I'll admit that baseball is not my sport, so it doesn't really matter to me much that the Greenberg-Ryan group that beat out Mark Cuban's bid to own the Texas Rangers is probably better for the team (at least if this is to believed). But I can't help but be a little sad that baseball won't be able to share in the joys of having Cuban in their sport.
Sure, Cuban is annoying and a bit full of himself, and sure, he's not exactly a baseball guy. But as an NBA fan, I can tell you that Mark Cuban, without fail, makes my favorite sport much more interesting to follow. He's not afraid to speak his mind about anything, whether it's officiating, other teams or his own players, and while he's certainly no choir boy, it's long past time for an anti-establishment owner to join the baseball fray.
Baseball's owners aren't exactly known as the most vocal group of people in the world. There was George Steinbrenner, but he mellowed out even before his death. There's his son Hank, but he was basically laughed off the stage and hasn't been heard from much since 2008. There was John Henry mocking the Yankees' fanbase a little while back, but that was an isolated incident. Otherwise? Nothing comes to mind.
And that's the beauty of Mark Cuban. He'll invent those feuds. He'll give us a reason to talk about baseball. Better yet, he'll probably improve the standing of the Rangers while doing it.
Think about it this way: for years, the Rangers have been an afterthought on the baseball scene. They're the team that traded away Sammy Sosa. They're the team that hasn't won a playoff series since moving to Texas. Sure, the new ownership group is competent, and could push them to a never level of organizational success. But they'll face an uphill battle to make the Rangers relevant, at least to casual fans like me. That's not something Mark Cuban would have had trouble doing, considering that's basically what he's done with the Dallas Mavericks this decade. Just think about where the Mavericks were in the 1990s, as compared to where they are today. It takes more than hot air to move forward like that.
I know, I know - relevancy isn't the name of the game, winning is. But it still would have been fun to see Cuban pull off his routine in a sport that's much more traditional than the NBA.