The Men Who Told the Rangers Story | John Blake & Evan Grant | Ep 200

Back in my day we had prohibition
Episode 200 you just have a burning passion to continue to do this. That's all it's a burning passion
I'm just a freaking idiot
Probably more the latter than the former me up the bag. Stick him up, sir
He's got he's got an edge to him. You know, he's carols Pizzabal
Christmas carols. Awesome. They pissed me off when they're if they're not played until you know
Before November like they brought up all the old-fashioned red stockings, too. Not just Mr. Red, but Mrs. Red and
All the all the people on the reds
Mr. Chartres
So yeah, that was so rich walking into the clubhouse handing out press releases the number of f-bombs. I uttered with John's name
No
Nobody would have thought that I would be the one
Writers sports talk
Baseball baseball baseball baseball baseball
Oh, it's a big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah, okay. Now I get it
Lightning strike boys
What happened over there Gregio?
All right, all right. Here's a tip for all these Americana league teams.
Don't do it. You said tip. Yeah, yeah, okay.
It's a peak. I would keep jamming.
To take a colon, nothing but a big Gen X jerk off site.
This is a little light or what?
Although somebody would hear that. Bullshit.
I'm back.
And ring a ding ding boys and girls.
It is time for another episode of your dark companion.
We are glad you're out there by the channel.
Maybe you're watching us live at five.
Maybe you're going to win around to get home tonight and pick it up on the internet.
Wherever it might live out there.
I don't know about those things that keep me away from those things.
It's probably the, that's probably the best play.
Anyway, it is the second of March today.
And this is episode 200 of YDC. Wow.
And I can scarcely think of a better way to commemorate this.
Then by talking with a couple of guys who have been in here before.
Probably more than once.
And talking baseball with them because we are at that baseball time of year.
One is knee deep in it.
And it's kind of hard to imagine the baseball scene around here without him being knee deep, deep in it.
I'm knee deep all the time.
He is Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.
Hello, Mike.
Hi, Evan.
How are you?
I'm great.
Unfortunately, I'm sitting next to this other guy.
That other guy was knee deep in it for a way, way, way, way long time.
And it's still hard for me to get my head around the Rangers without him riding herd over the whole organization.
Because that's kind of what he did back then.
He made his presence felt.
If you were going to deal with the Rangers, you were going to run into him sooner or later and you would come away knowing it.
Oh, yeah.
But this is not his first time in here with us either.
He is the great John Blake.
Man, there's a whole press box named for him.
Yes.
Higher press box.
I know.
More like a space station for how high up it is, but it is a functioning press box.
I mean, it's just so hard to walk into the John Blake press box every day.
I expect to be yelled.
Any more questions?
I'm taking tours up there.
I do tours now with a ballpark.
I take a tour group up there.
I try to be as humble as possible.
But I end up taking pictures with the flag.
You don't tell them that this is that you used to own all this.
That you used to this used to be your turf.
I try to be a humble tour guide.
It takes all the little kids aside and kneels down and says, hey kid, someday you live right.
You can have a press box in your name on it.
So what is your exact function in the organization these days?
I'm Mike.
I'm a senior advisor in historian.
And it keeps me, it actually keeps me pretty busy in terms of telling stories of the history of the franchise
and taking care of the artifacts.
We're getting ready to do a new artifacts exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Museum.
It starts actually this week.
And we're going to have Cory Seager's bat from the home run and game one of the World Series and the final ball.
And I love doing stuff like that and being able to tell stories.
So it's been a lot of fun.
And I'm sure we'll get into this.
But the podcast is kind of an extension of in a lot of ways of some of Ranger's history.
Well, let's get into this right now because in addition to being on this podcast numerous times,
these guys have one of their own.
Doesn't everybody though?
Everybody does.
Everybody does.
But that's okay.
For right now anyway.
I guess.
So how did this come about?
Because I got to tell you, I don't know if I would have really pegged you two as guys to be doing a podcast.
I mean, this may be just me, but this surprised me.
Well, I am by the channel for all of them.
Listen, I mean, from my perspective, the morning news has wanted to do a Ranger standalone podcast.
But we do a, we do a sports day insider podcast with Kevin Sherrington myself and usually a staff writer.
And we always have a Ranger segment on that.
But I've wanted to do a Ranger standalone podcast that was more interview oriented than hot take oriented.
And for me, to try and go out and get the actual guests that you want to have on that, that was going to be a hard ask.
But John, who wants to keep the history of this organization alive and wants to tell the stories of the organization.
And that is very important to him in his new role.
He's got more free time.
He was a perfect kind of fit for, okay, I can access these guys and I can bring this element of history to everything.
You know, he's got his own segment that we do on the podcast called the archives in Arlington where he's going back and looking at.
It's part of history of the organization.
And I think it tries to meet most fans where they live.
There was a big segment of our demographic who are very much involved with the interest in the history of the organization.
And then there's, you know, that segment that wants to know about the current club.
So I think we try and mix both of them.
And I think you do a really good job of it.
Well, you couldn't have got any better to handle the history end of it than John.
And I like to, I agree with Evan.
And we can, you know, Evan says we need to, you know, yell at each other more sometimes on it.
And there is some of that.
But for me, it was, you know, just being able to get, and we've had no trouble getting some of the old players.
Occasionally, I will ask a guy and he'll say, and he'll kill kind of, you know, Evan is a problem at times, obviously.
But for the most part, you know, last year we had Josh Hamilton on.
We hadn't done a lot.
And we've had kind of, and occasionally, you know, Evan will help and we'll get some current guys.
And I think we've had Nathan Evaldi on the last few weeks.
We had Skip Schumacher on.
You've had Ross Fenster making it.
You've had Bergeron last year.
And I think we need to do a little more of that.
But the thing is, in a lot of cases, the former players are much, much better stories too.
And they're willing to kind of have more fun with it.
I'm not trying to denigrate today's player and their interviews.
But we can have some fun with some of the guys from the past.
Because, you know, you know how it was in the clubhouse.
They used to needle you a lot more.
And there are guys that still do that.
So that's kind of the fun thing for me.
But we also, I'd really enjoyed talking about the current team.
Yeah.
The astounding thing for me is the way you found guys that I had no idea that they were still around.
Like you just had Benji Kill on there.
Right.
Is he still in the area here?
He lives in Keller.
But again, Evan, I've talked about this maybe, theming it a little bit more maybe for this year.
And he's, it's very relevant now because he's managing the WBC team in Mexico that has two current Ranger players.
Alejandro Asuna and Robert Garcia.
I talked to Benji a lot about that.
He also managed Asuna in Mexico in the Winter League.
So he has this really great kind of base of knowledge of Alejandro Asuna.
And I think that this is a guy who is going to have an impact on this club somehow some way this year and in years to come.
John had a connection to him and, you know, he was also able to.
To John.
I'm speaking over John right now, but the theme that John wanted to hit more on this year is it's the 30th anniversary of the first playoff team, the 96 team.
Right.
And John wanted to tell some more stories along the lines of people who were involved with the 96 team.
Benji obviously has a story.
It's not probably the one he wants to tell most, but he was going to be the starting shortstop on that team until.
Well, John, you.
He had a ruptured disc and spring training in 96.
And Kevin Elster, if you probably remember at that point, was a non roster.
Yes.
His career was pretty much over and he was just trying to hang on.
He drives in 99 runs that year and it's kind of funny because Benji was again replaced by Elster after 97.
We traded Benji to the White Sox and signed Kevin Elster.
It didn't work out so well.
That's a good.
In 98.
You couldn't lightning didn't strike twice in that.
But those are kind of the things.
We'll have Mark DeRosa on this week's podcast, the manager of Team USA, again a former ranger.
And just we could run a lot of storylines.
You don't talk about Michael Young's relationship with D.R.O.
Skip Schumacher was supposed to, you know, there's a lot of storylines.
Yeah, there are.
