The next man up: Jeff Banister is the new Rangers manager.

Swing and a miss.

Fastball up and in, ball one.

Slider down and away, rolled over to the 5.5 hole, gloved by the shortstop on the lip of the outfield grass.

14 steps.

Safe.

The dream typically stars Babe Ruth, or Robin Yount, or Adrian Beltre.

Not Rob Sasser.

Or Moonlight Graham.

Or Jeff Banister.

It was July 23, 1991. The Pittsburgh Pirates, owning baseball’s best record by a healthy margin and on their way to matching the most wins in franchise history since 1909, had a comfortable 10-3 lead over Atlanta coming out of the seventh-inning stretch, when catcher Mike LaValliere grounded out to Braves shortstop Jeff Blauser to start the bottom of the frame. Pirates righthander Doug Drabek was the next man up.

Except manager Jim Leyland decided his ace had done enough for the day.

The next man up, instead, was a 27-year-old who had posted up for nearly 500 games and 1700 plate appearances on the farm, and was about to be entrusted, by Leyland, with his first of each on the big league level.

And his last.

Unable to find his own bat or his own helmet because his teammates had hidden them, Jeff Banister — who’d been told by his AAA Buffalo Bisons manager Terry Collins that morning that he was going to Pittsburgh to fill in while catcher Don Slaught was on the disabled list — grabbed Cecil Espy’s bat and someone else’s lid and made the walk to home plate at Three Rivers Stadium, on ankles and knees that had been operated on nine times in high school and college, some of which were conducted before doctors found bone cancer in one leg, which is to say nothing of the junior college collision at the plate that left him paralyzed from the neck down for 10 days, a terrifying sports moment that would have never happened had a Yankees scout not requested that he catch that day — or if he and his family would have allowed doctors to amputate the left leg three years earlier in the wake of the cancer diagnosis.

On a pair of legs relief-mapped by a series of scars that were reminders of what was never supposed to be possible, Jeff Banister made the walk to home plate, as perhaps the least decorated big leaguer ever produced by the University of Houston, pinch-hitting for certainly the school’s most decorated player ever.

But as a big leaguer, nonetheless.

Charged with facing aging Braves reliever Dan Petry, who was pitching in mop-up relief for his second of three teams that season in what would be the 13th and final year of the 32-year-old’s career, Banister swung through one, watched one, and connected with the third Petry pitch, beginning his sprint toward first base just as Blauser started sprinting away from it. Blauser met the ground ball in the hole and fired it to first base, but Banister got there first, firing through those 14 steps while “carr[ying] a whole truckload of people with me down the line.”

He legged it out. And was safe.

The debut single drew an ovation from the the Pittsburgh crowd of fewer than 22,000, among which were none of Banister’s family members — Banister's wife, mother, and sister had instead driven up from the Houston area to Oklahoma City, where Banister’s Bisons had traveled 1,200 miles to play the Rangers’ AAA club that night. Nobody, including Jeff, had expected Bisons-89ers to go on without him.

Gary Redus followed Banister’s one-out single with a fly to right, Jay Bell went down swinging, and the inning — and Banister’s big league playing career — came to an end. Bob Patterson took over on the mound, and in the lineup slot that Banister held down for less than 10 minutes. With one swing of the bat and 14 intense strides, Banister cobbled together a 1.000/1.000/1.000 slash line, one that’s forever frozen on the back of one baseball card.

It wasn’t a Travis Ishakawa moment by any measure, except to one man.

When Banister — a non-roster, part-time, .240’s-hitting minor league catcher who was replaced on the big league roster four days later by his Buffalo counterpart, Tom Prince, who held things down until Slaught’s return — talked about that infield single at Friday’s press conference introducing the 50-year-old Texan as the Rangers’ new manager, he said:

Touching first base and seeing the umpire give the safe call, it was complete satisfaction. Everybody goes, “Oh, don’t you wish you hit a home run?” Now: no. Then: no. Because it was such a challenge, so difficult to get there, why would I want it easy? It would be easy to trot around the bases.

