Some things about Tuesday.
On Tuesday you could look to baseball, even as the Rangers have kept their powder dry for the moment, for a dose of good news and bad news, and some that can’t quite yet be filed under one category or the other.
Robinson Chirinos is the inaugural winner of the newly established Richard Durrett Hardest-Working Man Award, which the DFW Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America will present annually to “a player who demonstrates significant improvement over the previous season or seasons through hard work.” Great tribute to Chirinos and his breakthrough 2014; awesome tribute to Richard and the legacy he leaves.
Yu Darvish got a clean bill of health from Dr. Keith Meister yesterday, following an MRI and a physical exam, and he’s on track to start throwing in the next couple weeks — and he will spend more time working out in Arlington this off-season than he typically does. All of that: good to hear.
Though their deadline to decide isn’t until tomorrow, there were reports last night that the Kia Tigers of the KBO have already determined that they will reject the high bid for lefthander Hyeon-jong Yang, which is rumored to be in the vicinity of $1.5 million and to have been submitted by Texas. Even if the Tigers had accepted the bid, the Rangers still would have had to negotiate a contract with Yang, but while there’s no guarantee they would have struck a deal or that Yang would have provided positive impact here, it has to be considered a disappointment that — if the reports are true — a player that Texas had targeted and that would have created extra depth won’t be coming aboard after all.
On the scale of bad news, the rumored Yang development is nowhere near as unsettling as the reports coming out of the Dominican Republic overnight and this morning that 20-year-old Rangers first baseman Ronald Guzman was behind the wheel last night in his La Vega hometown when a motorcycle evidently slammed into Guzman’s SUV, resulting in the motorcyclist’s death. Guzman, according to local reports, was not injured himself (and had not been drinking, his agent points out), but a bad 2014 for the hitting prospect got a lot worse last night. Even if he’s not found to have been at fault, that’s not something you can easily move on from, mentally or emotionally.
Also on Tuesday, it was announced that Derek Holland, who is starting his own foundation to coordinate the charitable efforts he’s been behind ever since arriving in the big leagues, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation. And that’s nothing but good.
Derek has also agreed to be a guest at our Newberg Report Bound Edition book release party on Thursday night, December 18, at Sherlock’s in Arlington. Ben Rogers of the Ben and Skin Show on 105.3 The Fan (which is the Rangers’ new flagship radio station) will emcee the event, which will include autographs from our guests. In addition to Derek, we will have Rangers field reporter Emily Jones and former Rangers outfielder Jason Botts on hand, and there are several more guests on both the major and minor league side that I can’t announce yet, but should be able to soon.
We will also collect new, unwrapped toys that night to support the Rangers’ Cowboy Santa toy drive.
For now, please put Thursday the 18th on your calendar (if you preorder your books now, you will have them delivered to you well before the party), and stay tuned for added details.
Between now and then, the Winter Meetings will have taken place, and that night we will almost certainly have big Rangers news to talk about, and good news at that, that isn’t yet news at all.
In the meantime, a slow clap for Derek Holland and Robinson Chirinos, and thoughts and prayers for Ronald Guzman and the family whose path intersected tragically with his late last night.