And I think it's topical.
I mean, this is the best team USA team we've probably ever seen.
And the work that Mark put into putting this roster together.
And he talks at length about that in this interview.
I think it's, I really applaud the fact that John was able to pull the strings to get Mark.
Because he is a guy who's the manager right now between the network and managing,
being an active manager with a game that's going to start this week.
He was great.
And he was first all the time we wanted.
And that's kind of what we're trying to do.
And it's been fun.
We're not at 200 episodes, but I think we've done 28 now, so we're a little behind you.
Well, 200 probably shows me for the fool that I am, you know.
But nevertheless, we get 200.
I'm really glad for you guys to be episode 200.
You just have a burning passion to continue to do this.
That's all.
It's a burning passion.
I'm just a freaking idiot.
Probably worth a ladder than the former.
No, no, no.
We all love doing this stuff.
I mean, we, we all love it.
John was with the Rangers for most of almost 45 years.
40.
This is 48 total.
48.
48 baseball.
You know, I've been around 30.
You've been, you've been on the scene for how many years?
Somewhere around 30.
You know, and we do it and we do it and we like doing it.
Because it's all, it's been a passion of all of ours.
It's baseball and connecting with the fans.
And in John's case, connecting fans with the history of the game.
And I really applaud how much he wants to connect fans with that.
And how much it means to him, like just to watch the effort he puts into the hall of fame.
And the artifact stuff at the ballpark, he takes it really, really seriously.
It's not just like, hey, I'm team historian.
You know, I'm hanging around the ballpark.
He puts effort into it, even down to the tours.
You know?
I mean, I still enjoy it.
From the historical moments of Go By Feed as they were.
As they were.
But we talk about all three ball parks.
So.
It's neat.
It's really neat what you guys, what you, what you're doing, John.
I mean, this is something that you were, are very, very well cut out to do.
Well, I mean, and you, you know this too, Mike.
A lot of people retire.
And they can't continue to do.
I don't know how to put this, but the passion they had for what their real life job was, right?
Yeah.
And we're able to kind of do that still.
Yeah.
And I think it's neat.
And that's neat.
I think it's great.
It's pretty neat.
And, you know, as far as it, like, I'm just going to, you know,
John mentioned George W. Bush.
And, you know, John is a volunteer and a docent over at the library at the Bush Museum and library.
So it's not just baseball.
And, you know, I don't know how much, you know, about John's fetish for presidential history.
How?
How?
We thought we, I've had it on.
I beat him in a game of naming the president's the last.
Yes.
You know the story.
Did I tell you the story that we were in Cooperstown?
The Rangers let me follow Adrian Beltray on his private tour of Cooperstown right after he got elected.
So I flew up there with John and Adrian, team photographer, a couple other people.
And on the way back, I kind of go to Adrian to, like, tell, I said, Adrian, he can name every president in order and the vice president.
Adrian said no way, no way.
About three quarters of the way through the flight.
Adrian got John to, like, start doing the vice presidents in order.
Damned if he didn't do all of them.
Wow.
Now that's impressive.
The vice president.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I could do the presidents.
But the vice presidents, I'm not sure I could do that.
I mean, I worked for President Bush.
We've talked about this.
And this whole angle that now we can do an exhibit there and everything.
And it's just, the connections are great.
How many presidential museums do you still need to get to?
I need two.
Who?
I've not been to the Gerald Ford, which is actually two museums in Michigan.
And I still need the Hoover Museum in West Branch, Iowa.
You get it in the New York, they adore Roosevelt Museum when it opens on July 4th.
That's supposed to be a good one.
Is there a William Henry Harrison Museum?
Well, they're not official museums.
Like the Teddy Roosevelt Museum is not an official museum.
There's like 15 official museums.
I see.
So it's not 47.
No.
No.
The first Hoover as the first one.
So that's, it's much less of an accomplishment.
Yeah, they run by the government and then National Archives and Records Administration.
The government oversees them.
John told his wife Harriet in retirement that they were going to go see the rest of the museums that,
you know, how thrilled she was to find out that they were going to go to the Hoover Museum in Iowa.
That's a tough one.
You've got to really try to find that one.
I was a swinging place.
Let me ask you this.
How has the way the Rangers are covered by the media changed over the years?
You want to handle that one first?
I'll start, I guess, because I mean, I'm going to give Evan credit here of what he does because, you know,
there aren't a lot of beatwriters now that cover teams like the morning news.
And then they're lucky.
He's got a really good number two guy, too, and Sean McFarlane, one of the best.
Well, certainly the best he's had since Frailey.
I'm going to tell you, I've really enjoyed his work.
He is good.
Sean, we've had him in here, too.
Yeah.
Sean's good.
You know, hopefully at some point in time, I'm going to inherit the speed and he'll be good at it.
And hopefully he'll be doing it a long time.
But it's just, and it's hard, and this is one of the reasons I'm happy.
I'm not doing the day-to-day PR because, you know, it's just,
it's just not, but it's not the same in really.
I mean, I guess the Cowboys are still that competition, but you remember, I mean,
there was so much competition on this beat back in the day when there were three newspapers.
And then when TR was doing .com and there were two newspapers, you just don't have that anymore.
And I think, you know, the players probably don't mind it.
Yeah.
But the scrutiny on the team, it's just not there as much.
And I just don't know how people can, I know how people consume their information.
Now, and hopefully they're consuming it through a lot of what the morning news does.
And I think they do.
But, you know, the lack of local television stations and everything.
I mean, newscast sports broadcasts for what 90 seconds now, right?
And it's just you don't get, you just don't, I don't think you get the stories as much.
And you don't hear the players as much.
There is no question about that.
And I think that's, I really do think that's a disservice.
But it's the way it is.
And it's not just here.
It's everywhere.
Yeah.
I mean, we're going to have, so the Pittsburgh pirates are going to be without a print newspaper covering them.
Because the Pittsburgh press journal.
The Pittsburgh Post.
The Pittsburgh Post is that is going out of business on May 31st.
Miami, Marlins have a part-time writer that covers them for the Miami world.
Well, Washington now.
Washington doesn't have a traveling beatwriter, though the Baltimore banner and the athletic have scooped up people from the Washington Post.
And so the day-to-day coverage of baseball teams is going away because it's, it's more expensive and it's more travel heavy.
But.
And that's the beauty of baseball, too.
He is covering it every day.
Yes.
And the stories every day because the narrative is different.
You know, if Evan's been away for say a week, you know, he's, he's missed.
I mean, you know, it's hard to just, it's not like these other sports where you can kind of just dive in.
It's just things change so much and the narrative changes.
You know, when I miss, when I miss, when I miss like three or four games, just three or four games.
And then I come back.
I need the break sometimes.
My wife and I will go away for a quick weekend somewhere.
I need that break.
But when I come back the first day is so filled with anxiety because I feel like I know nobody in the clubhouse, nobody on the team.
I feel completely lost because it's just those 72 hours of the thread and the fabric of the season having been gone.
Feels like you just feel so out of, out of touch.
I know.
When I was in the game, that's one thing I loved about it was the day today of it.
There's a game today.
There's going to be another one tomorrow and another one the day after that.
And it just goes on and on.
And I mean, that's for me, that's true for all the sports.
I just love the day today of it.
Well, and that, I mean, that's one thing I love about baseball as opposed to football.
If I was to cover the Cowboys, they present their own challenges.
But the thing I always struggled with in covering an NFL team is, how do you feel the week up?
You know, you know, in baseball, you're writing about a result every day.
And that contributes to the story.
And so that's, that's the thing I've loved about covering baseball.
Obviously, it's a sport.
All three of us grew up loving and adoring.
And so being able to do that is, is, is a great reward in, in and of itself.
And I got to tell you to be able to do this for as long as I've, this is my 30th season on the Rangers to do it this long.
What do you need one more?
I need two more to tie TR.
TR has 32 years on the Rangers.
