Texas Ranger
BROOKS, DAVID
Texas Ranger Did running a baseball team help prepare George W. Bush to run America? BY DAVID BROOKS In the early 1990s, the owners of the major league baseball teams held a meeting in Denver....
...We visited about it...
...The baseball people came to me with the suggestion that we trade these young players...
...He apparently regarded many as spoiled brats who didn't live up to their obligations, such as pitcher Kevin Brown...
...Worse, this bus got lost...
...That meant away games would start at 9 in Texas, screwing up the local TV schedule...
...But he was very encouraging...
...But he offended most of the team owners, often by taking actions that were in the best interests of the game...
...Jerry McMorris, the owner of the new Colorado Rockies, decided to host a lunch not at a restaurant near the meeting site, but at a country club in suburban Castle Rock...
...It was an awkward moment for everybody...
...I made the most eloquent speech in history, and persuaded one guy...
...In the post-Clintonian age, a president's power is often measured by his approval ratings...
...I have direct access from more than one person...
...But it's hard to tell whether Bush defended Vincent because he had thought through what would be best for the game, or just out of personal loyalty...
...I didn't get that kind of human touch from Schieffer," Valentine says...
...Vincent is an old family friend, who used to stay at the Bush house back when George Bush the elder was in the oil business...
...I was the person who described what the decision was...
...Obviously running a baseball team is a lot different from running a country...
...But when Bush's people got there, they quickly realized that they had been outmaneuvered and out-hustled by Reinsdorf's group...
...When it came time to vote on interleague play, he insisted on casting the first vote, to make it clear where he stood...
...I think he's a terrific guy...
...When they talked about concession stands, Schwartz says, Schieffer wanted to know how many points of sale there would be from a revenue standpoint...
...During his tenure, the major-league owners decided to adopt interleague play, an expanded playoffs format with wild-card teams, and a reformed division structure, with three rather than two divisions in each league...
...He used levity...
...Bush never interfered with field decisions, and much to his manager's relief, he wasn't the sort to hold player meetings to give "Win One for the Gipper" speeches...
...He did, and lost 27-1...
...As one of the people who were there remembers, Bush had once again said just the thing to improve everyone's mood and to remind them how much fun it is to be around him...
...It was a bitter moment...
...I can remember a row of klieg lights, like it was a giant inquisition," Bush recalls...
...On the expanded playoff idea, Bush was motivated by his traditionalist instincts...
...The worst of them was the one that sent the young Sammy Sosa and Wilson Alverez to the Cubs for Harold Baines...
...Schwartz came up with an art deco design and an old-fashioned one...
...Palmeiro was outraged, calling Tom Schieffer a "backstabbing liar," and went on to have productive years with the Orioles before returning to Texas last year...
...He exudes the right feel when you're around him," Valentine told me...
...Uninterested in doing the things he was not good at, he delegated day-to-day management of the club and spent his time on climate control...
...It was late in the season and we were making a run...
...Bush insisted that the stadium have a Texas feel...
...Bush's record with the Rangers will not assuage those who doubt his readiness for the Oval Office, who believe that he knows too little about government and policy, and that he lacks the gravitas to head a great nation...
...I wouldn't draw a conclusion that a single person would have a lot of authority," he says...
...Bush spent the next hour telling Valentine what an outstanding manager he was and what a brilliant career lay ahead of him...
...They wanted old-fashioned lighting pillars...
...Bush, team president Tom Schieffer, and general manager Tom Grieve met for an hour with Valentine to give him the bad news...
...They wanted an asymmetrical outfield, to increase the number of triples, which Bush says are baseball's most exciting play...
...Canseco promptly blew out his elbow, and the $4.1 million outfielder was lost for the season...
...He was not merely a cheerleader...
...And he defended his on-field personnel when they needed it...
...But the way he made me feel about myself was wonderful," Valentine recalls...
...Bush led the group who wanted to save Vincent...
...The primary asset of baseball is the World Series...
...This franchise has absolutely no commitment to win," was a typical commentary from the Dallas Morning News...
...But his ideas were not crazy...
...He was interested in learning about architecture...
...me," Bush said after the meeting...
...Their biggest accomplishment, and Schieffer's major responsibility, was building a stadium...
...But his record with the Rangers does illustrate qualities that would have relevance in the White House...
...Not only was "The Ballpark at Arlington," as the stadium came to be called, traditional, but his attitude toward the game was too...
...Valentine left the room enthusiastic about Bush, but he went out to the media and blasted team president Tom Schieffer...
...In 1989, when Bush, Rusty Rose, and others were organizing the group to buy the Rangers, they were told they would have to include more Texans...
...He can delegate (and how...
...the driver circled round and round...
...The Rangers were hapless cellar-dwellers in the decades leading up to the Bush ownership...
...In the Rangers' front office, they established a seamless and highly successful working relationship...
...And their architect, David Schwartz, got to enjoy the full Bush Glow like everyone else: "Some clients treat architects like the help...
