YOUR TEXAS RANGERS

With the Rangers, it’s not whether they win or lose-they always lose-it’s all the weird things that happen along the way to those ninety-loss seasons. Like the Cleveland Beer Night Riot, or the time Roger Moret went into a catatonic trance in the locker room. Over the years, die-hard Ranger fans, stuck with a die-easy team, have learned that it is never too early to start waiting until next year.

Could 1986 be different? Sure, but it probably won’t. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun this season. This could be the year that Oddibe McDowell comes into his own, combining speed, power, and grace as no Ranger before him. This could be the year that several promising young pitchers give Charley Hough some much-needed company in the win column. And if that doesn’t happen, we can always take perverse pleasure in watching Ex-Rangers blossom into stars for other teams. And we can sit, as baseball fans love to do, and bake our memories in the sun, turning the Rangers’ fleeting moments of glory into a slim mythology for the next generation. We don’t have the Babe or the Whiz Kids or the Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff, but we had David Clyde, and he could have been a great one, if only, if only. . .