I'm not that worried about that.
But TR is, he gives me, gives me some grief about it all the time.
But he's still at it, isn't he?
He comes to some games.
Yeah, he works, he still writes for my, for us, for our public.
Okay.
Okay, actually has a book coming out in this spring.
Oh, he does.
He does, yeah.
So you had a short time in mind.
Yep.
You're hopefully going to have him on the podcast at some point.
Yep.
Yep.
But I got to do what you guys do then.
So we will too.
To do this 30 years in one market for me is like, so rewarding.
Because I grew up like, you know, we've talked about this.
And I grew up a braze thing.
And I grew up like knowing everything about that organization.
And to have a connection with even the guy who was covering the team.
Like you felt a connection to that.
Just like people who listened to Eric Nadell and who listened to him and watched Mark Holtz had that connection.
There's like this group, this generation of readers who have come up to me at different places
and say, ready since I was a kid.
And I can't tell you how fulfilling that is.
The question for me is are we going to have that going forward, that type of connection
or people kind of zoom in and out.
And as a PR guy, it's kind of the same thing.
I did it, you know, I did it every day from spring training and, you know, the good and the bad.
And, you know, Evan and I certainly had our differences at different times.
But for the most part, I can't, you know, over 30 years, it's kind of worked to the least okay to the point
we can actually be civil and have a podcast together.
But it's still, it's like he says the day to day for me was, was really, that was kind of the fun of it.
Because no day was the same.
Yeah.
No day, you know, every day was different.
That's what I enjoyed too.
And listen, I mean, the thing about being a beat guy and being around every day, like last week,
and this is the great thing about baseball, I feel like last week I wrote this feature on Jake Glass.
And I actually got to sit down with Jake and spend a good hour to him talking about what he'd been through.
I felt like I got the flushed story out a little bit more.
And you don't get that kind of time on other beats.
You can't even develop, hey, you don't get the time in the locker room or the clubhouse.
B, you don't have any ability to develop relationships with players where they will trust you to sit down with you for an hour
and tell you their story.
And so the ability to do those things, whether it was for Jake Glass this year or Jake Berger and his wife and their,
and their baby Penelope, he was born with Down syndrome last year.
To do that stuff, I think allows for fans to get a deeper connection to their team.
And I think that does benefit both.
Me as a journalist, the team, because it allows for that connection.
I think the fans feel enriched for it.
Everybody.
You don't have as much of that anymore, you know, I mean, it's just a radio TV used to do more.
And as I said earlier, I think we're all, it makes it harder for me.
I think the fans are the ones that are missing out.
Have you been in the spring training yet?
John?
I have not.
Evan?
I mean, I've been there for, I was there for 18 days.
I'm home for about a week.
I go back on Thursday of this week and I'll be there right up until the end.
I actually got, we've got a wedding, we've got to go to.
So I won't be there the last few days, but Sean will come back out and fill that.
And so that's the other thing is like we put the resources in.
We'll have somebody at least two people at spring training for the great majority of days out there.
So it's been a great spring so far in terms of atmosphere, energy.
Just the whole idea of this change in culture.
And I, it's, this is not a slam at Bruce Bocey.
It's not a slam at anybody.
When you change.
Oh, look, Bruce is here.
Oh, shoot me.
Hey.
He made it.
He held up a bank.
And now he's here.
Right when I've given up on you.
I have so much money now.
You know, we heard you were held up at the bank.
And I said, did he have one of those little masks on, you know, those little curtiefs like in the old Westerns?
Yeah, that's John's point of reference.
When he was folding up the bank.
Stick him up, sir.
But it is a good atmosphere.
And look, I told Rangers personnel this that while they, they crowed about this, I said, yeah, it is a good atmosphere.
There is good energy here.
But it's also what you should expect.
If you've made a change and you've brought in a new manager and your expectation is to change the culture and change the energy, then I would hope that the first two weeks of camp would go well.
If not, then we've got a bigger story.
I would imagine there's, I mean, from what I've read and what I've heard about him.
I would imagine there's a little bit of difference between a skip Schumacher spring training in one by say, Doug Raider or something like that.
That's a good one, mate.
You want to tell Doug Raider stories?
Yes. There's a big difference between skip Schumacher and Doug Raider and Pompano Beach.
I've got to tell you, I'm proud of that.
But you never knew what was going to come out of his mouth or what he was going to throw or what was going to happen.
Yeah, that was a little volatile.
My experience with Doug Raider was after the Rangers.
I had him, he was the bench coach for the Marlins when I covered him.
And I had asked him questions about a knee surgery and I asked a question about that when he got back and he just blew up.
That was like my first interaction with him.
Just blew up entirely.
Two weeks later, he's giving me mystery books to read because he wanted me to read these books that he loves so much.
I didn't even forget who the author was.
But you never knew which Rooster Raider you were going to get too many of that.
No.
The other great story about him is in Miami, he lived, I think, in Jupiter.
He lived in Stoer.
Stoer.
So he lived about 60, 70 miles from the ballpark.
So it was almost every night.
Wow.
And at the end of the night, the Rooster would come through the clubhouse, you'd have one of the sanitary socks.
And he would just put beers in it until it was stuffed with beers.
And so that thing could hold like 12 beers.
He'd sling it over his shoulder, go out to his car, and drive.
It was very safe.
I'm sure very safe on the highways of South Florida at that point in time.
But that's just the way it was.
But anyway, yeah.
I mean, again, I haven't seen it.
I haven't met Skip a few times.
I've observed him.
It's just different.
And I think the Rangers, like Evan said, probably needed a different at this point.
Bruce Bochi was certainly the right man in 2023.
And, you know, whatever the circumstances were and everything.
But I think also there was a lot of frustration last year because you...
And Mike, you've done this a long time.
And we've all said, boy, if we'd had that pitching staff in 96 or 98...
Or anything close to it.
You know, we would have been better than the New York Yankees.
But I think there was a lot of frustration that the pitching and the defense.
I mean, they suddenly record for fielding percentage was so good.
And you were...
And you were having struggling so hard to win ball games.
It's the biggest man bites dog situation I have ever seen.
And it's just amazing.
And the number of times I wrote last year, like, you know,
if you had this pitching staff ever before,
and this often just doesn't do anything.
But I think that's some of the frustration that existed is, you know,
this is where Bochi's battle tested.
He's a guy who, as a veteran manager believes in his players,
runs them out there, isn't going to make a lot of changes.
Trust the players to manage their own clubhouse.
What Chris Young saw over the last few years was a clubhouse
that wasn't doing a good job of placing itself.
And he felt like there needed to be more pro-activity
or more proactive approach towards some of the changes in the lineup.
And so inevitably, what happens is you take an older, kind of more laid-back guy
in terms of how he manages.
And you make a change in what are you going to do?
You're going to go for the young energetic guy.
And that's the way the pendulum swings in baseball, basketball,
there's never, you know, we're going to hire the same guy.
To his, you know, to his credit.
I was talking, I skipped the other day.
And we, if something came up, it's like, what song do you listen to
when you really want to get pumped up?
And he said, look, I idle at 60.
Do you think I really need something to get pumped up?
But then he said, when I work out, I listen to disturbed a little bit,
which is interesting.
He also said, and then I'll listen to Christmas carols
because they really pissed me off.
And when I want to get pissed off, then I'll listen to Christmas carols.
So he's got, he's got an edge to him, you know?
Christmas carols piss it off.
Christmas carols are awesome.
They pissed me off when they're, if they're not played until, you know,
before November.
They pissed me off at the plane before December.
Yeah.
Yeah, my wife was playing the first day of autumn.
But, but yeah, he's a different, he's a different cat.
And I think you're going to see him be more,
more willing to make quick changes,
if need be in terms of the lineup or personnel.
Is this disturbed right now?
Yeah, right it is.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
We're getting down with the sickness right now, Evan.
