The Bright Spot

Adrian Beltre is a damn good reason to hit the ballpark this lost summer

Adrian Beltre notched his 2,500th career hit June 24 against Detroit.

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As the summer heats up, your motivation to visit Globe Life Ballpark might be winding down. After all, the Texas Rangers have one of the worst records in the American League.

Rangers brass met late last week, and general manager Jon Daniels told reporters the rest of this season amounts to developing and improving players. That isn’t the sort of talk you expect from the GM of a team that some considered a World Series contender in April.

But half of the projected everyday lineup is on the disabled list for good this season, and the pitching staff, after Yu Darvish — who is having another exceptional season — is a patchwork of young, eager prospects and veteran retreads.

Beltre has spent the month of June redefining the word “torrid” and is nearing Hall of Fame status.

It’s not what Rangers fans have grown used to the past few seasons. So why venture out to Arlington and watch baseball in the searing heat?

Well, for starters, there is third baseman Adrian Beltre, who has spent June redefining the word “torrid” and the better part of last week listening to others debate his credentials as a future Hall of Famer.

That’s right. Future Hall of Famer.

Those around the game started tossing about those four words after Beltre notched his 2,500th career hit June 24 against Detroit. He wrapped up the homestand on June 29 with 2,511 career hits.

He’s had a ridiculous June, hitting .394 (37-for-94) and raising his average from a low of .233 on May 11 to .332. That average is now second-best in the AL. Despite a slow start, Beltre is among the AL leaders in three other offensive categories and has nine home runs and 41 RBI.

“He found his swing,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said on Saturday, after Beltre had three hits. “He’s taking what pitchers give him. He’s started hitting to the opposite field. He’s getting all kinds of hits. When Adrian starts doing that, he’s locked in.”

Beltre is on the verge of his fourth All-Star Game berth. He has four Gold Glove awards, three Silver Slugger awards (as the game’s best-hitting third baseman) and was the National League home run champion in 2004. He’s closing in on being one of the game’s top 50 home run hitters. (He sits at No. 59 with 385 home runs.) He’s been in the top 15 in MVP voting five times, finishing in the top three twice. Plus, he’s been to two World Series with the Rangers.

But is all of that enough? Probably not. That’s why the benchmark Beltre reached last week is vital. It puts him in striking distance of 3,000 hits, a number that, historically, puts you in the Hall of Fame. In fact, you have to really screw up to not get in with 3,000 hits.

Twenty-eight players have reached 3,000 hits. Of those 28, four are not in the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose is banned for life, which means he cannot be elected. Rafael Palmeiro is linked to performance-enhancing drugs and, after failing to get the minimum number of votes in 2014 to remain on the ballot, can no longer be considered.

That leaves Derek Jeter and Craig Biggio. Jeter is still active, but with five World Series rings for the New York Yankees, he won’t be kept waiting. That leaves Biggio, who played his entire career with the Houston Astros and finished with 3,060 hits.

You won’t find a better citizen in and out of baseball than Biggio. Plus, his bio looks quite a bit like Beltre’s — a seven-time All-Star, a four-time Gold Glover and a five-time Silver Slugger. He never won a World Series ring.

Biggio has missed out on the Hall of Fame each of the last two years, including an agonizing two votes last winter. Most believe Biggio will eventually get in, and he’s not the first player with 3,000 hits to not get in on the first ballot.

The fact that he never won a World Series or an MVP award hurts, but he’s also not the first player with 3,000 hits to fail to win a ring or an MVP award, either. Nap Lajoie reached the Hall of Fame without doing either. So did Tony Gwynn. So locking Biggio out for not doing either is ludicrous.

Plus, we’re talking about fewer than 1 percent of Major League players that have reached 3,000 hits. It is still a milestone to be honored with enshrinement.

That’s why the number is meaningful to Beltre and should be meaningful to Rangers fans. Take Beltre’s 15 full seasons in the majors and he’s averaged 159 hits. At that rate, he would need a little over three seasons to reach that benchmark.

By then, maybe Beltre has a World Series ring. By then, he could have more Gold Gloves, All-Star Game berths and 500 home runs, another number that usually means automatic inclusion in Cooperstown. By then, maybe you’ll be wishing you’d gone out to the Ballpark more to watch this master craftsman at work, and that includes this lost summer.

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Basketball News

Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man for the Dallas Mavericks

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Cooper Flagg, newest Dallas Mavericks pick

Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man in Dallas. The Mavericks took the Duke forward with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft on June 25, hoping they have found their next franchise superstar less than five months after trading one away.

