Friday Happy Hour at the Elysian Fields Bar & Grill

Welcome to the Elysian Fields Bar & Grill, where Dancing With the Stars means only one thing: Crash Davis and Annie Savoy doing a little toe-tapping to Sixty Minute Man in front of the Thurman Munson Altar at the end of Bull Durham. 

* Don Wakamatsu, who is staying with the Rangers as third base coach after not getting the manager job, said, "Family-wise, I wanted to go home and tell my family that I got the manager's job. From that point, it was disappointing.. I had a couple of chances to go elsewhere but the biggest thing was I moved my family here a year ago because I wanted to be a part of the Rangers' future. That weighed heavily."

* Pitching prospect Thomas Diamond has taken up yoga this winter. Said Diamond, "It's to increase my flexibility. I do it three times a week, one hour classes at the YMCA. The last class was an hour, twenty minutes. Power yoga. When it was over, I was dripping with sweat."

* Gerald Laird has thrown out 40.7 percent of attempted base stealers over the past four seasons. That's the third best rate in the Majors in that stretch for all catchers with at least 140 games caught. Yadier Molina is first at 45.9 percent and Jose Molina is second at 41.6. Ivan Rodriguez is sixth at 37.2.

* Owner Tom Hicks on Barry Bonds playing for the Rangers: "That's not going to happen."

* The old Smacko's is being turned into a Mexican eatery. Smacko's? Never heard of it? It was Joe Macko's old bar on Abrams south of Arlington Stadium and the favorite watering hole of Rangers of yore. Said Chuck Morgan, "When I first came here in 1983, you'd go there after every game and there would always be somebody there – Buddy Bell, Larry Parrish – just talking baseball."

* Kameron Loe agrees with pitching coach Mark Connor that he overdid it with his off-season workouts last year. Said. Loe, "I always want to get in the weight room. I feel worthless if I don't. But I need to work smarter, not harder. I was always worried about being too skinny. Now I don't have to worry about my body, I need to get in pitching shape."

* The Cubs have signed Kerry Wood as a reliever. He gets a base salary of $1.75 million and all his incentives are based on relief performances. He'll get another $2 million if he pitches in at least 60 games. He also gets $250,000 for being the Relief Pitcher of the Year, $250,000 if he is the Comeback Player of the Year and $250,000 if he is the World Series Most Valuable Player.

* Love those incentive clauses. Jamie Moyer has eight hits – all singles – in the last ten years and is a career .149 hitter but the Phillies will owe him $50,000 if he wins the Silver Slugger next year for best hitting pitcher in the National League.

* What do Minor League players make? Matt Merricks, the left-handed pitcher signed by the Rangers recently gets $9,000 per month if he pitches in Double A and $9,500 per month in Triple A.

* Just for the heck of it: Rob Ducey.

* Kevin Millwood threw 108 pitches in his 2003 no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants and 81 of them were fastballs.

* Former Rangers center fielder Daryl Hamilton has taken a job as Bob Watson's assistant. Watson is Major League Baseball's Vice-President of On-Field Operations. Hamilton will assist him in matters of Major League facilities standards, investigation of on-field incidents and other matters of MLB policies.

* Pay attention, this is good. Ferguson Jenkins received 10 first place votes for the Cy Young Award in 1974 after going 25-12 for the Rangers. But Jim "Catfish" Hunter 12 first place votes and won the award. Jenkins is still the only Rangers pitcher to ever get a first place vote for the Cy Young Award.

* It gets better once you understand the voting. The voting consists of two writers in each American League City. Three pitchers are listed on each ballot: one, two and three. First place is worth five points, second place is three points and third place is worth one point. Got it?

* The last Rangers pitchers to be listed on a Cy Young ballot were Aaron Sele and John Wetteland in 1999. Sele collected four points and Wetteland collected three.

* Reliever Jim Kern garnered 25 points and fourth in 1979. Next to Jenkins, that's the highest a Rangers pitcher has ever finished in a Cy Young voting. Kevin Brown got nine points in 1992, third highest ever. That's less than two first-place votes. Kenny Rogers and Charlie Hough never appeared on a Cy Young ballot in any year while they were with the Rangers.

* Hall of Famer Jim O'Rourke said this in 1913: "There was no paraphernalia in the old days with which one could protect himself. No mitts, no even gloves; and masks, why you would have been laughed off the diamond had you worn one behind the bat. In the early days the pitchers was only 50 feet away from the batsman, and there was no penalizing him if he hit you with the ball."