Well, the other thing I, and I'll say this too,
I'm pumped up like Skip Schumacher.
The coaching staff, too, basically went over an entire transformation.
Nobody has, the guys were there before.
Nobody's got the same job.
They've done the entire coaching staff.
And in this day and age, you know, back when the old days,
you would have six of your friends,
and it really wouldn't matter that it matters now.
It matters a lot.
Everybody's got a real job.
And I think like, you know,
Boach didn't have the ability to bring in Ron Wotus
or any of the guys that he had in San Francisco who knew him.
And so I think the guys that he inherited here really looked up to him,
really looked up to him in almost a differential way.
Yeah.
And so I don't know that they challenged him at all.
How much help communication, either.
And people just sitting around his office and things like that.
And that's not a criticism?
No, it's not a criticism.
It's just, again, like the cut, the things changing.
And I think that will be, you'll see a difference there too.
You know, I use this story on the first day of camp, right?
That Skip goes into his first meeting.
He's got the pictures and catchers because, you know,
pictures and catchers obviously report.
And typically what happens is the manner it goes gives a speech.
And then a week later when the whole team is there,
it gives a speech again to everybody.
I asked Skip what he said.
He said, I didn't say anything.
I said, why?
He said, well, you know, I want my coach's voices to be heard.
Right.
I want, so Jordan Teague, the new pitching coach,
who was the bullpen coach last year.
He ran the whole meeting.
He said everything.
And I think there were multiple messages that went with that one.
I'm going to trust my guys.
Two, their voices do matter.
And three, I don't have to run everything.
So I think that was a really good tone to set on that first day of camp.
Yeah.
I would agree.
Now, now it comes down to, can they, can the offense show difference from lunch?
Yeah.
The meetings are great.
But can you hit fellas?
Yeah.
Well, and that's what we'll see over the next few weeks.
And well, then leading in the season.
All right.
Hold that thought.
We will get into it directly.
And I also want to know a little bit more about the coaches too.
Because I mean, who are these guys?
You know, that's, that's what we'll get into here in just a minute.
But before we do that, well, first of all, this is Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.
This is John Blake.
Yeah.
Rangers historian.
We were talking Rangers baseball today here on YDC.
But right now it's time to stop down for the dreaded and feared mid show read.
Oh, no.
Like goodness.
All right.
Where is this thing?
Oh, God.
Oh, oh, we do.
Yeah.
Okay.
You got this.
Wing it.
Okay.
All right.
We will wing it and talk to you about the CBD House of Healing.
Now, maybe you guys are walking around out there and you don't feel too good.
Something's hurting.
It's been hurting for a long time.
And you can't put your finger on what it is.
And I'm talking about physical herd here, the bad kind.
There's not a good kind, but this is a pretty bad kind.
You'd like to get it fixed, but you've tried a lot of things.
None of its work.
Let me ask you.
Have you tried CBD yet?
If you haven't, you need to go to the CBD House of Healing.
The CBD House of Healing is in Dallas and it is run and owned by a registered nurse.
Now, I'm not sending you down to a head shop or anything like that.
They approach all this from a very medicinal standpoint.
And if you'll go in there and talk to her, tell her what's going on.
And what you would like to get done about it.
Chances are she can come up with something that will help you out.
Now, how are you probably saying, how do you know this?
Well, I know it because I was in this situation not too long ago myself.
And I went there.
I talked to her and she gave me stuff that did help.
And it helped more than just a little bit.
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Now, if she can do that for me, she will do it for you.
So don't waste any more time.
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There's no need for that.
Go to the CBD House of Healing.
You will find them in the Northeast quadrant of the burgeoning intersection of Northwest Highway and Jupiter Road.
Go by there, tell them you heard about it from us here on YDC.
And start your healing journey at the CBD House of Healing.
Is that it?
Hell yeah.
Do you think we need to refresh some of our younger listeners on what a head shop is?
We probably do.
I do it from time to time.
Yeah.
It's a vape shop.
Yeah, think of vape shop kids.
Think of the head shop is kind of the head shop on steroids.
Is that true, John?
Well, back in my day, we had prohibition.
You should have seen John when old, what's his name?
Kevin Costner came busting in.
Hell yeah.
Oh my God.
You know, it's a masterful bond monster like that that have put him where he is.
There's no doubt about it.
All right.
Why do you think we have a speakeasy at the ballpark?
That's right.
That's right.
All right.
Now, new manager, new coaching staff.
Who are these guys?
All right.
So let's run down a couple of the new guys.
A couple of the new guys should be pretty familiar, actually, to Ranger fans.
The guy who skipped is very close with.
And who was the last manager for whom he took the field for as a player.
Former Rangers catcher, Rod Barajas is the quality control coach.
And does a lot of additional bench coach elements and works with,
with the bench coach, Luis Ureta, who was here last year,
and who is also very close to skip.
And Rod, his been, had been in the Padres organization for a very long time.
He had worked really closely with skip, went with him to Miami as his,
as one of his quality control coaches there.
Blade here, 2004 to 2006 in the show Walter era.
Pretty much as a regular catcher, that little power.
I mean, so yeah, he's a former Ranger and then.
And then the new first base coach, everybody knows.
Travis Ben, Jan Kowsky, El Balondi.
Yes.
Which I'd off the field to the, to the coaching staff.
Yeah, and I mean, look, if you're talking about.
Clubhouse culture and all of that.
Travis was a great chemistry guy in 23.
Certainly the roster has turned over since 23, but there's still a number of guys
who are here in 23 and when he came back in 24.
And he can relate to him as a peer, not just as a coach as a peer.
And I think he's gotten guys, he's, he's, he is working with Corey Ragsdale
on base running and outfield work.
And Corey obviously has been here a long time and knew these guys.
Even a number of them, even when they were in the minor leagues.
And I think that, you know, they've worked really well together to get guys to buy in
to being more aggressive on the base path.
And I'm not talking about just stealing bases.
The Rangers were an effective base stealing team last year.
But I, you know, the other day they had a situation in a good year where I forget
who was doubled in the first inning.
And Sam Haggerty tried to score from first base.
Rangers weren't sending those guys last year.
He was thrown out in the regular season that probably gets a review.
And I don't know if it gets overturned.
It was, you were going to push it.
And what I liked about it was the player who hit the ball was Danny Jansen,
a catcher.
And when it was all over, he was standing at third.
So he took that extra base as a trail runner on a play where there was an outmate.
And that's the kind of aggressiveness we haven't seen.
So I think there is some buy into like, we're going to make things happen more often.
Wow, I catcher taking the extra base, huh?
Wow.
It's a new game out there, Mike.
It needs to be.
Who else do we want to know about on the coaching staff?
I don't know.
You tell me.
Alex Sintron.
Well, Alex Sintron was, he was with the, the Astros.
For some of their more interesting seasons, but he's an experienced hitting coach,
who's the assistant hitting coach to Justin Veeley, who was here last year.
Yeah.
And Justin was, you know, kind of in a, after the, the Rangers dismissed Donnie Ecker,
he was kind of in a split role with Brett Boone.
And it was that they worked the situation as best they can.
But what I do think is that Justin has now a full year of working with these guys
and has more buy in.
And I think the voice is going to be a little bit more unified.
The interesting thing too.
I mean, on the pitching side, you know, Mike Maddox has been replaced now by Jordan Tiggs,
who was the bullpen coach last year has been in this organization for a number of years,
with a lot of these younger minor guys that are coming up from the minors.
Very highly regarded.
He's what?
Is there a mid 30s, I believe?
I think Jordan is 37 or 38.
There was real concern that the Rangers would lose Jordan Tiggs if they didn't promote him.
And I think that, you know, he had to John's point.
He was the guy who oversaw Jack Lighter's pitching development program in 23 during
which he didn't pitch in games, but he made huge struts.
He worked with Jake Latz.
He worked with Cole Wynn, two guys who made huge struts last year at the Big League level.
