For Openers, Do Rangers Have a Closer?

Rangers guarantees, irrational Cowboys-Mavericks standards and a reminder to hug your friends, all in this week's DFW sports notebook.

Richie Whitt | Apr 8, 2022

WHITT’S END: 4.8.22

Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …

*Better late than never, it’s Opening Day for your Texas Rangers and I have two guarantees for the 2022 season: 1. They won’t lose 102 games; 2. They won’t score the fewest runs in the American League.

Not sure about a pitching staff with Jon Gray as the ace and a combo platter of Matt Bush-Greg Holland-Joe Barlow as the closer. But I am certain that ownership’s half-a-billion-dollar investment in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien will provide more offense and fewer defeats. The Rangers hit only 167 homers in 2021; Semien hit 45.

Not that March matters, but Texas led the Arizona Cactus League in runs scored. Put me down for 74-88. Not great, but a big, positive step from 60-102.

A twist on ballpark nachos

Opening-Day starter

Eli White

*Standards. In what-have-you-done-for-us-lately DFW, our expectations are most often irrationally high and sometimes unfathomably skewed. Especially, that is, when it comes to the Dallas Cowboys. I offer that, in this season, Mike McCarthy did just as good of a coaching job as the Dallas Mavericks’ Jason Kidd. After the Cowboys’ playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers, fans wanted McCarthy fired. Before the Mavericks even get to the postseason, fans are crowing for Kidd to be considered for NBA Coach of the Year.

Preposterous.

Both, mind you, were panned as blasé picks at the time of their hiring. But look at their performance and there’s no justification for Kidd-over-McCarthy. Coming off a 6-10 season, the Cowboys won 70 percent of their games (12-5) and posted 10+ victories for only the eighth time in the past 25 years. Without a Most Valuable Player candidate, they greatly improved their defense, won a division championship and earned the right to host a playoff game. The Mavs? Coming off two winning, playoff seasons and armed with MVP candidate and superstar Luka Doncic, they have won 62 percent of their games. Granted they have also drastically improved their defense and authored their best regular season since the 2011 run to the championship, but it wasn’t as if the cupboard was bare and their new coach embarked on a raw, rebuilding project. In their most recent seasons both McCarthy and Kidd led their teams to marked improvements.

Why then is McCarthy lampooned and Kidd lauded? Standards, that’s why.

*With the ascension of recent Match Play champ and current Masters contender Scottie Scheffler, Highland Park has to be the only high school to boast a MLB MVP/Cy Young (Clayton Kershaw), NFL Super Bowl champion quarterback (Matthew Stafford) and a world No. 1-ranked golfer (Scheffler). Tried to add an NBA player to that rich heritage but all I could dig up for the Scots is Bill Henry, who averaged nine points per game in the late 1940s with the Fort Wayne Pistons. Not sure ol’ Bill gets a spot on Highland Park’s Mount Sportsmore.

*Think about how mad and discouraged you were after the Cowboys lost the Wild Card Playoff game to the Niners. Now consider this reality: They are a worse team today than they were walking off that field on Jan. 16. You don’t lose Randy Gregory, Amari Cooper, Cedrick Wilson, La’el Collins and Keanu Neal and pretend to be improved. Especially when your main addition is … Dante Fowler, or maybe James Washington? The Cowboys are counting on Fowler to soften Gregory’s departure, Washington to take up some Wilson slack and 2021 fourth-round draft pick Jabril Cox to be a better version of Neal. But when owner Jerry Jones tries to calm the criticism by claiming it’s "only the first quarter” of 2022 team building, the obvious retort is “maybe, but you’re already behind 21-3.”

*The 1998 Mavs were a mess. Having covered every one of their games for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I witnessed the disaster. They started 4-12, when general manager Don Nelson fired coach Jim Cleamons and hired … himself. Nellie changed the style – from “Triangle” to “wild-ass up-tempo” – but not the substance, going 16-50 the rest of the season to complete a wholly forgettable 20-62 year that led to the drafting of Dirk Nowitzki the following Summer. Never in a gazillion years would I have thought on that rattle-trap roster were two future head coaches that would lead schools to college basketball’s National Championship Game.

But, sure enough, Kevin Ollie and Hubert Davis both served time in Dallas in '98, only to go on to greener pastures at the college level. Ollie won the title at Connecticut in 2014 and Davis’ North Carolina squad lost by three to Kansas in this week’s title game.

Come to think of it, Scott Brooks was a good head coach who also played backup guard on some hideous Mavs teams. If I'm an AD or GM, I'm reaching out right now to Yogi Ferrell.

*Hug your friends next time you see them because one day they might be … gone.

Not dead. Just, poof, gone.

I go on an annual boys trip to play golf and watch Spring Training baseball in Scottsdale, Arizona. I joined the group five years ago, but the core six guys have been friends 20+ years. Until this year, that is. Swear this is a true story: On Day 3 of our 5-day trip last month we planned to take two vans to breakfast at Waffle House. One guy decided to take a “quick” shower, but after 10 minutes the riders in the last van grew impatient and he was left behind. No biggie. The trip is always riddled with jabs, jokes and, yes, pranks. We would bring him food back to our house. We even agreed to pay for it. But he never called to order, or to complain. Instead, he called Uber. He snapped. When we arrived, he was sitting on the curb with suitcases and golf clubs packed.

“Something came up,” he mumbled. “Gotta head home.”

