In a four-part series, ESPN.com explores the impact of baseball on the political career of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. Part two focuses on the value of being in the spotlight.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- George W. Bush was introducing himself as managing general partner of the new ownership group and he was telling the media at his very first news conference that "I just want people when they say 'Texas Rangers,' that they think, 'here's a group of people trying to improve someone's life.' "
|  | | One look at Bush's cowboy boots and Texans knew where his loyalty rested. |
As the writers wrote in their notepads and the cameramen pointed their cameras, Bush went on to say that he felt the Rangers had "a responsibility to promote good causes" and then, promoting a pet cause championed by his wife, he proposed a "fighting illiteracy" night.
Improving lives? How about improving the pitching staff? Teaching reading? What about teaching the hit and run? Heck, bottom line, what happened to bat night?
What would become apparent in the years to come was that the occasion had ostensibly been baseball, but the subtext had been politics. It had been Bush's first step in establishing his own identity, in defining himself eventually as a "compassionate conservative," and at the same time taking the first step in attempting to follow his father into the White House.
To the point of that news conference in March 1989, Bush's life was remarkable only in that he was the oldest child of a sitting U.S. president. He was 42, with a string of failed oil businesses on his resumé and a defeat in his only previous run at public office, a wild-hare shot at a West Texas congressional seat in 1978.
What little money Bush had was due largely to his surname. What little reputation he had was unflattering. It was that of a swaggering, overgrown frat boy whose wife until two years earlier was still tugging on his cuff at dinner parties, begging him to cut the booze and lower his voice. He had toyed with entering the 1990 governor's race, only to be shot down by incredulous Republican leaders.
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Making an impression
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To get a rough feel for the publicity value of George W. Bush's association with the Rangers, ESPN.com recently searched the Lexis-Nexis media database using specific keywords:
Articles that mention "George W. Bush" prior to 1/21/89 when news reports first cited him as possible buyer of the Rangers: 102
Articles that mention "George W. Bush" and "Rangers" between 1/21/89 and 11/1/94, the day before he was elected governor: 2,234
Articles that mention "George W. Bush" and popular Latino catcher "Ivan Rodriguez": 121
Articles that mention "George W. Bush" and Texas hero "Nolan Ryan": 934
Articles that mention "George W. Bush" and "The Ballpark in Arlington": 577
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His involvement in the Rangers changed all that. The team provided the future pro-business candidate with his first real business success. It made him wealthy and gave him experience as a community leader. In time, he was no longer George Junior, a misnomer, a diminutive. Make no mistake. His father is George H.W. He is George W. He became the respected and well-liked Dubya, and he did it all in front of a watchful media and the public.
"The Rangers helped George be seen as someone other than an Ivy League guy who was son of the president," says J. Thomas Schieffer, club president during Bush's tenure. "What baseball allowed George to do is show his true personality, that he's very egalitarian and democratic."
Bush wrapped himself in the lush imagery of baseball and gave it a Texas twist. He eschewed the luxury box in favor of front-row seats. Television cameras caught him lunging for foul balls and chomping on hot dogs. He wore cowboy boots adorned with the Rangers' red-white-and-blue Lone Star logo, a powerful symbol in the former republic. Cameras kept clicking. They would catch him in the casual, short-sleeved shirts of East Texas plainsmen, not the formal coat-and-tie of his father's Eastern establishment.
"People would say, 'George, he's OK. He's like you and me'," Schieffer says.
"His love of baseball is genuine, like Eisenhower's love of golf and fishing," says George Will, syndicated columnist and baseball author. "There's a regularness that comes across."
Before games, Bush would be seen by the batting cage, chatting up sports writers. He was a journalist's dream, accessible and thick-skinned, jousting with them, calling them by their nicknames. Out of town, he returned their calls. They, in turn, came to present him as an honest, caring steward of a public trust and his own man.
Write a critical article, and "George would scream at you and you'd scream back at him but he never held a grudge," says Randy Galloway, columnist with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Two days later, he'd stop by the press box and ask you what to do at shortstop, as if nothing happened. George said to me once, 'We'll always get along because you never bring my family into it.' "
Occasionally, the publicity was unflattering. The media hammered Bush in 1990 for the messy firing of team president Mike Stone, who suggested Bush was on a power trip. That same year, during Nolan Ryan's 300th victory, a TV camera panning to Bush found him picking his nose.
But all in all, those moments drowned in a flood of positive associations with the club, its players in general and Ryan specifically. Bush and Ryan became good friends and in the '94 gubernatorial election, Ryan campaigned for Bush, lending support that Bush suggested was more important than Ross Perot's endorsement of incumbent Ann Richards.
While political experts question the value of celebrity endorsements, Rick Burton, director of the James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, says Bush's ties with the Rangers sure didn't hurt.
"Nolan Ryan represents traditionalism and conservatism, so you get a rub-off from that," Burton says. "It's like if you're seen with the team's Hispanic catcher, you get a benefit within the Hispanic community. If there are African-American players on the team, you get a benefit because they're respected players. By buying the team, Bush basked in the reflected glory" of its popular players.
Those associations continue to pay dividends. To date, close to 1,000 news articles alone have been written that include the name of both George W. Bush and Nolan Ryan, according to a search of the Lexis-Nexis media database. After retiring, Ryan was appointed by Bush to the state's Parks and Wildlife Commission as a board member, an unpaid position.
The West Texas boy who memorized the starting lineups of every major league team, who could recite Willie Mays' batting statistics, who mailed baseball cards to his favorite players with dreams of getting them autographed, who played briefly at Yale University like his father and grandfather before him, that boy quite obviously still lives in the man.
The publicity that grew from that foundation was simply, and marvelously, effective for someone who would grow into a man who would launch a political career based largely on personality and likeability.
"You certainly want visibility, and it's hard for someone older than 40 to get that without committing a crime," says Edward "Rusty" Rose, who as co-general partner ran the Rangers with Bush.
By design and desire, Bush was the public face of the Rangers. Despite providing less than 2 percent of the investment capital, Bush aggressively sought the role of figurehead for the consortium when it was being formed.
In May of 1989 two months after Bush bought into the team, GOP strategist and Bush confidante Karl Rove told a reporter that as "owner of the Rangers, he is anchored in the mind of Texans as a Texas businessman. It gives him instant exposure and identification. As owner of a sports franchise here, his name will easily be recalled by people."
Rove is now running Bush's presidential campaign. It seems he was right about Bush and baseball.
Tom Farrey is a Senior Writer with ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn.com. Read part three of his series on Friday.
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ALSO SEE
Wednesday: Bush establishes a management style
Slideshow: Photos that defined a candidate
Timeline: George W. Bush and Rangers
Bush family links to sports go back a century
Politicians who rubbed up against sports
Gore can play that game, too
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