Rangers Decide to Stand By Their Man

While not directly related to the Angels, this certainly qualifies as AL West news, and something I don’t doubt Angels fans take an interest in. Apparently, as I’m sure everyone knows by now, Rangers manager Ron Washington decided to use a little nose candy back during the 2009 season. Just in case that wasn’t enough for you, he also admitted to using amphetamines and marijuana during his playing career. So, basically, if you subtract the charm, charisma, good looks, and acting ability, the Rangers have Robert Downey Jr running their club house.

I’m assuming that he came clean (for the first time ever.. ha!) on the marijuana and amphetamines to get his own spin on the story before everyone else is doing it for him, but there is almost no amount of spin you can put on this story to make yourself look remotely good. Unfortunately for the Rangers, this story came out after they decided to stick with him for the rest of the 2009 season, so they’re a bit over a barrel. Letting him go now would be seen as nothing more than trying to look good in the media, since they’ve known about this for months. That said, if the Rangers don’t find themselves within striking distance of first place by the middle of summer, I don’t expect Washington to be in a Texas uniform much longer. The story is out now, and I think Texas will be looking for any excuse they can find to get rid of him without it being for the year-old drug story.

The one thing he may have working in his favor is that Texas is actually a pretty good team, and as I posted earlier, they actually have a pretty good chance of winning the AL West this year. If Washington can put a division title between himself and this story, he just may save his job in the future. Either way, it’ll just be another interesting storyline to follow in the AL West.

One last thing that just gave me a bit of a chuckle: The first line of the ESPN article reads:

"SURPRISE, Ariz. – Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington apologized Wednesday for using cocaine during the 2009 season"

Almost as if it was something they were springing on an unsuspecting Arizona public.

(Nate Proctor is the lead writer for Halo Hangout.  You can stay up to date on all of Nate’s work by following him on Twitter, Facebook, or by way of the Halo Hangout RSS feed.)