The rootinest, tootinest sports columnist this side of the Pecos, Tracy Ringolsby, cocks his hat a jaunty angle in order to examine the Rangers' and the Rockies' attempts to bounce back from injury plagued years. The Rockies have tentatively identified an "inadequate faith in God" and a merely "acceptable" commitment to playing the game the right way as the source of their ills. The Rangers, on the other hand, have dispatched Special Assistant to the GM in Smashing Diagnostic Equipment Kevin Mench to ensure that all radiology equipment capable of diagnosing neck or spinal injuries in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona is "completely smashed to shit." Try to diagnose degenerative disc disease now, Ken Meister!
T.R. Sullivan takes a tour of the Rangers' M.A.S.H. unit. All that's missing is a player that has a liver condition that stubbornly refuses to become jaundice and The Player Who Sees Everything Twice.
If Cuban defector Yoan Moncada were a character in an Edith Wharton novel, he would be paying visits to his true love, then recognizing he's got to secure his future by marrying a rich guy, but then flakily changes his mind descends into poverty and dies of a drug overdose. Instead he is lifting his floor length dress to flash flirty glimpses of ankle at 12 or so Major League teams. We'll know if it's an Edith Wharton novel if he signs with the Twins or something.
Jeff Banister is going to have to adjust to Pacific road trips.
Evan Grant says that, while the Rangers might be gawping at his oh-so-shapely ankles, they do not have the 80 grade wallet required to sign Moncada.