It was magical for me then, and it’s even more magical now. When I talk to my kids, when they’re sitting back and wanting things to come easy to them, I say: “Life ain’t easy. You’ve got to grind it out. When you grind it out, it’s that much more satisfactory to you.”

It’s a quote that would surprise nobody if it came from Ron Washington, and in some respects, both in personality and in coaching history, there are similarities between the Rangers’ 17th full-time manager and their 18th.

But there are unmistakable differences, too, one of which can be illustrated by a comment Banister made in his presser, when he noted, parenthetically, that you chase the big inning because the data suggests putting up a three-run frame results in an 80 percent win probability.

Forget whether the numbers bear out; the significance is at least twofold. First, this is a manager who wants to understand metrics and to take advantage of them.

Second, less bunting.

When Banister started talking about “looking for the ways . . . we can outplay the predictable outcome,” the Wash double-takes were out the window, but it also became very clear that Banister (who has spent the bulk of his coaching career in player development, which along with scouting he called the Pirates’ “lifeblood”) is far from a slave to the numbers.

“I understand the idea of analytics but also understand the human aspect of the game. This is still a game played by humans. Because of that, any number of times, the general numbers may not play out for you. . . . Ultimately that’s what it’s all about. Showing up and playing hard. Being ready to play and playing to win. Show up and play hard every night for 27 outs, hard outs. We show up to play and we show up to win.”

Pitchers who attack the strike zone, who work quickly, who compete. Hitters who adjust to the game situation. Runners who will take the extra base. Defenders who are “extraordinary at the ordinary.” Teammates who go to battle with a “next man up” mentality, ready to fill in when another man is down.

That’s the stuff that reminds you of Wash. But when Banister is described by Pirates quantitative analyst Mike Fitzgerald as “a guy . . . who will pop in and say, ‘Have we ever thought about this?’ or ‘How is the game changing?,’” you don’t expect him to be the type of manager who will bat Mike Carp third and Rougned Odor ninth over and over and over when the season is lost, or who will bunt in the first inning or refuse to take a reliever out of his papered role, dismissive of the situation.

That’s not to be dismissive of Ron Washington, the greatest manager this franchise has had. But he put this organization in a position of having to replace him, and that created an opportunity. An opportunity to gauge the roster, which is different from the 2006 group Wash inherited, and the game, which is played in a different way from how it used to be played, and try to reinvigorate the clubhouse and the organization with a new voice to integrate with the others in charge.

Tim Bogar could have been that voice, unquestionably. The players and management were familiar with him; he was somewhat of a known quantity. He succeeded under trying circumstances over the season’s final three weeks, and had demonstrated that he had different ideas from his former skipper on how to run the club — and they seemed to work. He seemed to communicate well with the press and, by extension, the fan base. For a number of years he’s been a frontline managerial candidate, more so (at least apparently) than Banister. He trained under Terry Francona and Joe Maddon and Ron Washington.

It would have been easy and safe for Texas to shed the “interim” tag and appoint Bogar as the full-time manager, and not one member of the media or segment of the fan base would have denigrated it as easy and safe.

For Texas to decide, after formally interviewing Bogar and Banister and six others since season’s end, to forgo the option that seemed to line up so well and instead roll the dice a bit, it’s obvious that Banister (who gets three years and a club option for a fourth, compared with the two Washington got on his initial deal) had to have blown the doors off the core of the 12-man committee that Jon Daniels put together to help make this choice.

That doesn’t necessarily make the choice the right one. That will play itself out.

But this is a risk Rangers management believed was worth taking — or maybe more to the point, one not worth not taking — and that part I have faith in. Aggressive and risky is good, if the risks are measured. No more bunts in the first inning.

The front office has put itself on the line with this hire, and that’s better than seeking out the least controversial path — if you don’t think it’s necessarily the best one. I was a big Tim Bogar guy, and am confident he will manage winning teams in the big leagues. (I’d have said the same about Banister if he hadn’t won this job — and I still find it interesting that the Astros, whose ballpark is 20 minutes from Banister’s home, narrowed their search to A.J. Hinch, Torey Lovullo, and Banister three weeks ago, and went with Hinch.) But the Rangers, after all the homework and all the conversations, believed that Jeff Banister was the perfect candidate to be the next man up for this team, and for now that’s absolutely good enough for me.

