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Lots of Rangers sites/blogs and newspapers have written about the possible return of Nolan Ryan to the Texas Rangers as president. It’s an office that has had much ridicule from fans in the know since Tom Schieffer departed as president of the Texas Rangers not long after Tom Hicks bought the team.
Since then it’s been a bunch of guys who didn’t seem to care much about baseball or the fans, they were mostly hockey guys thrust into the role (Jim Lites, anyone?) who were a victim of Tom Hicks’ attempt at synergy some years ago. He eventually (sorta) figured out that you can’t run a baseball team like a hockey team. The other “joke” I used to laugh at was the one president (forget his name at the moment) who would have a video clip on the (not so Jumbo) Jumbotron at the Ballpark talking about how he wanted the fans to contact him. Even went so far as to give his email address, and said that every email sent to him would get answered. Oh yeah, RIGHT! Way to lie to your customer base every single night. That did not help the perception of monolithic business in the front office.
So anyway, at the end of this past season, the team moved Jeff Cogen back over to the Stars President’s role (snicker – that further proves the hockey analogy), and the post has been left open. Any Rangers fan reading this site should already know that. Been a lot of talk about bring Nolan Ryan back in the role of President. It does raise an interesting role, the office of President has traditionally been one that was involved in biz only. The “baseball” side of things was kept separate. If Ryan comes back, I don’t think he’ll be some sort of dictator president, but it will be interesting to see how well he works with Jon Daniels. Of course, Ryan has owned two minor league baseball teams for awhile now, and that brings me to something I haven’t seen discussed much.
Ryan is the owner of the AAA Round Rock Express, and the AA Corpus Christi Hooks, both teams in the upper two levels of the Houston Astros minor league system. What I’ve always wondered was if this would be a conflict of interest. Could Ryan exist as being the president of one club, and an owner of two minor league franchises for another? I always figured if he took the Rangers President post, he’d have to divest himself of his Astros minor league holdings, or at least put ’em in trust for his kids, or something like that.
So I decided to pose the question to Maury Brown of the very informative site “The Biz of Baseball“. I figure he’d know, since he seems to know more about oddball baseball minutiae than almost anyone else I know. Here’s some relevant bits from an email exchange we had:

Joe: The Nolan Ryan story has been playing locally since late last week. It does raise a question. If he became President of the Rangers, wouldn’t he have to divest himself of his ownings of the two Astros minor league teams? I can’t see MLB allowing a team president to own minor league teams for another franchise.
Maury: Try this… The Red Sox (Fenway Sports Group) recently purchased the Salem Avalanche of the Carolina League. There’s more on that in this link. The Avalanche are an Astros minor league affiliate. Based upon that, it appears that Ryan would not have to divest himself of the Express or Corpus Christi Hooks.
Joe: So that’s a no then. :) I would think they would perceive that as conflict of interest.
Maury: One might say that, but it’s at the minor league level. MLB rules forbid owners from owning shares of more than one MLB team. Yet, at one point (a short period, mind you), John Henry owned parts of the Marlins, Yankees, and the Red Sox at the same time.

So it would seem that he wouldn’t have to, although I would have to imagine we’ll hear “conflict of interest” if he is hired as the Rangers President. With Sundberg being in the upper management team, and with a possible return of Nolan Ryan, it would help restore Hicks’ image a bit with the fans, I think. I always kind of felt those images of Hicks celebrating championships in 1998 & 1999 were kind of “riding the coattails of the previous regime” (much in the same way that Barry Switzer rode Jimmy Johnson’s coattails). I think a hiring of Ryan would be a good move, both from a baseball standpoint, and most CERTAINLY from a PR standpoint.
Still would like to see how the conflict issue I raise here would be officially dealt with.
Makes you wonder if “Nolan Ryan’s All Natural Tender Aged Beef” would be a Texas Rangers sponsor, too. Heh. :)
For no good reason, here’s that clip of Nolan Ryan & Robin Ventura. Thanks to Tim McMahon for the timing of his post referencing the clip right before I posted this. :)