers and their managers seem to know how to run a team.

And That's What I Think.