Big D

Big D

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Glendon's BACK!!!!! and other Random Stuff

Dave -- This post is certainly relevant to you and should bring back some fond memories of our Bent Tree West days. Anyone from the DFW area during our high school years (well at least if you were following high school sports like us nerds), will most likely remember Glendon Alexander.

Glendon of Newman Smith fame is still the leading point scorer in Texas 5A history and averaged something like 33 points a game during his high school career.

Dave and I and maybe Cuyler, Zach? saw him play in person many times. The guy's pregame dunks were stuff of legends. Good times.

Anyways, Glendon's on his way out of jail after getting in trouble for among many things





stealing $46,500 from a Carrollton dentist, $1.5 million from a California adult entertainment executive, and cash, jewelry and shoes from former major league outfielder Derek Bell


Free Glendon!

Bet you can't guess where this shot ended up?




Rangers Pick Up Pitcher, Give Up Pitcher???

The Rangers pick up Padres starter, Adam Eaton (28) and a pretty darn good setup guy, rightanded Akinori Otsuka (33) who was a great closer in Japan and has peformed in his first two major league seasons as a 7th and 8th inning guy.

He is exactly what Jon Daniels was looking when he mentioned top priority for this offseason along with starting pitching (new rotation now most likely Eaton/Padilla/Loe/Dominguez/5th?) and I'm glad he picked Otsuka up. I'd say the bullpen and starting pitching are at least somewhat upgraded going into 2006.

Offense looks at least to be somewhat more productive with additions of Jiminez/Kinsler at 2B and Wilkerson in the outfield to replace Soriano and Hidalgo. This team will be better in '06 but probably won't win the West without a few more moves at some point.

Giving up Adrian Gonzalez (great prospect at 1B but is blocked by Tex and needs to play now) and Termel Sledge (would have fought for a 4th or 5th outfield slot) is not a huge price.

But Chris Young being added to the deal baffles me. This is a guy who is signed through 2009 at a reasonable price and is hometown, Highland Park product. I'm really surprised Daniels made this deal but he must really have a feeling about Eaton. It's a magnified risky move because Eaton is a potential free agent after the 2006 season and has already stated publicly before this trade that he would need "crazy money" to sign with Texas when he was rumored to be coming here.

You never know, maybe Eaton is lights out and Otsuka leads the Rangers bullpen to a playoff run and both sign long term deals this offseason.

I sure hope so, because losing Chris Young is really confusing for an organizaiton supposedly hell bent on growing home grown pitching. DVD can't get here soon enough after this deal.

I'm still optmistic about 2006 and this hopefully is just a speed bump in the already wild Ranger offseason.

One name to look for: Chad Bradford who was not offered arbitration by the Red Sox. He is a right-handed bullpen submarine style pitcher who spent some successful seasons with the A's in the AL West. He would be another nice bullpen piece to throw at rivals. He is only 30...

More randomness to follow later this week.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glendon Alexander R.I.P

This guy is what legends are made of. Busting a double-nickel against Dallas Carter with Nolan Richardson in the stands. This guy had the gym full 30 minutes before tip just so we could watch his dunking exhibition in pre-game warmups. I'll never forget against Plano him throwing the ball off of the back of the gym, about 20 feet behind the backboard, catching it in mid-air, then throwing down, all before the game even started.

Its a shame he didn't live up to his potential, but he did have some big games for arkansas, and had a huge stretch during okla states run during the final four.