Players from the team’s years in Texas have included several prominent future Yankees, including Mark Teixeira (2003-2007) and Alex Rodriguez (2001-2003), whom the team signed to a 10-year, quarter-billion-dollar contract. Fabled Yankees manager Billy Martin was the Rangers’ skipper from 1973 until 1975 (1974 was his only complete season, but a winning one at that), and yet another Easterner, Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, managed the team during its debut season in 1972.
Collectible Rangers memorabilia includes baseball cards, pennants, and photos of any of these players in a Rangers uniform, as well as programs from Rangers Ballpark during the years it was known as Ameriquest Field between 2004 and 2007—in an unheard of move, the team bought back its naming rights, concluding, wisely, that the team’s name was more important than the $75 million over 30 years it had signed away.
Another player whose memorabilia is sought by Rangers fans is Ivan Rodriguez who won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award in 1999 when he was a catcher for the Rangers, where he played from 1991 until 2002, as well as for part of 2009. Proving, perhaps, than in baseball everything eventually comes full circle, former Ranger Rodriguez is now playing for the Washington Nationals.


Coke Watch
Johnny Oates Signed Ball