Mavericks fans were furious when Dallas traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on February 1, some immediately threatening to end their support of the team.

But the ones who stuck around may quickly love Flagg, the college player of the year who averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds while leading Duke to the Final Four. The Mavericks quickly announced that Flagg would wear No. 32 in Dallas, where fellow Duke products Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II are on the roster.

“I’m really excited. I think I keep saying I’m excited to be a sponge, to get down there and just learn, be surrounded by Hall of Fame-caliber guys and just to be able to learn from them,” Flagg said. “It’s going to be an incredible experience.”

His selection — considered likely ever since Flagg showed off his considerable game last summer after being invited to the U.S. Olympic team's training camp — was a daylong celebration in his home state for the 18-year-old forward from Newport, Maine.

“It means a lot to me to have the support of the whole state. I know how many people showed up today and supported me at some of the draft parties back home,” Flagg said. “It feels amazing knowing I can inspire younger kids. I was in their shoes really not that long ago, so just to know I can give those kids those feelings and have the whole state behind me, it means a lot.”

Basketball up-and-comer Cooper FlaggGetty Images

The backstory
Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts wasn't thinking even for a second about Cooper Flagg when he started a staff meeting before the draft lottery by saying the club was entering the most important offseason in franchise history.

The longtime NBA executive and relatively new leader on the business side of the Mavs was thinking about the lingering fallout of the widely reviled Luka Doncic trade, not the club turning a 1.8% chance into winning the rights to draft the teenaged star from Duke.

“Never, ever did anybody in our organization ever even say what would happen if we win. That's a waste of time,” Welts told The Associated Press recently. “Like, it's unbelievable. It was hard to even get your head around.”

The self-inflicted wounds were numerous after general manager Nico Harrison's stunning decision to send Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in early February.

Fans were incensed. Season-ticket holders were canceling. Potential new sponsors were telling Welts they'd have to think about it.
Just like that, the Mavs had a vision to sell of a potential superstar who could someday be the face of the franchise — as Doncic was, and fellow European superstar Dirk Nowitzki before him. Just like that, despair turned to hope for plenty of people, including those under Welts who had spent weeks dealing with the wrath of a spurned fan base.

Before the Doncic trade, Welts had already made a decision to raise season-ticket prices. He told the AP he had to back off on the size of the increase as he watched the visceral reaction unfold.

Welts has seen plenty in nearly 50 years with the NBA, including time in the league office and stints with Phoenix and Golden State. That's not to say the Doncic fallout didn't have a profound impact on the 72-year-old Welts, who had come out of retirement to replace Cynt Marshall just a month and a half earlier. It just means he has weathered a few storms.

And now the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer isn't so sure he's ever seen the sun come back out so quickly.

“The thing that I learned through all of this experience was what I knew was like this amazing emotional tie between this team and these fans was even stronger than I think anybody who hadn’t lived here and been a part of it could ever imagine,” Welts said. “Just the outpouring of pure joy and the idea of a generational player that could change our fortunes for the next 15 years would land with us by pure luck.”

Part of what made the Doncic deal so hard to believe was unloading a 25-year-old superstar in his prime nine months after leading Dallas to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years. The Mavs lost to Boston in five games last June.

Harrison's reasoning was prioritizing defense, and his belief that Davis and Irving were a good enough tandem to keep Dallas as a championship contender. Flagg's potential gave that notion a boost.

“I feel like I’m a broken record, but the team that we intended to put on the floor, which you guys saw for 2 1/2 quarters, that’s a championship-caliber team,” Harrison said. “And so you might not like it, but that’s the fact, it is.”

Welts, who believes the Mavs have work to do to bring their basketball and business sides together, will spend plenty of time during the early days of the Flagg era sharing his vision for a new arena.

It's a big reason Welts took the job, after spending seven years with Golden State on an arena plan that moved the Warriors across the bay to San Francisco from Oakland. He says all the talks are focused on keeping the team in Dallas.

While the casino-centered Adelson and Dumont families of Las Vegas, in the middle of their second full year as owners of the Mavs, wanted gambling to be part of the formula for a new arena, the political realities in Texas have shifted the focus away from that idea for now.

There's a new focus for Welts in what seems certain will be the final stop in an eventful NBA career: building everything around another potentially generational star after the Mavs jettisoned the one they had.

“Don't make this sound like I'm suggesting that everyone is forgiven,” Welts said. “Luka will always be a big part of what this organization is. But for a large number of fans, it is a pathway — it's not a pathway, it's like a four-lane highway into being able to care about the Mavericks the way they cared about the Mavericks before.”

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