Lone Ranger represents team at ASG

By David Mullen

With summer here, it is time to head to the park with a picnic basket full of July sports nuggets to share with sporting friends. So lay down a blanket, grab some potato salad, slice up the watermelon and hope that a Gatorade bucket of rain stays away for another day.   

The Texas Rangers have one All-Star Game representative. On Tuesday, July 15, the best players in baseball gather for the 95th All-Star Game (ASG) presented by Mastercard at Truist Park in Atlanta. Befitting a team that has languished in mediocrity since winning the 2023 World Series, only one player was chosen to represent the Rangers in 2025. 

Even the lowly Athletics, a team without a city to call their own, and the Kansas City Royals, who (like the Rangers) have disappointingly tethered around the .500 mark all year, have two players on the All-Star Game roster.

The Detroit Tigers, advancing a successful rebuilding program, has MLB’s best record and four players — outfielders Riley Green and Javier Baez, 2B Gleyber Torres and pitcher Tarik Skubal — chosen for the Midsummer Classic. All three position players were voted as starters by the fans, and Skubal has a chance to be selected as the AL starting pitcher.    

Ranger starting pitcher Jacob deGrom — a two-time Cy Young Award winner who has never been healthy enough in Texas to pitch more than six games in a season — is strong and received the lone All-Star nod. deGrom currently has a miniscule 0.91 WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched), the lowest ever by a Ranger at the All-Star break.

In 2023, the Rangers had five All-Star Game starters. All five players are still with the team but none are 2025 All-Stars. The last time the Rangers had only one representative in the All-Star Game was in 2018. The player was outfielder/DH Shin-Soo Choo, who signed a seven-year, $130 million ($180 million today) free agent contract during former Texas GM Jon Daniels’ regime. Take that nugget to sports trivia night at the local pub.

The Cobra is dead. Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Parker died on June 28 at age 74 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Unfortunately, Parker will miss his induction ceremony in Cooperstown on Sunday, July 27. 

Nicknamed the Cobra, Parker was an imposing 6-foot, 5-inch, 230-pound, left-handed five-tool player. He could hit, hit for power, run, throw and field. His career was affected by a chronic bad knee and a cocaine addiction. 

Parker’s 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates captivated the sports world. Led by the musical ideology embodied by the Sister Sledge crossover hit “We Are Family,” Parker and the Pirates won the World Series based on the premise of unity. A roster with future Hall of Famers (Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell) and one-season wonders melded together to create a team of the ages. Parker was not the most famous of the Pirates but represented the new era and was the unabashed voice of the team. 

“About 95 percent of the verbalizing in the clubhouse is done by me,” Parker once told The New York Times. “I can challenge anybody and get away with it. I’m a big part of the offensive attack of this club and its main motivator. They say I’m the [Muhammed] Ali of baseball.”

Parker won the World Championship in Pittsburgh in 1979 and in Oakland in 1989, with a stop in Cincinnati in between. If you are over 50, you know the imposing presence the Cobra brought to the game. If you are new to the game, go to YouTube and watch Parker gun down runners with his missile-like arm in the 1979 ASG.   

College athletes can get paid like pros. Beginning on July 1, based on the terms of a settlement achieved in the House v. NCAA court case, college athletes can be compensated to play sports and will share in a university’s sports revenue. No more “student athletes.” These teenagers will be listening to image coaches over head coaches.

Disguised as NIL (name, image and likeness) agreements, the payment of players will have a profound impact on a school’s economic engines like college football and men’s college basketball. The Texas Tech Red Raiders are reportedly ready to spend $55 million on NIL agreements and have already given Mansfield Lake Ridge offensive tackle Felix Ojo more than $5 million to play at Tech. “Guns up” has been replaced by “Wallets out” in Lubbock.

Stars have a new old coach. Dallas GM Jim Nill rehired former Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan, 53, for a second stint. Nill fired Gulutzan in 2013. Gulutzan, who replaces Peter DeBoer, will be challenged to get the Stars to the Stanley Cup Final after three consecutive playoff losses in the Western Conference finals.

We are not in Dallas anymore. Several professional golfers who reside in the area, including the world’s No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and former Open Champions Justin Spieth and Justin Leonard, will head across the pond to play in the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland beginning Thursday, July 17. It will be a test of accuracy and will.

Having played Royal Portrush, I can relay that it is a humbling experience. An arrent shot brings huge penalties. A golfer must attempt shots that are never practiced at home. The gorse swallows golf balls. Bunkers are small but uncharacteristically deep. Royal Portrush, originally designed by Old Tom Morris, is greener and lusher than other UK courses. The weather can go from beautiful to brutal during the course of a round. For the talented golfers looking to win a major championship, Portrush will not be a picnic.