Ryan takes Texas Rangers from bad to great

Among Collins’ precepts being executed in Arlington these daysRyan identified what Collins calls the “One Big Right Thing,” being the one central goal that can drive a company to its highest level, around which all aspects of the organization are built. For the Rangers, he says that one thing is: “having a competitive team on the field, which drives everything in our operation. If we’re competing well in every game, and winning our share because of our improved pitching and defense, to go with the great hitting we’ve always had, more fans will attend our games, more will buy our merchandise and more will follow us on television and radio, causing more companies to be sponsors.”

He’s rigorous in making personnel decisions. Using Collins’ metaphor, Ryan’s gotten the right people on the bus, put them in the right seats and gotten the wrong people off the bus. He says his greatest accomplishment thus far is “bringing in an outstanding staff of quality baseball people who have a passion for the game.”

In the dugout, he hired Mike Maddux and Jackie Moore as coaches, who were formerly with Ryan's minor league team in Round Rock. To maximize stadium appeal, he brought in Rob Matwick, who used to keep Houston's Minute Maid Park squeaky clean and fan-friendly to be Rangers' executive vice president of ballpark operations. In marketing, he hired Dale Petroskey, who led the Baseball Hall of Fame into its position as the country's top sports history venue. And to head up communications, he brought John Blake back from Boston to do what he had done in Ryan's last years as a player.

Not everyone on the bus, however, needed to be replaced. Ryan saw that General Manager Jon Daniels, Chief of Staff Jim Sundberg and Manager Ron Washington should be kept. Of particular importance is Daniels, who built the farm system into baseball's finest (recognized as such by the magazine Baseball America), while making the 2007 Mark Texeira-to-Atlanta swap (which brought in current starters Matt Harrison, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Elvis Andrus, and top pitching prospect Neftali Feliz), doing for the Rangers what the Herschel Walker trade once did for the Dallas Cowboys.

The organization epitomizes Collins' "3 D's" -- Disciplined People using Disciplined Thought to inspire Disciplined Action. To be a dominating pitcher for 27 years requires a superhuman level of self-discipline, which since retiring as a player Ryan has brought to his banking, real estate, minor league baseball and meat business successes and now brings to the Rangers.

"Disciplined thought is driven by hard data," says Collins. In baseball's information age, GM Jon Daniels has put in place an instantly accessible system of statistical, physical, historical and psychological data on every professional player and top prospect in the world, which drives his every move.

Collins' final component for an organizations' success is having a "Level 5 Leader" -- someone who combines humility with ferocious resolve to produce results.  Yes, Nolan Ryan is the greatest power pitcher ever, but he doesn't wear his accomplishments on his sleeve. He also wants fans to see he's not above sitting in 100-degree heat and weathering rain delays in ballpark seats.

The will that empowered Nolan Ryan to throw fastballs into his mid-forties now drives the 62-year-old executive toward one goal: win the World Series. And why not? If the Boston Red Sox could exorcise the Curse of the Bambino in 2004 after 86 years of futility, then why can't the Texas Rangers do the same with the Curse of the Washington Senators that's been hovering over his team since it moved from D.C. to Arlington in 1972?