And so I think he's a great guy in terms of, let's face facts.
Mike Maddox is a great pitching coach and a great game planner.
He didn't need to do a whole lot with Nathan Evolter, Jacob DeGrom, except stay out of the way.
Yeah.
But I think for these younger guys, Jordan is a really, really good fit.
That's what I like.
It's just, it's kind of a younger staff in a lot of ways.
And I think it's going to be a real asset.
But again, as we get back to it, the boys have to get it done at the plate.
I mean, that's what it all comes down to.
I was asked today at an event at the ballpark, you know, what do you think about camp?
And it's still, you know, everything's going great, but it comes down to Jake Berger has to hit.
Josh Young has to hit.
That Jack Peterson has to rebound.
Evan Carter has to stay healthy and show he can hit against left handers.
If you do that, you can play with anybody in the league if you're healthy.
It's just a question of, that's four guys that have to, at least three of them have to have significant rebounds.
The biggest change in the off season was they said Marcus Simeon away.
And now Brandon, Brandon Nemo is here.
Tell us about him. What's he going to bring?
He's going to bring a new lead off hitter with a proven on base percentage.
This is a 350 on base guy.
And look, the last few years, he's been a better offensive player than Marcus Simeon.
There's no other ways around it.
And I think the Rangers felt like the Simeon Seeger dynamic, you can break it up however you want.
These two guys just didn't have much of a relationship whatsoever.
The Rangers needed them to work in tandem. They didn't.
I don't know that there were, that there was any hatred expressed or this toxic mentality.
But I do think it filtered down through the clubhouse that like Marcus did his thing his way.
Cory does his thing his way.
And the young players were kind of left to say, well, which guy am I going to emulate?
You know, can't follow both of them. So you're only going to follow one.
That leads to some clubhouse fracture.
But to make the, to have the ability to make the trade with a guy who had two years in a row of sub 700 OPS.
Fill a need in right field where you got rid of another guy with sub 700 OPS in consecutive years.
And saved a little bit of money on the front end.
Was a pretty significant baseball trade for this club.
I don't know that they make the McKenzie Gore deal.
If they don't get the Simeon for Seager deal done when they, for the Simeon for Nemo deal done when they did.
Because it got him about five million bucks up front and McKenzie Gore is going to make five sixes here.
Um, how do you see the bullpen shaping up?
Can I pass on that? No, you can't pass.
I think that you end here to pass, but I think that's the big question, man.
Well, it's, it, there's, there's, I think the thing that gives everybody a little bit of pause is that there's no established closer.
And I think also the fact that you don't look at anybody and say, well, there's traditional closer stuff in terms of arsenal and some experience.
You know, nobody out there is a tried to make the point over the years.
How many of those guys of the Rangers really had?
And, and that is, you know, that is Chrissio on one, Jonathan, Phillies for a couple of years.
That's, I mean, that's, she was retored on this all the time.
He says, look at the team that won the 90, the, the 2023 World Series.
Now they did, they did acquire a role to Chapman and he did have an overwhelming fastball, but he also struggled.
You know, he wasn't that much of a factor in the postseason.
He just sport stepped up, Josella clerk stepped up.
You know, he was gray, he was Bradford and they stepped up and really for all.
Yeah. And then in 24, you know, Kirby eights had a great year.
Well, he's not an overpower guy.
Last year those guys all over achieved and they didn't have an overpowering guy.
So his retort is you don't necessarily need to have that guy.
And I'm my answer to all of that is I get it and I look at it a little bit like chicken soup.
And 99 mile an hour guy may not help you, but it couldn't wait, you know.
And, and the Rangers have some candidates here, but they don't have experience.
That's the interesting thing to me, Mike, on both pens, is you look now in the teams that do have a lot of success.
They have two or three guys that come in throw 100 with movement.
And the Rangers have really never had that.
I mean, Phillies, would you say might have been the more when he was young?
Well, the first two years of Phillies for sure.
But I mean, how many guys of Chapman, but again, like you say,
and but can they get by without that guy right now?
And it's at least early in the season.
And that will be a story long early in the season is how this all shakes out.
You know, we haven't seen Chris Martin pitch in an exhibition yet.
And that is not because he's hurt, but he's 39 and he does have an injury.
He does have an injury history where he has these things tick up.
So we haven't seen him pitch.
I don't think he'll pitch until probably next week.
I'll get about five innings in during the course of spring training, which is enough.
Josh Boards is still rehabbing from from shoulder surgery.
We saw Cole win, take some steps last year, but he needs to take another step.
You've like Gavin Collier and some of these younger guys.
Collier, there's a history there where he hasn't thrown strikes consistently.
Same thing with Mark Church, who's hurt right now.
Same thing with Emiliano Tiotto, who's hurt right now.
But before the season is out, the Rangers, just like they had Cole win step up last year,
they're going to have to have one of these young guys, whether it's Collier,
Robbie Allstrom, Mark Church, Milano Tiotto, Isaac Tiger, somebody step up
and come from the minor league system and be a contributor.
Same thing, Mike.
You know, you've been around a long time.
Developing pitching has never been a Ranger forte over the years.
But you look at it now, and again, I'm not trying to sound like the PR guy.
But you were the PR guy.
But you got lighter, you got Kumar Rocker, you got Jake Latch,
you've got some of these young relievers.
You know, hopefully there's some hope there.
You know, that you can kind of expand the development of your pitching staff
so you have more.
So you're not bringing in six or seven guys every year.
You're not re-making the bullpen over and over again.
Which has kind of been the Ranger's thing over the years.
I don't know what it's doing.
So, you know, I mean, I think they've done a pretty good job in player development
and that's what they've got to keep doing.
You know, they've got to do.
Yeah, you can say, yeah, lighter was the second pick in the country.
Rocker was the third pick.
Yes.
But Latch was a fifth round pick and he's been in the organization now nine years.
Cole win was a first round pick in 18.
But took a long, secure this route to get here.
Yeah.
And then these other guys that we just talked about in the minor league system
are all young guys as well.
So they are developing guys.
They just need to take the next step at the big league.
Well, I think they're pitching situation.
So you'd like to have a little bit more depth in the rotation
in case you get an injury.
But I think they're pitching situation overall is far healthier than it's been.
As far back as I can remember in the Rangers.
Yeah, me.
Yeah, I mean, obviously they're, I mean, they got guys there for sure.
But there's some situations and some roles have got to clear themselves up.
And they're going to be a lot more than 100% and Jake Latch is in all of this.
Jake Latch is the biggest wild card of the season because he could end up in the rotation
and based on last year.
And this is another one of those like gobsmack moments, right?
In the past, a guy pitched like Jake Latch did in the rotation last year.
And you're penciling him.
Not penciling him.
You're marking him in a sharpie in the rotation.
Jake was great last year as a starter for eight starts.
There's no guarantees that he's going to emerge as a starter.
The Rangers had their way.
They'd see from Camarrocker enough to justify putting him in the rotation,
taking Latch and moving him into a Swiss Army kind of role in the bullpen to start the year.
Yeah.
Who could pitch multiple innings.
But who could also end up being your closer before it's all said and done.
How likely is that?
I think it's.
I think a lot of it is going to depend on, you know, Chris Martin and Cole Wien.
Those guys in Robert Garcia, they're all going to get the first shots out.
But now you said it depends on Rocker's development.
How likely is that?
I think I think the Rangers have been.
I think they, I left right the day that Rocker made his second start.
So I didn't get to see that or talk to them about it.
I think they've been so far.
Let's put it this way.
The last year, Rocker came out, made two starts at the beginning of spring training.
They were both really bad and he disqualified himself from the competition this year.
He's done nothing to disqualify himself.
They also have the ability that if they can get themselves to where they feel we can run.
Come on out there in a rotation.
Five innings.
Bring in Jake is a lefty behind him for two innings and get through April.
And then see where we are because Cody Bradford should be healthy then.
