-
1 week ago | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
Whoever ends up introducing Bruce Bochy at his Cooperstown induction ceremony is sure to talk about the manager’s feel for understanding baseball players. Motivating them. Sensing when to back off. Setting a no-panic tone. Moving lineup pieces and bullpen roles around, often with results as eye-opening as the announcements themselves. The story of the 2025 Rangers isn’t even half-written.
-
2 months ago | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
Two times through the rotation seems like a perfectly appropriate time to rustle up some knee-jerk observations on the 2025 Texas Rangers. With the season now 11 games old, they have effectively moved the ball out to the six-yard line, so surely we know how this drive is going to play out. No? OK. But if you think that’s going to stop me from armchair quarterbacking and GM’ing this thing, that’s on you.
-
Oct 16, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
The Rangers catcher's winding journey to the big leagues led him to becoming a star on a World Series winner. Then 2024 happened. Is there a rebound in store in 2025? Or have we seen his best days? |
-
Sep 17, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
As I pulled into the parking lot on the Rangers’ half of the complex at 15850 North Bullard Avenue for what has become a nearly annual trip to the club’s Fall Instructional League camp, a sight I had looked right past countless times stopped me in my tracks. Photo: Jamey Newberg It’s not that anyone would have expected Chris Young to be in Surprise, Arizona, for Fall Instructs. His major-league roster is still playing games, even though there won’t be as many this year as last.
-
Aug 19, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
Any more than the briefest dose of small talk is sure to drain my lifeforce. I understand when it’s called for, and I will participate when I need to, even if it wears on me like the interpersonal equivalent of sitting in rush hour traffic. It’s a waste of precious time. It’s probably one of the reasons I’m drawn to Twitter/X in my sports dayparts.
-
Aug 1, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
The baseball season is a long one, but just past the middle of it each year is a signpost sure to get every team’s hardcore fans on the edge of their seats, no matter how the first two-thirds of the schedule has gone. Deadlines, by their nature, are adrenaline fuel. Baseball’s trade deadline is no different, but for some teams the work-up necessarily—if not uncomfortably—involves a two-headed approach. That’s where the Rangers were this week.
-
Jul 25, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
As a curator and occasional purveyor of a healthy percentage of the most useless Rangers facts that exist, I’ll jump at the chance to regale the unfortunate with any number of inconsequential tidbits. Anyone can cocktail-party a franchise-related Ted Williams or Kyle Hendricks note, or compare Sosa & Alvarez to Darling & Terrell. But only the truly addled think first of a Rangers tie-in when the names Gorman Thomas and Bill Madlock come up.
-
Jul 3, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
Here’s what I know about you, Rangers fan, whether or not your loyalty dates back to Jim Fregosi, Roy Smalley, and Bill Fahey signing autographs as emcees to kick off the 1976 North Dallas Chamber of Commerce Little League season at Northaven Field the way mine does.
-
Jun 20, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg |Mike Piellucci
I learned a new word and concept from a student of mine not too long ago: sedatephobia, the fear of silence. I’m far from afflicted with it—just the opposite, I think—but there’s a variant of it that I guess I’ll need some other student to attach a word to, because it’s something I realized I dealt with in 2022 and for much of 2023. A specific someone else’s silence made me uncomfortable. I was anxious about how quiet and seemingly emotionless Corey Seager was.
-
May 29, 2024 | 
dmagazine.com | Jamey Newberg
For a few minutes, I’m going to take the Rangers’ World Series title away from you. I promise I’ll give it back. But work with me here. It’s two months into the 2022 season. The Rangers, coming off a 102-loss season, just went five straight series without winning any of them, and on June 8, through 56 games, sit at 26-30. The starting catcher is Jonah Heim.
