Boys of Arlington: Nelson Cruz deserves better place in Texas Rangers history

Editor’s note: In his second installment of the Boys of Arlington, retired beat writer T.R. Sullivan looks back at the glorious and tragic Texas Rangers career of outfielder Nelson Cruz.

Michael Young was the Texas Rangers’ lead story two days before the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis.

It was Sunday, the day before the All-Star break, and the All-Star Futures Game was scheduled for that afternoon. Young had been selected to the All-Star Game for the sixth straight year, but he was finally going to get to start because Evan Longoria of the Rays — elected as the starter by the fans — had to drop out because of injury.

I wrote the story and then was eating lunch at the hotel when Rangers public relations director Rich Rice called.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Nelson Cruz is going to the All-Star Game,” he said.

“What All-Star Game?” I asked.

It was an honest question. I was seriously racking my brain. Was there another All-Star Game being played in the Caribbean?

“The one in St. Louis,” Rice assured me.

It still took me a few seconds to comprehend. Young was at the All-Star Game. So was Josh Hamilton. But Cruz?

It never occurred to me. But Torii Hunter dropped out, and Cruz was next in line in the voting. Just one year after being left hanging on waivers by the Rangers, Cruz was on his way to the All-Star Game.

He didn’t get into the game, but they did let him participate in the Home Run Derby and he surprised people by finishing second behind Prince Fielder. Which shouldn’t have surprised people because Cruz had serious power. After all, Cruz had 25 home runs in 80 games at the break.

It just didn’t quite compute that Cruz was an All-Star back in 2009.

Then again, it also took a couple of minutes to adjust to what happened a few weeks ago when Cruz signed a one-day contract so he could retire as a Seattle Mariner.

The Mariners?

“I always identified myself as a Mariner, even though I played more years as a Ranger,” Cruz said.

He played more years with the Rangers than any of the other seven organizations he was a part of in his 19-year career. That much is true. But there is also something else undoubtedly true.

Painfully true. Seriously true.

There is still a segment of Rangers fans who could care less who Cruz retires with, as long as it is not Texas. A surprisingly significant segment, even after the Rangers won the World Series last year.

It’s not exactly a Bill Buckner/Red Sox situation. The flyball was over his head, not through his legs, and was scored a triple rather than an error.

But there are still real and bitter feelings lingering with some over what happened on that October night in 2011 when the Rangers were — all together now, repeat after me — one strike away.

Of course, what happened two years after that also doesn’t sit well with some Rangers fans, that being Cruz’s 50-game suspension for performance enhancing drugs coming at a really bad time.

Is there a good time? No.

Still, it all seems so sad — almost tragic — after all these years that Cruz seems divorced and forgotten by Rangers Nation despite so much good that happened during his time in Arlington.

Consider the tremendous back story about the tortuous journey Cruz took to get into the Rangers lineup in 2009 and be picked for the All-Star Game.

Consider he was a huge part of those two pennant-winning teams, and his performance in the 2011 American League Championship Series remains one of the greatest single-series performances in MLB history.

Consider that Cruz is one of the nicest guys to ever wear the Rangers uniform, as gentle, soft-spoken and accommodating off the field as he was powerful swinging the bat on the field. Cruz was named the 2010 winner of the Harold McKinney Good Guy Award by the local BBWAA writers, and he deserved it much as anybody who ever took home the trophy.

Look, deciding on the Harold McKinney winner every year is one of the more pleasurable tasks writers are asked to do, and being able to give it to Cruz was especially gratifying.

Like so many other iconic Rangers players who left the club abruptly and unceremoniously, Cruz deserves to have a better legacy written about him than cruel one that currently exists in the minds of many who have a hard time processing what happened in 2011.

Boys of Arlington: Elvis Andrus

Long road to Arlington

Cruz started out with the Mets over 26 years ago, signed in 1998 out of the Dominican Republic. Then he was traded to the Athletics for Jorge Valencia. Then he was traded to the Brewers for Keith Ginter before he found himself on the Rangers’ radar screen.

That was in the summer of 2006. Cruz was 26 years old and playing in Triple A Nashville for the second straight year. He had been the Brewers Minor League Player of the Year in 2005, earning him five September at-bats in the big leagues. But by the end of July 2006, he was stuck in Nashville while the Brewers used Carlos Lee and Geoff Jenkins as their corner outfielders.

Lee was an underrated player with limited postseason exposure — three games in 2000 — and numbers that didn’t stack up to big names in the steroid era. But he averaged 28 home runs and 105 RBIs for every 162 games over the course of his 14-year career without being tainted by performance enhancing drugs.

He was also a free agent after the season, had just turned down a four-year, $48 million extension, and the Brewers were out of contention. The Rangers weren’t, at least on July 28, with a 51-51 record and two games out of first place.

They acquired Lee from the Brewers for reliever Francisco Cordero, outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix and minor-league pitcher Julian Cordero (no relation). The Rangers also got Cruz in the deal. General manager Jon Daniels said getting Cruz was important even though most of the focus was on Lee.

“We looked at [the trade] as a win-now, win-later deal,” Daniels said, insisting thar Cruz had a chance, “to be a big-league corner outfielder for a long time.”