I think the Rangers really like that dynamic.
But there's still a lot.
There's still a lot to be played out in three weeks before that.
You know, I hate it for Cody Bradford because when that guy got hurt.
I don't know.
It's been a while now.
What two years ago, he's had injuries each of the last two years.
Yeah.
When he, he was pitching right before he got hurt.
24 he came out of the shoot.
He was really good.
Yeah, he really did look like he was a real deal.
He really knows how to pitch.
He really knows how to come in the strike zone.
He knows how to use movement.
Again, I think, you know, there's, there's going to be at some point in time.
If this all goes according to plan five or ten years from now,
you're going to look back at this golden age of Ranger pitching and say,
okay, Jacob DeGrom and Nathan Evoli were great pitchers.
But they were also heavily invested in young pitchers.
And guys followed them.
They were open to talking.
They were proactive in talking to pitchers.
You talked to Jack Leiter about Nathan Evoli's involvement.
You talked to Jacob Latz about that.
Same thing goes for Cody, even though he didn't pitch last year.
He had a lot of time to spend around those guys and to talk pitching with.
And for the, for a guy like him, especially a detail oriented in.
And really granular pitching game plan type guy like Evoli.
I think that's, that's really important in his development.
Well, I think the young pitchers were following Kevin Brown and Kenny Rogers like that.
And the old days, they were like, no, I don't take that order.
I don't think Kevin Brown or Kenny Rogers wanted any part of that.
But at that point, right, you know, you go back to that point in time, right?
There was Nolan, right?
And everybody wanted to follow Nolan.
But Nolan was also on this different pedestal.
Nolan was also on his 40s.
I don't know how, I don't know how available he was to players at that point in time.
And then the other guy was Charlie, right?
And Charlie was a great pitcher.
He was, you know, he was a, he was a, he was a, he was a trick.
Yeah, he was a knuckleballer.
He had a pony trick, a party trick.
He could talk to you about being a baseball player, but nobody could throw that pitch.
So it wasn't like talking about pitch uses and stuff like that.
That he could really help a guy out.
Most on one, I think he may be the most underrated ranger.
There, there are a lot of them, but you look at what Charlie have done.
I know we're getting off the subject.
Well, all the chairs when you would come out there.
Charlie would win 17 games on a bad ball club and throw 270 innings and lose five times one to nothing.
So.
And then go in there and get dressed and light up a heater.
Light up a heater.
Right.
Right.
Right.
You know, my great vision.
Charlie Huff also was, he finished his career with the Marlins of the year that I covered him.
And Charlie would be in the clubhouse afterwards.
And they had those things where you would slide.
They were like sliding, like a sliding board.
But you would like do like a speed skater drills on them in these like little booties.
And Charlie, these 46 at this point in time, 45.
He's in there.
He's got like the big cup of vodka or beer in a, in a big coat tumbler.
He's got the heater going.
And he's over there like speed skating at the end of the, when we walked in the clubhouse.
It was a great sight to me, hold now.
It didn't mean to digress, but you can always digress.
Yes, you can always digress.
You've got stories.
Tell some more.
Who's your favorite ranger of all time, John?
Me.
I mean, I've, you know, that's a tough question.
I think it probably is Nolan Ryan just because, you know, and again, this, I mean, this goes back to being a PR guy.
And you, and you remember the franchise was, we got no publicity nationally.
We were kind of, except when we, you know, stopped letting people bring chicken into the ballpark.
And things like, oh, whatever it was, and getting Nolan just changed that narrative.
I mean, you know, in terms of the national publicity and the way he handled it, you know, the way he worked with us.
We tell these stories now that Nolan would get 10,000 pieces of mail a week.
And people, you know, they, you know, and we were having to deal with that.
And it's just, did you realize it was going to be that way when they brought, when they brought him in here?
Not at all.
Not at all.
No, but then the historic moment started opening, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you could predict that the, he got the 5,000 strike.
Do you have a 300th win when he came to the Rangers?
No.
So he had the 300th win and the 5,000 strike out in front of him.
No hitters, the, the bloody lip, the brawl.
So it's everything he did.
And if you remember the first month he was here, April of 89, he took three no hitters.
And in the eighth inning, had one that was eight and two thirds.
And, and it just kind of, you know, the narrative just was like that.
Struck out 300 guys that year.
There's heavy commercial.
And that's the other thing.
We never had a guy do national commercials.
You know, it was, I would say probably,
now I've had a lot of guys that I've really enjoyed working with.
For the most part, every, I mean, there's a few.
I mentioned one of them earlier.
And it's Kevin Brown.
It's not Kenny.
But, but I would say probably Nolan.
And then he was nice enough to bring me back here when he was club president
after the 2008 season, which from Boston.
And, you know, that, from a family situation, that helped a lot.
Because my daughter did not like living in New England after growing up in Texas.
So, and I've had, and I had really good years coming back.
So, I would say that, you know, I mean, I, it sounds like, oh, that's the obvious one.
But I, it's really good.
But you're the master of the office, so.
Real quick.
Did you say something about people were bringing chickens to the ballpark before Nolan got here?
No, what the Rangers did was cluck at the park.
But the Rangers did used to be able to bring food to the ballpark.
Okay.
Prior to the 1984 season, and I will say this is before I got there.
So, this is not, they, they, they, they told Mike remembers this.
They, they banned food from people bringing food to the ballpark.
The problem was in telly, buddy.
Okay.
They got the opening day and people would bring food and they were confiscating it at the gates.
And this family, and this family had brought a bucket of chicken.
And they came out to pick up their chicken.
All that was left was a bucket of chicken bones.
The, the guards, the security people had eaten the chicken.
And this became a big story.
You know, the people ran to channel eight.
And, and they came, they're eating the chicken.
And it became a big story.
They showed them the empty bucket with the bones.
And any child's actually rescind, we made him rescind the, the no food in the ballpark.
So that's the, that was kind of the narrative of the Rangers in those days groups.
That's what it was.
That's why they needed you as the master of whatever it was.
But, so that's it.
That's the old chicken bones.
I thought it was like literally like, no.
I'm hanging in a chicken.
No.
No.
We brought a goat in once to try to end a losing streak.
That didn't work very well either.
So how many wins you forecasting for this thing, Evan?
Evan?
I guess I get to go first there.
I don't get the answer to the easy ones.
Like, who's my favorite Ranger?
All right.
Who's your favorite Ranger?
Michael, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Look, I felt very fortunate that I covered pretty much almost every out of Michael's career.
I don't think he gets enough credit for being the consummate pro at a point in time when this organization had a huge amount of dysfunction.
And I think that a lot of, you know, people talk about the import, the importance that Will Clark had on the 96 team in terms of chemistry and clubhouse culture and all of that.
I think some of that got passed down to Rusty Greer who didn't get a career long enough to really expand on that.
But Michael came in at the tail end of Rusty's career, picked some of that up and had his own certain charisma and style.
And I think he made other players better.
So, yeah.
I made him change positions three times.
Yeah.
And he did it.
Ah, it's it for the last time.
He did it with a lot of grace.
I mean, he did.
And, you know, he did it.
Well, he didn't like it.
But who would?
You know what?
I mean, one of the times the Rangers made him change positions was coming off a gold globe.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so, I mean, I'm not saying, what happens in business and in baseball and everything else is people, you take certain people for granted.
And I think at some points in time, the Rangers took Michael for granted.
But I think that even now as a special assistant, you know, he's not just out there to sign a couple autographs.
He's involved and he's invested in the growth of young players.
And so, yeah, I mean, for me, I love talking baseball with him.
I love the ability to like kid around with him in the clubhouse.
And I just loved the way he went about the game.
So.
Michael's high on my list too.
I missed the years.
And I, like 2005 through 2008, when this guy was the best one, the best tears of the American lead.
Yeah.
And it kind of got lost a lot of times, like Evan says, because the team didn't function real well in those years.