News broke last night that Bogar would not be part of Banister’s staff, and that the Rangers, whose contract with Bogar extends through 2015, offered him a non-coaching position (likely some sort of special assistant to the GM role) as a fallback opportunity should he not find a position he wants with another club.

Maybe the situation was too awkward — for both Banister and Bogar — to move forward with one reporting to the other, particularly with Bogar having managed the team himself for the final three weeks of the season. There is precedent that would have supported the idea that a Bogar return couldn’t be ruled out — Don Wakamatsu was Buck Showalter’s bench coach in Texas, interviewed for the opportunity to replace him, and though he lost out to Washington, remained on the Rangers coaching staff for a year, manning third base on Wash’s first staff . . . Maddon was named interim manager for the Angels in 1999 after Collins resigned late in the season, and stayed on as bench coach for six years after Los Angeles hired Mike Scioscia in the winter as the new full-time manager — and there’s even relevant history with Banister himself.

Banister had been a minor league player, player/coach, manager, and field coordinator with the Pirates for 20 of his 24 years with the franchise when, in August 2010, the organization fired bench coach Gary Varsho for disloyalty to manager John Russell and elevated Banister to the bench coach position. Russell was fired after the season and Banister interviewed for the manager post, and the club’s decision came down to him and Rangers hitting coach Clint Hurdle (out of a group of candidates that had included Bo Porter, Ken Macha, John Gibbons, Eric Wedge, Dale Sveum, and Carlos Tosca), with Hurdle getting the ultimate nod.

Banister says Hurdle sat down with him afterwards, and asked him why it is that he coaches. What it is that gives him joy in the game. How he transfers that joy to other human beings. Satisfied with the answers, Hurdle, the newcomer, asked Banister, the holdover, to remain as his bench coach. Banister accepted, and held that job the last four seasons.

That’s not going to happen with Banister and Bogar, for whatever reason. I’d love to see Bogar remain with the franchise in some capacity, but (1) it wouldn’t be for long, because he’ll manage in the big leagues soon, and (2) it would mean he couldn’t find a better opportunity, and I don’t wish that for him.

That said, if I have a vote, I’d prefer not to see Bogar filling Oakland’s bench coach vacancy, created when Chip Hale left a week ago to manage the Diamondbacks.

Does Banister have an external candidate in mind for the job to his side?

Could it be fellow finalist Kevin Cash — and would Cleveland permit Texas to hire its bullpen coach (who may be viewed as Francona’s heir apparent but who will probably get the chance to manage somewhere before Francona is done with the Indians) away for that position?

The Pirates didn’t trade righthanders Kurt Miller and Hector Fajardo to the Rangers for Steve Buechele until a month after Banister’s one Pittsburgh at-bat, but I assume the two were teammates the following spring training in Bradenton (before right elbow surgery wiped Banister’s season out). Whether that has any sort of impact on the chances that Buechele — who also interviewed for the job Banister won (as well as the one in Houston that neither got) — could land on the big league staff is unknown.

There’s at least one certain opening on the staff aside from Bogar’s, as Gary Pettis (outfield/baserunning/third base) has taken a job with Houston.

Hitting coach Dave Magadan has reportedly spoken to the Yankees and Mets and A’s about their hitting coach vacancies (though the Yankees have ruled him out), and Texas reportedly obtained permission to reach out to A’s hitting coach Chili Davis before he took the job in Boston. In the meantime, Magadan will visit with Banister and Daniels in Surprise on Thursday, according to Calvin Watkins (ESPN Dallas).

Mike Maddux says he wants to stay. (Notably, Banister worked with Frisco pitching coach Jeff Andrews in the Pittsburgh farm system from 2003-07 — and Andrews is considered a star here, just as pitching coordinator Danny Clark and AAA pitching coach Brad Holman are.)

No word on Andy Hawkins, Bengie Molina, or Bobby Jones.

