Rangers are on the road to shame

By Ken Rosenthal - SportingNews

Rangers manager Buck Showalter is signed through 2009. Here's betting that he doesn't finish his contract.

This is Showalter's third season with the Rangers, and the first inevitable cracks in his controlling reign are showing.

You can't pin the purge of righthander Ryan Drese directly on Showalter. You also can't pin on him the unseemly insinuation from a Rangers official -- reported by Dallas media -- that lefthander Kenny Rogers ducked a start against the Angels, using a broken bone in his nonthrowing hand as an excuse.


But Showalter, after owner Tom Hicks, is the second most powerful man in the Rangers' organization; Showalter's contract extends three years beyond general manager John Hart's. If something happens with the team -- be it a roster move or smear campaign -- it stands to reason that Showalter is at least aware of it, if not behind it.

There's no excusing Rogers' attack on two unsuspecting cameramen, no matter how much he might have been enraged by the Rangers' whispers about his lack of toughness. But there's a larger question here, and it goes beyond any psychoanalysis of a seemingly troubled pitcher
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slu...=tsn&type=lgns