Rangers Risin'

The lineup wasn't the only thing changing in Texas. At about the time the Rangers were cutting their deals. Bush was becoming interested in buying the team. After spending 18 months campaigning with his father, he had returned to Dallas to get back into the oil and gas exploration business—and maybe to make a run for governor in 1990. Gaylord, the owner of Gaylord Broadcasting, was making his second attempt to buy the team from Chiles: the league owners had turned Gaylord down once before, fearing he would turn his KTVT-TV in Fort Worth into a superstation with the Rangers as one of its programming mainstays. That could undercut the gate and TV revenues of teams in other cities. Gaylord was facing the same resistance again. In a passing conversation with Bush, John McMullen, the owner of the Astros, said, "Mr. Gaylord is in trouble with the owners committee, and you might want to think about the Rangers."

"So I started thinking about it," Bush says, and he found that the idea appealed to him. His great-uncle, George Herbert Walker, was one of the original investors in the New York Mets. "He got me interested in the business side of baseball," Bush says. Bush also played the game in his youth and had a cup of coffee with the team at Yale. "I wasn't very good," he says. "I pitched middle relief against Harvard my freshman year. I was kind of a junk-ball artist."

Bush certainly had the inside track with Chiles. "Eddie and my dad knew each other through business," Bush says. "He's known me since I was six." In mid-February, Bush met with then baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, but Ueberroth rejected Bush's first syndicate of buyers, telling Bush that too much out-of-state money would be used to make the purchase. "We want you to have more local investors, more Texas roots," Ueberroth said. Bush called Fort Worth financier Richard Rainwater, then Dallas businessman Edward (Rusty) Rose, and the core of Bush's new group was formed, with Bush becoming managing general partner.

When American League owners turned down Gaylord's bid to buy the Rangers on March 9, the Bush group stepped in. Though he declines to be specific about his piece of the action. Bush does say. "I'm putting in a significant amount of my net worth." Gaylord, who will keep an interest in the Rangers, expressed relief that they didn't fall into the hands of interested buyers from Florida and New Jersey. "It would have been awful for a bunch of foreigners to buy them," he says.

Meanwhile, the Rangers themselves began the season playing like a bunch of foreigners—foreign, that is, to anything the franchise had seen in its other Aprils. Hough pitched a five-hit shutout on Opening Day at Arlington Stadium, and Texas won 10 of its first 11, with centerfielder Cecil Espy stealing bases at a team-record pace, leftfielder Pete Incaviglia providing timely power and Russell getting four saves.

On April 8, Moyer struck out 13 to beat the Jays 5-4 and went on to win his next two starts. Witt struck out eight Brewers on April 13 and five days later four-hit Milwaukee to win his second. Brown, a rookie, was 1-1 in his first three starts with a 2.61 ERA. "There isn't anybody easy on this pitching staff." says Sundberg. "Often your ninth and 10th guy is there just to pitch when a game gets out of hand. Not on this club."

It also helps if the first guy is Ryan. Moments after Ryan gave up the triple on Sunday. Valentine strolled to the mound. Texas had just dropped two games to Toronto, and this was no time to do a swoon over glory lost. He and Ryan cursed the Fates together, just to clear the air, and then Valentine said, "Hey, we've got a game to win." With that, he turned and walked away. Ryan, the old pro, calmly went back to work; five pitches later, the game was his.