We know two things, according to local reports: Banister won’t be forced to retain any incumbent coaches he doesn’t want, and (per Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News) he won’t be permitted to bring anyone over from the Pirates, based on an agreement between the two franchises.

In any event, according to Watkins, the Rangers want to have the coaching staff finalized before the November 10-12 GM Meetings, with Banister looking for “men with passion for people . . . difference-makers . . . guys who love to prepare, who like to be at the ballpark, who want to learn and don’t know it all and are willing to make adjustments. The name on the front of the jersey means more than the name on the back.”

Are there a couple clichés sprinkled in Banister’s media game? No question. Does that matter? It doesn’t make Buck Showalter or Hurdle any less effective at managing a ball club.

How he communicates with his players is more important than how he communicates with us (and for the record, I thought he was extremely impressive on Friday, especially when he began taking reporters’ questions).

Factor in some of the things that those who have known him longer have said in the last few days, and you get a picture in higher definition.

Jerry Crasnick (ESPN): “Anyone who’s dealt with Jeff Banister will tell you he’s the real deal. Not a big name, but [the] Rangers just made a great hire.”

Bob Nightengale (USA Today): “Jeff Banister, the new Rangers manager, is one of the most passionate baseball men you’ll ever meet. A pro’s pro.”

Fitzgerald: “He’s a baseball guy. But he can communicate with nontraditional people in the clubhouse and reach them. He’s got a pretty cool ability to reach people on any level.”

An anonymous Pirates player, according to Jared Sandler (ESPN Dallas): “He makes guys better at [the big league] level and that just doesn’t always happen. . . . No one is better at dealing with different types of players and people. . . . He’s a tough SOB. He isn’t scared of challenging situations. He’s a rock in the clubhouse.”

An unnamed Pirates insider, according to Shan Shariff (105.3 The Fan): Banister “is a Roger Clemens, Greg Swindell, kick-your-ass kind of guy, in a quiet and humble way.”

C.J. Nitkowski (Fox Sports; also pitched in the Pirates farm system for two years): “Great move by Texas hiring @BannyRooster28 as their next manager. Widely respected, terrific leader, nice to see him get this opportunity.”

About that Twitter handle . . . a “banty (bantam) rooster” is a miniature breed of the bird, and when used in reference to a person, it means someone small in physical stature but aggressive, spirited, and ready to attack anything in its way.

Banister isn’t a little guy, but he says he was as a kid, and that’s when the nickname stuck — when he was just the wiry son of a high school football coach and an algebra teacher, not yet a teenaged cancer patient or college-aged paralysis victim who took on fights on a completely different level altogether.

Daniels, who has repeatedly referred to Banister as “a winner and a survivor, in every sense of the word,” and “a man of tremendous integrity and physical presence,” told the local press on Friday, six weeks after Washington had resigned (and one year to the date, incidentally, after Nolan Ryan had done so himself): “I’m not sure I can define the perfect manager — but I’m pretty sure I can define the perfect manager for us.”

A survivor, in every sense of the word. Cancer. Paralaysis. An unexceptional minor league career that nonetheless led to a big league opportunity. Nearly three decades with one franchise, as a 25^th-round draft pick and Low A player and High A player and AA player and AAA player and big league player and AA player-coach and rookie-level manager and Low A manager and winter league manager and High A manager and AA manager and big league field coordinator and minor league field coordinator and fall league manager and big league bench coach.

In the later years of that timeline, there are two professional moments that stand out when painting a picture of Jeff Banister, survivor.

In the summer of 2007, the Pirates were sold to a new ownership group and GM Dave Littlefield was replaced by Neal Huntington, who had been with the Indians for a decade. Huntington came in and fired manager Jim Tracy, senior director of player development (and interim GM) Brian Graham, senior director of scouting Ed Creech, and director of baseball operations Jon Mercurio, telling reporters:

Since my appointment as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates we’ve undergone an exhaustive review of what is here, who we are, what we do, who is in place, what’s good and unfortunately in some situations what’s not so good. . . . It became very clear to me that we needed some change. If we are going to successfully implement our philosophies, our vision and our system we needed to change the leadership. We needed to change the direction of our baseball operations department.