He's definitely top three for me.
And it was a manner he put up.
He had different managers.
Yeah.
And, you know, he had to say about the manager.
He had to kind of hold it together.
The manager, you know, five was Buck Showalter.
Yeah, he had to kind of hold it together.
You know, and it paid off.
And that's what I think everybody was so happy for him in 2010 when we won the division and got to the World Series.
But, and I think he's a, he didn't play along enough to be really considered as a national baseball hall of fame.
And it's kind of too bad.
He'd, if he'd have stayed at second base his whole career and finished with 2500 hits or more, I think he would have been in serious consideration.
Right.
But he changed because the Rangers had no shortstop and no plan.
And all he did was take over that position for five years, win a gold glove and help the 2014 really over chief.
It's too bad guys don't get consideration for that kind of thing.
They don't.
They do in some regard like, you know, Michael got votes from me and TR for the Hall of Fame.
And in every market, there's that guy that gets rewarded for what people who saw them again on a granular day-to-day basis.
What they felt like they contributed to the club.
And he had so much to do with those 10 and 11.
I mean, he didn't get as much credit because it was all Josh Hamilton.
And then, you know, it was the, was the superstar at that point.
But Michael was really kind of the, when things were going behind the scenes, he kind of made it work.
Enough.
I can't stand saying good things about him.
Can we move on?
Let's talk about, let's talk about the number of wins.
That's right.
All right. Let's talk about the number of wins.
So, what are you thinking?
I think I've got the Rangers.
I haven't put my full season prediction together yet, which will be in our special section.
You're done in a month by month.
I'm working on it.
But I think I've got the Rangers in the 86 to 88 range right now in terms of wins.
I'm going to go with them that these guys will rebound.
And if they do, it puts them right on the cusp of the playoffs.
The question is, can they challenge the Mariners for the division title?
Possibly.
But I think what it comes down to is this team is going to be playing meaningful baseball in September.
How do you see the rest of the division shaping up?
Are there any other contenders there?
Are the Astros at contenders still?
They're still a contender.
And, you know, they, they will be in the mix.
I think the A's are the team that's going to make the biggest move this year.
I mean, they've got some good young talent.
They've got some good young talent.
They've got the big, the big Amish.
Yeah.
Such a great nickname.
We've got good nicknames in the American league rest, right?
Big Dumber, big Amish.
Hell yeah.
I, I, I think they're going to make a jump.
And so, you know, if the Rangers or Astros aren't careful, they're going to fall behind the A's this year.
The, the one thing that I think, you know, works against the A's is, I don't think that playing situation, you know, in a playoff race.
race in Sacramento on that turf in the heat of the summertime is really going to be good
for them, but hey, that's what baseball allowed and that's what the youth folks have created.
The other thing I think this year is the beginning of the season. Rangers typically have
opened the season at home. They've got to go on the road for six games to Philadelphia
and Baltimore. They've got to come home and play the reds, they play the Mariners, they
got to go to LA. The Rangers are the first 40 games of the first quarter of the season.
First quarter of the season, 27 of 40 games are against teams that made the postseason
last year. And like John said, that includes the series at the Dodgers, includes the series
at the Yankees, includes the series at Philadelphia, includes home and home with Seattle.
So we haven't had, I mean, and you know, that is as tough as scheduled in a while that
the Rangers have started with. And a lot of it, and it's, you know, it's optics, right?
If you get off to a good start, it's, it's, you know, it's optics. I mean, but it can
also hurt you just in terms of perception and whatever. If you don't get off to that.
You can't win a pen in April, but you certainly can take yourself out of contention with
a design. We can mention 1987 here quickly that year. I mean, Mike probably remembers
this. The brewers, one, 13 in a row to start the season. I beat the Ranger seven times.
And we came home one in 10. And we had been good in 86. I mean, we won 87 games in
everything. And that pretty much derailed our season. We came home to the, welcome home
luncheon. Was that one or to be cut his hand with a butter knife? Tell that story. So
that had to cut his hand with a butter knife. He was trying to butter his roll and he missed
the butter and hit his face. But it's a butter knife. It has no blade. Well, it's a very
sharp blade. You can see them in the back. They were, they were shocked me in the butter knife.
So I still got an ass to it in the back. Just like you. But what I'm saying, it's, and, you
know, it kind of takes the wind out of your sales. Like Evan says, you can't lose in April,
but it's, it's going to be interesting to see Rangers go through this gauntlet early
on. This is the thing. I will say this. This is the thing that we missed most. Rich,
Rice, John's protege is, is great at his job. And, and he, he, he comes from the same
school of John of the media relations guy being a liaison and not a gatekeeper. But all
that said, nobody delivered injury news like John Blake. You know, we had so many weird
injuries that rangers suffered over the years. My favorite one was when Ryan Glenn had
not enough, he had scurvy or something like he had not enough salt. And he was faint
from that. And you had to explain that whole thing. What's your favorite injury of all time
to explain? I missed, Ned, yo, so that was before my time with the eyelid carrot, the eyelid
tension, eyelid tension. Josh Hamilton's was interested in with the, with the eye with, again,
eyes, eyes. Right. The blue eyes that he lost balls in the sun in the blue light and day
games. That, that was interesting. I forgot about that. Right. We had, so what is day game number
picture? Bill Mohorsick in 1986. And you remember, Bill Mohorsick, bitch, 13 games in a row. He
was a career journeyman. He had to use sandpaper on his finger to scuff the ball. I'm pirate
comes out one day in Milwaukee. And because he'd been tipped off, you know, I'm so, so horse
swallows the sandpaper. That's not good for your digestive. So, so he comes out and has internal
bleeding in this. I mean, it's screwed up his, screwed up his, so I think we announced it as,
what did we announce it as? We didn't, we, we said something like stomach,
perfect, you know, something about, yeah, the perfor, you know, we didn't mention the sandpaper.
That was an interesting one. And then Greg Harris went on the DL when he was flicking sunflower
seeds. And he, it is right now. And you remember, he was, oh, yeah. He was flicking. No one had
an injury. Well, Nolan Nolan, Nolan cut his foot, water scheme. Water scheme. The water scheme.
1993. Yeah. So yeah, they've been a few of them over the years. Maybe we have been totally
truthful on it. Swallowing the sandpaper is a tough one to, to, to explain. Yeah, that is
tough to explain. Now we just get, he's got a left side muscle strength. Lower body injury. Yeah,
mom, yeah, make for better copy, guys. Yeah, I just go with the hockey process. Right.
Brian Glenn apparently had syncopy. I bet it's a funny thing. Really feigning spells. Yeah,
I take medication for that now. Oh my, I didn't know that about you. Did you know that about him?
Did you have what? It's called syncopy. Yeah, I haven't done it recently. I've been, I did a few
times fainting spells. Yeah. If you show John a drop of blood, he just goes face first. Definitely.
It's unbelievable. They had one day, one day, I, I will tell you this story. One day,
one day they had the Carter blood care was doing a blood drive out at the ballpark because I think
during the offseason or something. And rich. God bless. It was my birthday. It was also John's
birthday. Rich had the giant blood, the drop of blood mascot that Carter blood center had.
And it's not a real thing of black. He's not oozing blood. It's just a little fuzzy mess.
Great. It's just and he came up serious. You fainted. Yeah, John with the mask.