Just like that he skedaddled, leaving us with an odd number of golfers and both bets and bills unpaid. We – again, guys that have been friends with him since 2001 – haven’t heard from him since. It couldn’t have been the isolated Waffle House incident. Could it? Couple weeks later I lunched with old radio friend, who has recently experienced a close friendship similarly fracturing after 11 years.

No incident. No fight. No real explanation. Just an outta-the-blue “I’ve got too much going on” and then, side of a milk carton.

Gone. Forever? People are fragile. Relationships are tenuous. Hug your friends, while you still can.

*You can be all agog over Tiger Woods playing on one leg in The Masters. Me? I’m still intrigued by why his February 2021 car accident remains shrouded in secrecy. L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva called the wreck that almost forced Woods’ right leg to be amputated “purely an accident” while the golfer maintains he doesn’t remember being behind the wheel, much less the crash. In fact, at the scene he told first responders he thought he was in Florida.

Strangely, investigators did not seek a search warrant for Woods’ blood samples, which could be screened for drugs and alcohol. Reports indicate the SUV was traveling 85mph in a 45mph zone when it careened down an embankment, that the brakes were never applied and that there was an empty pill bottle with no labeling found in a backpack in the vehicle.

In 2017, Tiger checked himself into a clinic for help in dealing with prescription drug medication after a DUI charge in his home state of Florida. Fallout from his one-car crash? No fault. No citations. No explanation. Something tells me law enforcement is in cahoots with not only protecting the story, but preserving the star.

*Hot.

*Not.

*Former Mavs coach Dick Motta – who, for my money, belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame – offered me a “true record” theory in the 1990s that still works today. “Look at a team’s road wins versus home losses,” Motta said, “and you’ll see its real value.” Using the Motta Method, the Mavs are +11 (23 road wins, 12 home losses), behind only the Phoenix Suns (+23), Memphis Grizzlies (+16) and Miami Heat (+12). For what it’s worth, they were +19 when they went to the NBA Finals in 2006 and +16 when the won the title in 2011.

*Ran into two old friends this week that I hadn’t seen in person in almost four years. It was an accidental interaction in a surprising setting, so why was my first reaction “Oh crap, I’m in trouble”? Because, promise, I wasn’t. And, yes, I did hug them both.

*When your neighbor or the guy who leases the chair at the end of the bar complains that the Cowboys are “mentally weak”, you just shrug and consider the source. But when iconic stars of Super Bowls past agree, you consider the source and squirm. In the past couple months, Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith have each questioned the Cowboys’ psychological shortcomings. Temperament torpedoes talent? Yikes. Not sure how you fix that.

Chicken Fried Success

Nick Solak — Ben Ludeman / Courtesy of the Texas Rangers

More offense in 2022

Spring Training carryover?

*More reasons to believe this year’s Rangers will be better than last year’s historically horrible Rangers: House. Cleaning. Only one player – first baseman Nate Lowe – remains a starter from the 2021 Opening Day lineup and just two others (Eli White and Nick Solak) are still on the roster.

*Surprise, Dallas has its first-ever Poet Laureate. Shocker, Joaquín Zihuatanejo’s fancy title comes with … nothing but a fancy title.

*Wait, Mavs owner Mark Cuban says baseball is a perfect fit for TikTok? Considering the Warriors have 21.7 million followers (compared to only 3.9M for the Cowboys and 694,000 for the Rangers), I think it’s safe to assume basketball belongs on Instagram.

*More proof that Jones isn’t – as his critics often suggest – just in it for the money. Or, for that matter, human. He has made more money than he, or his family’s next three generations, could ever spend. And in this turbulent offseason he’s endured a cheerleading voyeurism scandal that led to a $2.4 million settlement and the departure of one of his right-hand men (Rich Dalrymple), the death of his long-time executive assistant (Marilyn Love), an embarrassing lawsuit filed by a 25-year-old woman claiming to be his secret daughter, and the ugly divorce from his daughter by his son-in-law for 30+ years (Shy Anderson).

For most billionaires closing in on 80, that'd be more than enough to ride off into the sunset for some peace and quiet. For Jones, it’s not even close. His desire to win another Super Bowl – and bathe in the accompanying glory – burns so hot that he is impervious to all other heat.

*Don’t buy the homer narrative that the Mavs are a 34-12 team since their 16-18 start. But do lean into this: They are 17-7 since the Feb. 10 Kristaps Porzingis trade, highlighted by road wins at playoff teams Miami, Golden State, Cleveland, Boston, Brooklyn and Milwaukee.

*I’ll give the Rangers a try this season. Notsamuch for their latest wacky food offering – Alligator Corn Dogs.

*Cool that Dirk was named to the NBA’s All-Decade Team of the 2010s. Even cooler that he beat two of the other four on the squad – then-Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Kevin Durant and James Harden – on his way to the 2011 championship.

*Sad to hear the passing of Rayfield Wright, who died Thursday at age 76. The former Cowboys’ All-Pro was Tyron Smith, Erik Williams and Larry Allen, just 30 years ahead of his time.

*This Weekend? Friday let’s give Big Brothers Big Sisters lil’ bro Ja a front-row seat to Mavs-Blazers. Saturday let’s play tennis in the 85-degree sunshine. Sunday let’s watch the final round of The Masters. As always, don’t be a stranger.

Published Apr 8, 2022

RICHIE WHITT