...Bush, Rose, Schieffer, and Richard Greene, the mayor of Arlington, developed a proposal to hike the city's sales tax by half a cent to raise $135 million for the new stadium...
...His opposition to interleague play was motivated in part by a marketing judgment...
...They selected Washington architect David Schwartz and asked him to build the park—Baltimore's Camden Yards, the first of the retro-parks, was just under construction...
...But what's most interesting about Bush's tenure with the Rangers is the way he translated his personality into a management style...
...The traditions of baseball are sacred...
...Their basic approach was to find players who really wanted to play in Texas, and dump players, like Brown and Ruben Sierra, who didn't...
...If their testimony is to be believed, Bush left each confrontation even more popular with his peers than he had been before...
...In the biggest turnout in Arlington history, the measure passed by 2 to 1. They drew up a list of 100 features they wanted in the new ballpark...
...He was friendly but rarely intimate with the players...
...It's like foreign policy...
...But Bush's experience with the Rangers is at least as telling as Bill Bradley's touted experience with the New York Knicks...
...Valentine is careful when talking about the quality of Bush's suggestions...
...He enjoyed the company of some, such as outfielder Jose Canseco...
...He played to his strengths...
...Over and over again Bush uses the word "traditionalist" to describe his approach...
...He was liked not only by the people he promoted, he was liked by the people he fired, such as former Rangers and current Mets manager David Brooks is a senior editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...The crucial meeting was in Rosemont, Illinois...
...We wanted the nooks and crannies for the cultures to develop," Bush adds...
...He was a constant presence in the ballpark, keeping everybody, from the ushers to the players, feeling good about the franchise...
...The team sold for $250 million in 1998...
...Bush campaigned for it, while critics called it welfare for millionaires...
...You build a team to win a 162-game marathon, not to get lucky in a 5-game playoff...
...At first we wondered if he was a guy who thought he was trading playing cards...
...The Rangers' farm system has been quite productive, producing stars like Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez...
...Bush recently told Time magazine that firing Bobby Valentine was one of the most agonizing decisions he has made in his life...
...Kennedy had made an awful blunder...
...We noticed that different culture clusters grow up in different sections of a ballpark...
...The building, which opened in 1994, is generally regarded as esthetically inferior to similar parks in Baltimore and Cleveland—it is thought to be kitsch...
...There are certain threshold issues...
...Then, when Autry stiffly hoisted himself back onto the bus, George W. Bush's voice rang out: "Hey Gene, you still got a great spray for a guy your age...
...He didn't try to compensate for his weaknesses—his lack of interest in the nuts and bolts of team operations...
...During games he sat in a box next to the dugout, not in the normal owner's box above...
...While the Rangers were negotiating to re-sign first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, they signed first baseman Will Clark...
...In his dealings with other team owners, Bush waged a series of lonely and losing battles to preserve traditional aspects of baseball...
...The men who own major league baseball teams are imperious types, with the attention span of a 4-year-old...
...When the Rangers moved to Texas from Washington, they were housed in a glorified minor-league ballpark, with lousy seats and few luxury boxes to generate revenue...
...I'm not going to second guess my manager," Bush said right afterwards...
...It was especially tough on Grieve...
...Furthermore, it is striking that even amidst these disagreements, Bush never offended his fellow owners...
...They were up to $62.4 million in 1993, the last year in the old stadium...
...He often peppered his manager and general manager with trade ideas: "Maybe we can get those two guys, for these four," is how Valentine describes it...
...They wanted tight space around the foul lines so fans would be closer to the game...
...Bobby was taken aback but he didn't argue...
...He did get us thinking outside the box," Valentine says diplomatically...
...Bush made some passionate defenses of Vincent, in closed-door sessions and in the media, but again, he lost badly...
...And he has discovered a management style that fits his awesome interpersonal skills...
...He was inclined to oppose anything that might mar the comparisons...
...Bush, Rose, and Schieffer were known as moderate spenders in the free-agent market and big spenders on player development...
...Schieffer was invited to join the partnership and did, investing $1.4 million for a 4.2 percent interest in the club (actually a greater share than Bush owned...
...You're either an isolationist or an interventionist...
...Fay Vincent was a friend...
...From the pattern Bush set at the Rangers, one could infer that the chief of staff in a George W. Bush White House would be the most powerful one in history...
...He says the weeks doing stadium design were some of the most fascinating of his life...
...now they are a playoff team, drawing nearly 3 million fans a season...
...The bus pulled over to the side of the highway, where an embarrassed Autry got out and urinated...
...As owner, Bush loved talking about trades and free-agent signings...
...The stadium was built quickly and at a relatively low cost...
...By any measure, Bush, Schieffer, and company were fantastically successful...
...The outstanding thing is you can compare today with yesterday, a team of the thirties against a team of today...
...Bush's most passionate confrontation with his fellow owners came in 1992 over the decision to fire Fay Vincent, baseball's last powerful commissioner...
...His wife went up front and said something to the driver...
...The presidency is supposed to be about statesmanship...
...But in 1989 Schieffer attended almost as many games as Bush, and the two became close friends...
