Texas Rangers since being taken over by Nolan Ryan
Baseball legend Nolan Ryan also known as ‘The Express’, along with lawyer Chuck Greenberg bought the Texas Rangers in court, after the team filed for bankruptcy in 2009. It took a grueling 12 hours for them to secure the bid and win the Texas Rangers for
approximately $570-million.
After almost seven months came the shocking announcement that Greenberg would be leaving the Texas Rangers. His departure would mean that Nolan’s job titles would be increasing and from now onwards he would be the Team President, the CEO of the team and
also manage over the baseball and business operations of the team, reporting directly to the Board of Directors.
The World Series is approaching fast and the Rangers are as usual surrounded by problems. The first being that they couldn’t convince Chris Lee to join them, the second being that Michael Young wants a trade and the third, they have a new CEO just after
seven months.
Many people believe that the fate of Texas took a turn in the right direction when the previous owner of the team hired former Rangers player and the Hall of Famer, Nolan Ryan to be the president.
The Rangers had always come on strong at the start of the season, but slowly wilted after the All-Star game. Having the experience of being a Ranger himself, Nolan could quickly identify the problem which was, mismanagement by the team office. Another problem
he seemed to notice was that the players didn’t have enough stamina to bear the Texas heat and since he had experienced that himself he decided to implement a new offseason routine which would help the players, especially the pitchers increase their routine
and stamina.
This effort of his definitely paid off because the Rangers managed to come very close to making the Wild Card post in 2009, but couldn’t at the end. Still it was quite encouraging for them and definitely helped boost their confidence.
Soon afterwards came the news that Tom Hicks would be selling the team to the very capable Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg because all the mismanagement had left the Rangers bankrupt. Good news came in the form of world class pitcher Cliff Lee who was successfully
signed on by the Texas Rangers.
The Rangers finally entered the play-offs after a long wait since 1990 in 2010 after winning the AL West. It was a nail biting match when the Rangers went head on with the Yankees and since the New York had defeated the Rangers thrice before, the victory
of the Rangers over them this time was almost historic. Further into the competition they managed to excel and reach the grand finale where they had a faceoff with the San Francisco Giants.
Even though they didn’t win the World Series they qualified till the last game and everyone’s looking out for what the Rangers may bring this year to the World Series under the management of Nolan Ryan. It cannot be argued that the Rangers have shown their
full potential under the right leadership.
Ryan has managed to boost the team performance and bring both offence and defence together into a dominating unit. Only time will tell if the Rangers can repeat the success they had last year in the regular and post MLB season.
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