March Badness

I’ll admit it, my NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket sucks. Got off to a horrid start with Louisville losing to Morehead State and got progressively worse as the weekend wore on. The Sour 16 carnage: I’ve lost three of my Final Four teams including my projected champion Pittsburgh. In other words,…

You’ve Got Questions, Ron Washington Has Answers

Let’s make this simple, shall we? Sat down with Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington yesterday here in Surprise and asked him what I thought were some pertinent questions. Allow me to paraphrase, in the spirit of keeping this short and sweet in the wake of last night’s 3.5-hour, come-from-ahead 11-10 exhibition…

Rockies 11, Rangers 10: My Top 10 Observer-ations

[jump] 5. I asked Jon Daniels the other day to give me an under-the-radar player to watch, maybe even on the back fields here on the Surprise campus. The name: Doug Deeds. And what do you know? Deeds started last night in left field and singled his first time up. Dude has…

Michael Young: Still Here. Still Hitting.

Don’t know what else to call it, I’m just getting a weird vibe here in Surprise, Arizona. The defending American League champion Texas Rangers somehow only have two starters (C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis) inked into the rotation. Their elite closer (Neftali Feliz) might be a starter but his replacement (Alexi…

Dirk Misses. Mavs Lose. Carlisle Confounds. Again.

Couldn’t find the game on TV out here in the Arizona desert, but after watching the highlights I didn’t need to. I’ve seen this Mavericks movie a lot recently. The good guys die in the end. Last night in Portland the Mavs made their first 11 shots, hit almost 60…

March Madness in Dallas: Has It Really Been 25 Years?

Short shorts. Skinny players. No 3-point line. Jay Bilas at Duke instead of ESPN. A lot was different in college basketball the last – and only – time the Final Four descended upon Dallas. (College basketball’s March Madness will climax in Cowboys Stadium in 2014). In 1986 the stage was…

Mavs Are the S-Word. Rinse and Repeat.

While I was out last week the Dallas Mavericks blew a seven-point lead in the final minute in a flabbergasting loss in New Orleans. Afterward, head coach Rick Carlisle called his team “soft.” Veteran shooting guard Jason Terry bristled at the suggestion, saying “I’m not soft, not me. I don’t…

Check That, Neftali Feliz Now Wants To Be a Starting Pitcher

After watching Neftali Feliz hurl an impressive first four innings of Monday’s 5-4 exhibition win over the Los Angeles Dodgers here in Surprise, Arizona, I sat down with general manager Jon Daniels to find out exactly where the 22-year-old fireballer fits in this season. Closer? Or starter? “I think that…

Wait, SMU Will Be Included in March’s Madness?

Never again let me criticize college football for rewarding 70 teams with bowl games. Because college basketball is now doing the same thing. And then some. This year – this week – March has increased, unprecedented Madness. Ohio State, Duke, Pittsburgh and Kansas are the No. 1 seeds as the NCAA…

Surprise, Surprise. Chuck Greenberg is … Poof.

And just like that, the man who saved Nolan Ryan’s job with the Texas Rangers has been replaced. By Nolan Ryan. I heard rumblings about this a couple weeks ago. Even hinted in a Whitt’s End and on 105.3 The Fan that there were – seemingly out of nowhere -…

It’s Never Too Early For Spring Training Knee-Jerk Reactions

You hear it every year around this time: Spring training stats are meaningless. And, sure, while that can be true for guys like Doug Deeds — the 29-year-old career minor leaguer who’s hitting .357 with two homers and four RBI for the Texas Rangers at the moment — there are…

Jon Daniels To Be Rangers GM Through 2015

The Texas Rangers just sent word: General manager Jon Daniels, who was only under contract through this season, today signed a four-year extension — the financial terms of which were not announced. Hard to believe, but should Daniels stick around through the 2015 season, that would mark his 10th anniversary…