...Above all, the owners were afraid Vincent might insert himself into the upcoming negotiations with the players' union (the talks that led eventually to the disastrous strike...
...They are not used to being herded onto buses for long drives...
...he spent a lot of time keeping them happy...
...I was sitting in that room and being fired...
...Bobby Valentine...
...But the new stadium transformed the franchise...
...Bush spoke at Rotary Clubs about the glories of baseball and even made cold calls to prospective season-ticket buyers...
...He had a great sense of humor he used to break the tension in the clubhouse, which sometimes existed for real reasons...
...Bush and Rose were roasted in the media in the winter of 1992 for letting pitcher Jose Guzman leave...
...Valentine had been Rangers manager for over seven years, but in 1992, the Rangers got off to a relatively slow start, 45 wins and 41 losses...
...I wanted grass of course," Bush says...
...I take responsibility for that one," Bush says...
...Yet in his handling of each of the major challenges he faced, it is his social skills that stand out...
...On the other hand, it's not clear any of Bush's trades were ever pulled off...
...History has shown that Bush was on the right side of the fight...
...More important, attendance was down 170,000 from the year before...
...Baseball is about grown men trying to hit a little white ball with a stick...
...He can disagree with people and still get along with them...
...He ribbed the players, passed out autographed baseball cards of himself to fans, and shouted jokes to the managers...
...They also wanted a lot of nooks and crannies throughout the stadium...
...It was put to the voters in a referendum...
...My wife and I got to know George and Laura...
...Bush opposed all those changes...
...Gene Autry, the aging owner of the California Angels, needed to relieve himself...
...His ownership group was an ever shifting stew of between a dozen and two dozen millionaires...
...But if I had said no it wouldn't have happened...
...They had been best of friends," Bush now remembers...
...Bush would think through the salary implications of each trade idea before he suggested it...
...He doesn't try to play outside himself (as hitters say...
...It was a tough meeting...
...He is able to set a tone for an administration and build morale...
...Schieffer, the brother of Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, was a Democratic state representative in Texas who was swept out of office in 1978...
...But Bush disagrees...
...The mood on the bus got ugly...
...Reinsdorf had worked the phones and sewed up the votes, so that by the time the owners gathered, there were no owners left to be swayed...
...Bush wanted to make sure there would be quality Texas barbecue...
...Baines was an offensive threat...
...But in the new park, attendance jumped by 700,000, with revenues skyrocketing to $116 million last year...
...Revenues were $28.8 million the year before Bush and company bought the team...
...The toughest test of that came in 1993, when new manager Kevin Kennedy allowed Canseco to pitch at the end of one lopsided game...
...A smile opened up on Autry's face and the bus exploded with laughter...
...Bush and Rusty Rose did approve all of the big player signings and trades...
...You're either for grass or artificial turf...
...He went out of his way to speak Spanish with the Hispanic players...
...They wanted plenty of features for families, so that fans would bring along the spouse and kids when they went to games...
...Bush chose the more traditional one...
...The new money allowed the owners to sign better players and jack up the payroll (now around $75 million...
...His opposition to the new division structure was more narrowly self-interested...
...He went into law, specializing in the oil and gas business, and prospered...
...It was a mistake...
...But he was incredibly kind to me...
...George W. Bush is a popularity superstar...
...I was also concerned because terminating a commissioner before the end of his term set a bad precedent...
...He's not much on details," Schieffer told the San Antonio Express-News...
...Some of the other owners recognized it as a disastrous trade at the time, and Bush had to smooth ruffled feathers...
...As governor, I've got a much flatter organizational chart...
...But Guzman, already hurt, never pitched effectively again...
...But many of the moves worked out better...
...Tom Schieffer was given broad authority in the Rangers organization...
...He was known around baseball as an activist owner—less activist than Yankees owner George Steinbrenner or Orioles owner Peter Angelos, but more activist than most...
...The new alignment put the Rangers in the same division as three Pacific Standard Time teams, the Oakland A's, the California Angels, and the Seattle Mariners...
...White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf led the group that wanted Vincent's head...
...He also argued that baseball is properly a long-distance ordeal...
...He was firm...
...Schieffer was not an obvious choice to be team president, having rubbed a lot of people the wrong way during his political career...
...He didn't waver or try to make it seem that somebody else was to blame...
...People simply loved being with him...
...When you talk to baseball people about how he ran the team, again and again you hear about the Bush Glow...
...It cheapens the World Series if the two teams have already played each other," he says...
...Bush was the managing general partner of the Texas Rangers from March 1989 to November 1994...
...When we go to war with the union, I want [the commissioner] to have an obligation only to the owners," Reinsdorf said...
...But he likes to participate in strategic decisions, and then he likes to recruit people to his staff...
...The Rangers were worth $84 million when Bush's group bought them in 1989...
...Bush was not just liked by the other owners, he was extremely well liked...
...If Vincent had stayed on, perhaps baseball could have avoided the owner-player confrontation, the replacement players, and all the subsequent foulness...
Vol. 5 • December 1999 • No. 13