Huntington added explicitly that the new direction would be heavily grounded in sabermetrics, a clear departure from the way the Pirates had done baseball business throughout their organization to that point.

Banister was the organization’s 43-year-old minor league field coordinator, older than Huntington and considerably older than the new 29-year-old director of player development (Kyle Stark) and new 27-year-old director of baseball operations (Brian Minniti) he was bringing in to help usher in a completely different way of doing things.

Many player development officials were let go. Banister was one of the few who survived.

Three years later, in August of 2010, when Varsho’s (and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan’s) failed coup left the embattled Russell without a bench coach, Pittsburgh didn’t elevate another member of the big league staff into the role for the season’s final two months. The club promoted Banister, who had held down the field coordinator role on the farm (the Rangers’ equivalent is Jayce Tingler) for nearly eight years.

When Russell lost his job that October, Banister was included in the field of candidates to replace him — and was a co-finalist with Hurdle — but the Pirates awarded the job to the Rangers hitting coach shortly after their World Series run ended.

There’s little question that Hurdle had a list of colleagues in the game that he was prepared to bring in as his right-hand man. But after talking to Banister — a lifelong member of a franchise Hurdle was charged with helping turn around and the man he’d just beaten in landing the manager’s job — he decided he wanted Banister to ditch the interim bench coach tag and stay on as his permanent sidekick.

Another survival.

Four years ago, the Pirates hired an assistant coach off the Texas staff, and the arrow started pointing up right away.

The Rangers now look for the same success by reversing the move.

After Washington’s sudden resignation, the Rangers’ 12-man committee went to work, reportedly whiteboarding over 40 candidates (including some sitting managers) to consider targeting. The committee then came up with a list of eight to interview. From that group, five were eliminated, leaving Bogar, Banister, and Cash. After Texas had reached out to 20 of Banister’s former teammates, coaches, players, and bosses, looking for the right man to fill five defined job description “buckets” (reinstatement of a winning culture; getting the most out of his personnel; presence; preparation; organizational partnership), he had legged the process out. He’d survived yet again.

Noticeably absent from those five categories is any reference to analytics, although in helping set the tone not only in the clubhouse but also throughout the organization, it’s reasonable to assume that Banister will bring his data-driven experience into three of the five, with an emphasis on simplifying the information so that it’s usable for his players.

Truthfully, it’s all assumption at this point. The same would be true, even if to a slightly lesser extent, with Bogar. The Rangers chose to interview only men with no experience at the full-time helm of a big league baseball team, and managing AA teams or Arizona Fall League squads — or even a decimated big league club three weeks from euthanasia — can only tell you so much. We don’t know how this is going to go.

Neither does Texas, of course. A tremendous amount of energy and homework went into this front office taking sizable risks on Josh Hamilton, and on Yu Darvish, and on Ron Washington, and here’s another one, at the expense of the more familiar and more predictable option. The Rangers could have stuck with Edinson Volquez, and C.J. Wilson, and Don Wakamatsu. Would there be two AL pennant flags flying if they did?

It’s cheap and maybe even offensive to compare what the Rangers went through in 2014 to what Banister has gone through in his life, and I’m not meaning to do that at all, but you absorb this Friday quote from the Rangers’ new dugout leader and it’s difficult to ignore how it might ring true for an organization that needs to prove that this season was an outlier, and not a shift:

I understand perseverance. I understand what hard work means, that pain is one of those things we’re given to let us know we’re alive from time to time. You survive. Push. Endure. The other option is not what I’m looking for.

He wasn’t talking about a baseball season. But it says something about what drives him, and maybe about why he coaches, and how. About that relentless, internal fire to push forward, to succeed, to pass on, that he says “was formed a long time ago in a couple hospital rooms.”

Again, none of us knows if Jeff Banister, the next man up, is the correct choice. We all have a fairly defensible idea that he’s the riskier one.

But this isn’t about making the logical move. It’s about making the right move.

The Rangers have to get this right.

And I’m all for playing for that three-run inning.