Remember a little over a week ago when I wrote that Texas had a chance to have a great road trip against the three teams with the worst record in baseball? They didn’t. Lost the series to the Astros, needed a collapse by the Colorado catcher to avoid that series loss, and were swept by the lowly Angels. It was a truly pathetic week. So I thought they had reached a new low. They would come home and turn things around. Nope. They were no-hit by the team with the worst ERA in t

Here we go. As I write this, the Rangers are on the road again. (Sing it Willie) This continues the early season schedule trend, with more travel and fewer games at home. This trip feels different, with the opponents looking a little less formidable than the previous visits to Chavez Ravine, Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field. The reason? The next three opponents are Houston (the Lastros?), Colorado and the LA Angels , then a return home for a series against the Astros. These

This is not a post about Star Wars; it’s a look at where our Rangers are with a fourth of the season in the books. As I write this the record stands at 19 wins and 21 losses. That record is certainly not as good as we like, but at this juncture, there are only 3 teams in the American League that are over .500 - the Rays, Yankees, and the Migrant A’s. The Guardians are 21–21, and every other team has won between 16 and 19 games. It is a perfect example of parity - or mediocr

Last time I posted our Rangers had concluded their first road trip with a 4-2 record. They were preparing to welcome Cincinnati and Seattle for the first home stand. After starting out so well they were excited to be home, and optimistic they could continue to win. Then the Reds came in and won three games. The fans began the early season overreaction. Then Texas won the next three games over the Mariners, and the mood shifted again. In those six games, the Rangers scored 12

So far so good. Our Rangers had an Opening Day on the road in the City of Bootherly Love (spelling intentional), stopped by beautiful Camden Yards, and came home with a nice 4-2 record. I believe we would all be happy to continue on that pace! You can’t really form any definite conclusions after the first week of the season, but I am pretty sure that Nathan Eovaldi will not be the only Texas pitcher with a loss. Neither he nor Jacob deGrom looked very good in their starts, bu

Usually at this time I wish everyone Happy New Year since it’s the start of baseball season. This year it feels a little different, because the powers that be are choosing to have “Opening Night” only available on Netflix. Once again no one from the Commisioner’s office asked my opinion on this matter. This is another attempt to “make the game available to more people” but I don’t really think it works that way. What about the millions of people who don’t have Netflix? Or don

I’m pretty sure that Van Halen wasn’t talking about baseball, but the phrase applies to the state of starting pitching in Major League Baseball today. Finishing what they started is almost nonexistent. In 1974, Texas Ranger pitcher Ferguson Jenkins was the MLB leader in complete games, with 29. There were eight others with 20 or more, and there were 1089 complete games thrown by the 24 professional teams in existence at the time. In 2025, three pitchers (Tanner Bibee, Framber

I was never a fan of Boy George, but the name of his band from the 80’s is appropriate for our Texas Ranger discussion today. Other than the usual talk about pitching, better offense, solid defense, better baserunning and avoiding injuries, the word we have heard tossed around the most in the offseason is culture. What is culture? The dictionary (or Google if you prefer) says that culture is the shared system of beliefs, values, customs, and behaviors that members of a socie

The Rangers are halfway through this year’s edition of Spring Training. As of today their record is 9-7. That means they have won 56% of their games, which projects to 91 wins in a 162 game season. That would almost certainly get them into the playoffs, so get the celebration banners ready, right? No, the record really doesn’t mean anything at this point. It’s always more fun to win, but they’re looking past the record as they prepare for Opening Day. So if that’s the case

The topic of expansion in Major League Baseball has been bounced around a good bit lately. This topic distracts from discussing the elephant in the room (not the Athletics mascot). The labor dispute between players and owners , or millionaires and billionaires, is looming at the end of this season. If they don’t get that worked out, it won’t matter if there are 2 teams or 50. The game will be on thin ice. I’ll have more to say about that as the year goes by, but for now I’ll

I remember…… When it was rare to hear of a kicker attempting a field goal from 50 yards or more. Now these are common. Last year in the NFL there were 70 from 50-59 yards and 12 from over 60 yards. When you could pick up a newspaper and review box scores from all the previous night’s baseball games. When baseball players had to have a job in the off-season to support their family. When we didn’t know anything about an athlete’s personal life. We just knew their stats and thei

The first week of Texas Rangers Spring Training is in the books. The record after the first three games is 2-1. Since that would project to a 108-54 regular season record, we’ll settle for that. I never really did a full postmortem on the 2025 season. Never could get prepare my usual full evaluation and report cards for the team. Unfortunately it was too much like the previous year’s autopsy, and I just couldn’t get around to it. There were certainly some good things to remem

Monday was Presidents Day. As I reflected on the list of great and not so great leaders of our nation, I began to wonder if you could put together a baseball team composed of players who shared their last name with a president. Of course you can! My rules for this exercise are as follows: Last name only, so the ever growing list of players with first name Jackson are not eligible. The player has to have had a reasonably long career in Major League Baseball and been at least a

Football season is over. The good news is that Baseball season is here - pitchers and catchers have reported and spring training has begun. Of course this means more of Coot’s musings will be about my favorite sport, but I do have a few final thoughts on the Super Bowl. I had predicted the Seahawks would win 28-20. Almost nailed the Seattle score, but didn’t expect the total dominance by their defense. It wasn’t really as close as the 2 late (or too late, if you prefer) New E

It’s been a while since the last “fungos” so you may have forgotten the last trivia question. We were looking for the four number one draft picks in MLB who are in the Hall of Fame. The answer? Ken Griffey Jr, Chipper Jones, Joe Mauer and (unfortunately) Harold Baines. This edition’s question is who is the only one who played for the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta? Now on to a few notes. The Anthony Davis trade this week put the final touches on last year’s Luka tra

It is an annual tradition for Coot to write about the errors and omissions of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and this year is no exception. I’m already on record as approving their selection of this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame honorees, Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran, but as always, there are some voters whose ballots make no sense at all. Of course they vote behind the curtain of anonymity, and many voters don’t choose to make their votes or their reasoning p

This is February 1st, the one year anniversary of the most surprising (and worst) trade in the history of Texas sports. Luka for “Street Clothes” Davis. A generational talent who may well be the league MVP this year for a part time player who spends most of his time on the injured list. Enough has been said and written about this, but I was thinking this morning about what an unbelievable surprise it was. It was so stunning that the first reaction was disbelief. Later in th

Might not get a chance to use that title too often, so I better seize the opportunity while it’s there! We won’t mention the predictions that I have missed (Rangers to win division in 2025, etc..) but I will follow up on the HOF elections. As expected, Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones were elected to Cooperstown. You will recall that I listed my ballot preferences, which included 5 others (pitchers Pettitte, Hernandez and Buerhle along with Bobby Abreu and David Wright) in add

Bet that headline got your attention. It is definitely a teaser. The Baseball Writers Association members have sent in their ballots, but the results won’t be released until Tuesday evening, and I’m writing this on Sunday. Plus you’re probably wondering what Texas players could be getting elected. Well, I’m referring to the possibility of Carlos Beltran and Andrew Jones being elected, and you might remember both of these candidates played one year for our Texas Rangers. If th

This is not an article about the Aretha Franklin song, although that is a great song. This is an article about the lack of respect for our national anthem. As you know I enjoy attending live sporting events. It is a tradition to play or sing the “Star Spangled Banner”before a game. That song deserves respect and should be treated that way. I don’t appreciate it when someone takes so much liberty with it that you can’t recognize the tune or understand their “interpretation” of