How Jimmy's Cowboys got into the groove

Long before his baseball presidency, Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan was a symbol of “blood-and-guts” in the Metroplex.

Even the biggest and baddest of the cross-town Cowboys marveled at the ageless wonder who worked in Arlington.

“I just remember how he was a workhorse ... a really tough guy,” recalled Danny Noonan.

Noonan, a 6-foot-4, 270-pound defensive starter for both Tom Landry (1987-88) and Jimmy Johnson (’89-91), came along when “transition” was the only symbol of an ever-revolving Cowboys roster.

“Sure, a lot of us wondered where we stood,” said Noonan, now a successful wealth management adviser in Omaha, Neb.

That’s what makes the weekend of Sept. 8-9, 1990, such a memorable one, for a couple of reasons: Ryan added to his lore and the Cowboys exorcised a few demons. An Arlington Stadium crowd of 34,412 showed up Saturday night to watch Ryan pitch; a Texas Stadium crowd of 48,063 showed up Sunday for the Cowboys’ season opener and a hope for something more than the 1-15 they got in ’89.

Both teams won — Rangers 2-1 over Kansas City; Cowboys 17-14 over San Diego.

Ryan spilled his blood and needed to take six stitches in his lip; the Cowboys gave fans the gutsiest showing at home in nearly two years.

The Cowboys had gotten caught up in the vortex of change: new players, new coaches, new ownership. They had lost 26 of 28 games, including 14 in a row at Texas Stadium.

They had lost their coach of 29 seasons. In fact, very few TLGs (“Tom Landry Guys”) remained on the team.

But one game into the ’90 season, the Cowboys would match their win total from the previous year. Yes, it was a very good weekend.

Saturday, Sept. 8, 1990

The cross-town Rangers were on a hot streak as they met the Royals for the third game of a four-game set. Ryan (13-7) was trying for his 303rd career victory, on a third-place Rangers team, 16 1/2 games back in the AL West.

As usual, Ryan was the main attraction. But, oh yeah ... Bo Jackson batted cleanup for Kansas City.

The two-sport star was still an LA Raider and “Bo Knows” was still Nike’s most popular advertising campaign.

In the second inning, DH Jackson led off with a one-hop tracer back to the mound. It caught Ryan right on the kisser.

“I saw it, put up my glove, and never saw it again,” Ryan told reporters after the game. “When it didn’t hit my glove, I knew I was in trouble.”

Despite a bloody uniform shirt, a loosened tooth and a split lower lip that required six stitches to close, Ryan stayed in the game.

He would change uniform shirts twice and give Bobby Valentine seven scoreless innings.

Incidentally, Ryan somehow recovered to throw out Bo on the play, although Ryan did woozily walk the next two KC batters.

The 43-year-old Ryan was lifted (because of the humidity — not the lip) after a leadoff walk in the eighth, and a 1-0 Rangers lead was turned over to Kenny Rogers out of the bullpen.

Rogers blew the save but picked up the win 2-1 ... when Rafael Palmeiro doubled home Julio Franco in the bottom of the ninth.

Act II of this blood-and-guts weekend now shifted venues: Texas Stadium.

Sunday, Sept. 9, 1990

The Cowboys trailed, 14-10, with 5:15 left.

Worse yet — San Diego had the ball.

But on fourth-and-5 from the Dallas 48, Chargers coach Dan Henning decided to get cute. He faked a punt.

The snap went directly to upback Gary Plummer, a linebacker with little speed and fewer moves. He barely got to the line of scrimmage before being met — and dropped — by safety Bill Bates, another one of those TLGs.

“Until that point, there seemed no less likely a hero than Bates,” wrote Gil LeBreton in the Sept. 10, 1990, editions of the Star-Telegram. “He, after all, was old news, one of Tom Landry’s boys.”

What all the other transitional survivors from the Landry Era faced with Johnson was the stigma of losing compounded by a sense of being on the outside looking in. That’s a bad combination.

“[Bates’] chances of starting in Jimmy Johnson’s secondary were long ago rendered moot,” LeBreton wrote. “A larger question became whether Bates would survive the final roster cut.”