Which Rangers players are most like famed Jenkins’ characters, or Jenkins his own self?
.JPG "Baseball might not have been No. 1 on Dan Jenkins’ list, but that doesn’t mean some Rangers players don’t have things in common with some of his characters.")
Somewhere, at some point in his life, Dan Jenkins was a baseball fan, even though his most famous quote on the sport isn’t exactly a full-throated endorsement:
“Baseball would be a better game if more third basemen got hit in the mouth by line drivers.”
He must have known some tough truckers.
But good news appeared to be on the horizon. In a 2014 Texas Monthly interview, Jenkins said that because of the “sameness” of the NBA and, to a degree, the NFL, “they’re about to chase me back to being a baseball fan.”
Maybe, hopefully, he got back there.
Jenkins, the Fort Worth native, TCU graduate, world-class sportswriter and fame author, died Thursday at age 90. The news wasn’t lost on many of those 850 miles away covering Texas Rangers spring training, and got at least one of us thinking.
No, the Rangers don’t have a Billy Clyde Puckett on their roster, though they have one local kid who became a star. The Rangers definitely have a few who aspire to be Kenny Lee Puckett, even if they probably don’t know who that is.
To that end, here’s an attempt (or a stretch) at tying Rangers players to some of Jenkins’ work.
Semi-Tough
Arguably the funniest sports book written was Jenkins’ fictional take on pro football, with the Fort Worth-raised and Paschal High- and TCU-schooled Billy Clyde Puckett rushing the New York Giants to a Super Bowl title. His good buddy, Shake Tiller, followed the same path.
Hunter Pence and Chris Martin weren’t big-time buddies at Arlington High – Pence was a senior when Martin was a freshman – but they rate as the closest thing the Rangers have to Puckett and Tiller.
Pence, of course, has won two World Series with the San Francisco Giants and is a three-time All-Star. Martin had to go to Japan to jump-start his career. They’re together this spring with the Rangers, and, considering the way Pence is playing, they will be playing together in 2019.
Life Its Ownself
The sequel to Semi-Tough features the same cast of characters, though in post-football. It was a knee injury that ended Puckett’s playing days. He nabs a job as a football analyst for CBS, but his new adventures aren’t vastly different from his ones as a player.
Adrian Beltre didn’t have one particular injury that sent him into retirement, and he has said that he has no plans to launch a career as a TV analyst even though he would be very good.
But Beltre has moved on to new adventures, like appearing in JC Penney commercials and becoming a stay-at-home dad. He doesn’t want to be a coach, either, but he would consider a job as a special assistant to general manager Jon Daniels.
Rude Behavior
The third installment featuring Puckett has him seeking a new venture after becoming bored with broadcasting. The book is built around the idea of he and his old football buddies taking an NFL expansion team straight to the Super Bowl, which, of course, they do.
Puckett is assigned by father-in-law Big Ed Bookman to put everything together including the roster. In so doing, Puckett is essentially the president and general manager of the club.
The Rangers have one of those, Daniels, but Puckett is an ex-player who has been doing as he pleases in retirement for a good decade. The Rangers have one of those, too, though it hasn’t been a decade.
Michael Young, one of the Rangers’ assistants to the GM, doesn’t want a full-time front-office gig as he also focuses in on his three sons. But he has been offered a full-time role, multiple times, and is learning a lot about the other side of baseball. Maybe he follows in Puckett’s footsteps some day.
Dead Solid Perfect
Kenny Lee Puckett is Billy Clyde’s cousin, and he’s a pro golfer and not pro football player. He also hasn’t had quite the success, on or off the course, as his cousin, though he overcomes it all to win the National Open.
There aren’t many players in the Rangers’ clubhouse who don’t play golf, but none of them play as well as the fictional Kenny Lee. The closest is thought to be newcomer Shelby Miller, who is nearly a scratch golfer but totally a native Texan.
Jason Hammel is also a nice player, and, somewhat surprisingly, so is Triple A bullpen coach Eric Gagne. This is all according to Martin, who said that he has shaved his handicap from 8 to 6 this spring. He’s having a great camp.
“When the Frogs Were Princes”
Jenkins wrote a long piece for Sports Illustrated in 1981 about the one sports thing closest to his heart – TCU football. He went through the glory days of the 1930s, the OK-to-very good days of the ‘40s and ‘50s and then the awful days of the ‘70s.
Through it all, Jenkins’ loyalty never wavered.
The Rangers’ most loyal player? Elvis Andrus is the longest-tenured Rangers player, even though his contract had in out after last season and has another after this one. The Rangers are his team now that Beltre has retired.
His contract guarantees he will be with the Rangers through 2022, assuming he doesn’t take the opt out (he won’t). The club option for 2023 can vest if he has 1,100 at-bats in 2021 and 2022 or 550 in 2022.
By that time, he should be the franchise leader in hits and games played. Assuming he wants to play in Beltre’s footsteps and play 20-plus seasons, Andrus won’t want to do so anywhere but with the Rangers.
This story was originally published March 8, 2019 at 2:12 PM.