I had to go off to the side. Yeah, it was not. I'm not, when I did fly, I have to like,
lie back on the table and all of that stuff. Well, you told us a little while ago that you have
fainting spells that you were known for this. I tried to not, I tried to keep it. I like, like,
we all get old. We try to keep it. Yeah, I know. John's also had fun with mascots. I used to send
the mascot. Whatever stadium we were in, I'd get the PR guy and we, we collaborate. And the mascot
from that team would come up to the press box and give John a hug. John did not like the street
mask. Um, and one day I had the Tampa Bay race and the cute little Raymond over to get,
and you know, everybody loves Raymond. He's a harmless little man. He came over to give John a
hug. It was right at about the same time that Pat Mahomes senior, the bad Mahomes,
had given up back to back to back home runs. Was it quadruple? It was three in a row. It was three
in a row. And John said, if you don't get away, he said to the mascot. If you don't get away from
the mascot, why didn't you tell him? I told him if he didn't, and I don't know if I was a
here or she, I said, if you can't tell with the little mascot. I said, if you don't get away from
it right now, I'm going to flatten you basically. And the mascot got up and kind of,
who's so sad to see the mascot trudge away. Yeah, I haven't would send these, these
masks. It was unbelievable. Raymond looks so sweet. Did you imagine if they sent DJ Kitty up there?
Right. John would kick him in the, but it was like, I was not just, and the mascot would
inevitably show up at a time, believe it or not. We were not doing well. But there were a lot of
years where that could have been any time of year. That's right. But Stomper, the A's mascot
came up one time. Yeah. Mr. Red brought me a cake one time. Mr. Red brought him a birthday cake.
All right. Did you always get the cake? Total costume with a mustache. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
All right. And I brought up, like they brought up all the old fashioned red stockings too. Not
just Mr. Red, but Mrs. Red and all the, all the people on the reds. Mr. Chartreuse.
So yeah, that was one of the Evans things I've always, we had fun. I like going to the Yankees.
I didn't have a mascot. It was good times. Everybody had a good, so we're having fun here. No.
Exactly. Oh, man. You guys are a trip. You know that? We like y'all.
Yeah. I mean, people get the wrong idea about you guys.
Baseball, like baseball, that's your around people so much baseball would, would lead to that.
And you'd, you hung out, I mean, you hung out with people, John, and I would get dinner with,
with the broadcasters all the time. We were in Seattle. We were in, we were in San Francisco when
9-11 happened. That was kind of sober. About when we were in Seattle, when we dug Melvin.
And then you heard this, have you heard this story? I don't think. Well, so 9-11 happens,
right? Let me just set it up. 9-11 happens where we're supposed to go to Seattle from San
Francisco. And if you recall at that point in time, nobody is really certain whether or not baseball
is going to play that weekend. Yeah. And as baseball would have it, typical of baseball, too,
let's, let somebody else put their pinky in the air and then we'll follow. The NFL announces
they're not going to play that weekend. And so baseball jumps in, we're not going to play either.
So at that point in time, the Rangers don't go to Seattle and that stretch of games that got
postponed, that week long stretch of games in mid-September gets postponed to the end of the
year. So flash forward. Now we're going to Seattle to finish the season.
So this was, this was 2001. Right. And it was, so we go on this road trip. And Tom Hicks calls
me basically and says, look, we're going to, we're going to make a change with the general manager
at the end of the season. Well, he decided he wanted to make that change on the last day of this
season. So we, we, we're in Seattle and I knew this was coming. And so I had to, I had to figure
out a way because I had to fly home to do the press conference on Sunday, right? And I had to kind
of get out of town without anybody knowing. So I left my suitcase packed in my room after,
we had a, we had like a late afternoon game on Saturday. So I was going to take the red eye.
I was going to come back, take the red eye, go out in the dark at night. And then Rich was my
assistant at the time was going to fly in Sunday morning and finish the last game of the season.
So I, I go to the airport and on my phone rings when I'm on the plane. You know, the planes
getting ready to take off and everything. And it was at you that it was Evan. And he goes, hey,
we're going to go out of me. Us in the Eric and Vince Cotronio. We're going to go, we're going
to have a drink. It's the last game of the season. And I'm on this plane. I go, bad connection.
Okay, can't really hear you on the connection here. Can't really hear you. And so I fly back.
Just hangs up. And I'm like, what the hell is this happening? Of course,
it's a trepid reporter that I am. So I have no, no idea. So these, so, so in Rich walks into the,
into the clubhouse in Seattle the next morning and hands on the press release,
the Doug Melvin is being dismissed and we're having a press conference with Tom Hicks that afternoon
in Arlington. It became, you know, it became clear why I went back. When I saw Rich walking into
the clubhouse handing out press releases, the number of F-bombs I uttered with John's name.
So that, that was, that was, and you've done it to me again. That's, that's, that's, that's all that
all came down. So, you know, it's with the adversarial relationship that, that, that a guy who does
what you do can have with a guy that does what he does is wonder you guys are such good
friends. Well, the friends, friends is an interesting choice of words. But we have a little podcast
together. So, okay. All right. Podcast pals. How about that? Pals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, in all
honestly, I mean, it's like to just say this, to watch him work for 30, for most of the last 30
years and to appreciate his understanding that the media has a job to do and that he has a job
to do to facilitate the media's job, but also protect the club and to watch John walk that line.
Never tipped off a story. Never gave anybody any background information that would allow them to
break a story, but kept relationships professional and tried to allow you to do your job.
And that's the highest regard you can give to a PR guy. I don't need them to be my source. I need
them to be professional in how they, in how they handle things with me. The way I could always talk
through things, ever, ever talking things through a lot of it. Sometimes at a high decibel level.
Sometimes. But, you know, or I'd be in the middle of something, or Evan would call and I'd see
Evan grand the phone. What do you want? There were more times. Okay, John. Are you in a little bit?
Sounds like you're busy. I think I've been on the business end of one or two of those two.
But I think I've heard it through your phone. Yeah, but COVID, you know, the pandemic changed a lot
of that relationship thing and with the team. It just, and that's kind of when I went out, is the
after 21, I went out as the day to day guy. It just, it wasn't as much fun anymore.
Yeah. And that changed everything. It changed the way players, you know, there were guys
hadn't been around players. I remember we opened the clubhouse in 22 and in surprise for the first
time. It'd been almost, it had been two years since some players had, some players had never seen
media in the clubhouse. Some of the younger guys, you know, and I think it did change.
It changed the dynamic. It changed the dynamic, you know, a lot. And whether it's, I'm not sure
and I'm not sure we're ever going to get back. And that is why I don't miss the day to day. I
kind of like what I'm doing. You're in a damn good place and you're damn good at it. So are you
having Grant? Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate you once again for jumping on here with a little
YDC. We love it. Always, always, always fun. Always appreciate what you guys do.
They're very quiet groups. Don't you? I'm just here to enjoy y'all.
Don't care. Stick. Love being on your dark companion. Hope it's not on the dark web.
It probably is. Yeah, probably isn't. We don't even know it. Silk Road or whatever. I think you're
much more technically savvy than we probably are too. Yeah. You should see, you know, we do
some of our podcasts on on Riverside, which is a podcast platform that you guys use them when
we're not all in the same studio. John invariably has issues with his microphone. His headphones
to sync up with this Yeti Mike. And he just, he just throws him down in his son, Chris,
who also is unbelievably patient and calm. He's like, he has to wear all this. And John's like
throwing his headphones down and cussing. And we're all like, it's okay, John. We'll get it solved.
I just bought this really expensive Yeti Mike, and it won't sync up.
I'm putting it in my lap. She has the answers. I can't get to sync up for a nominal consulting fee
Ashley will be glad to help you. All right. They are Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.
John Blake wants a Ranger. Always a Ranger. Only only PR guy in the Rangers Hall of Fame.
In any team's Hall of Fame. That's right. And well, you're guys go into a Hall of Fame.
Amazing. Well deserved. If anybody deserves it, how many of them run the Hall of Fame?
Yeah. So where's that? It was rigged.
The more you know, yeah. That's it for a little YDC. For today, we thank you for watching.
If you like what we're doing here, then get us out there on your social media. Like us,
share us. Do all that stuff. Get us out there. You get us out there. We'll keep doing this.
Thanks. It should be Ashley Beckham. You guys out there for being by the channel. Love you. Bye.
All right. I'll go to pants.
Let's go off.
Your dark companion is a stolen water media presentation.