He was almost wrong on both accounts. The Rangers stumbled to an 80-82 record and Lee left as a free agent, signing a six-year, $100 million contract with the Astros. The Rangers made an effort to sign Lee, but in 2006 they were in no financial condition to sign anybody for $100 million.

Owner Tom Hicks was already showing signs of financial distress that would land the Rangers in bankruptcy court. Hence the Rangers’ desire to have Cruz included in the deal.

Curiously, they were willing to trade Mench, a quirky, charismatic fan favorite who was also a productive right-handed power hitter. He just wasn’t Lee and never was Cruz.

Cruz was almost not Cruz either.

A star for the taking

After the trade, Cruz played in 41 games for the Rangers and hit .223 with six home runs, 22 RBIs and a .385 slugging percentage. He made the Opening Day roster in 2007, though he was sharing playing time with experienced left-handed hitters Frank Catalanotto and Brad Wilkerson.

By the end of May, Cruz was hitting .193 with a .314 slugging percentage. He also had three home runs in 140 at-bats and was optioned to Triple A Oklahoma City. He returned for the final two months of the season and hit .276 with a .454 slugging percentage. That was better but hardly convincing.

Cruz entered spring training in 2008 out of options. He was 27 years old and either had to make the team or be exposed to outright waivers. His competition was Jason Botts, an equally underperforming left-handed power hitter who entered camp with a career .242 batting average and a.336 slugging percentage.

Botts won the job. Cruz was designated for assignment and placed on outright waivers at the end of spring training. Any team could have claimed him. Nobody did.

It could have been luck on the Rangers’ part. Or it could have been that clubs had their rosters set and weren’t interested in making a last-minute change for an underachieving right-handed hitter.

Cruz could have checked it in right then and there. Maybe he was still feeling good after leading the Dominican Republic to the Caribbean World Series title. Maybe it was the signature open stance that he started using. Cruz hit .407 in the Series and stayed hot in Oklahoma City.

He played in 104 games for the Redhawks and hit .342 with 37 home runs, 99 RBIs and a .695 slugging percentage. He was named the Pacific Coast League MVP. The Rangers didn’t call him back until the end of August, but he played in the final 31 games and hit .330 with a .609 slugging percentage.

Cruz was here to stay. On Opening Day, 2009, he was the Rangers’ cleanup hitter. It was the start of a memorable five-year run.

Yet, looking at the Rangers’ offensive records in the media guide, Cruz is notable by his absence among the Rangers offensive leaders. He is seventh all time with 157 home runs, but that is the only category in which he is among the career top 10. He is absent in slugging percentage and OPS.

Cruz was never the Rangers Player of the Year and was the Player of the Month just once, in May of 2009. The Good Guy Award in 2010, a tribute to the high esteem he was held by the media, is the biggest trophy he ever won in Arlington.

Cruz’s locker in spring training was in a remote corner of the clubhouse, away from the high traffic areas and the lockers of the high-profile players. It was my favorite spot, a place where I could post up and watch everything unobtrusively without getting in the way unnecessarily.

It also gave me the chance to talk quietly with Cruz far from the madding crowd. He was warm, welcoming, engaging, insightful and funny at all times without a cross moment.

Cruz’s absence from the Rangers leaderboards was because he was on the disabled list five times over two seasons in 2010-11 because of hamstring problems. He hit over 30 home runs just once in five seasons, and his 90 RBIs in 2012 were also his best as a Ranger.

An October to remember

When Cruz was in the lineup, he was a powerful presence, and the postseason showed that. He had six home runs and 11 RBIs over 16 games during the Rangers’ run to their first World Series. One of those home runs was a two-run shot in the sixth and deciding game of the 2010 American League Championship Series against the Yankees.

All of that was just a warmup for his magnus opus, the 2011 ALCS against the Tigers when the legend of the Boomstick was born. Cruz put on a power display that surpassed all the all-time greats, including Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson. All of them.

Cruz hit a home run in Game 1 off Justin Verlander that was the difference in the Rangers’ 3-2 victory. Then came Game 2.’

The Rangers trailed 3-2 into the seventh when Cruz hit a game-tying home run off Max Scherzer. The game went into extra innings, and Cruz won it with a grand slam off reliever Ryan Perry in the bottom of the 11th.

It is the only official walk-off grand slam in MLB postseason history. It was also the biggest home run in Rangers history until Corey Seager in Game 1 of the 2023 World Series. Cruz hit three more home runs before the series was over — including a three-run shot in the 11th in Game 4.

“When the team needed me, I delivered,” Cruz said. “It was amazing.”

His six home runs and 13 RBIs were ALCS records, and he was selected as the MVP.

“It was ridiculous,” said Hamilton, the 2010 ALCS MVP. “It was fun to watch. It’s one thing to be in the stands, but when you’re down here on the field with him you can see the intensity, you can see the focus. It’s exciting.”

Yet, almost tragically, all of that got pushed aside because of one play in the World Series. Everybody remembers it.

Cruz wasn’t having an especially memorable World Series against the Cardinals with just one home run while the Rangers won three of the first five games. But the Rangers had plenty of firepower in Game 6 and had a 7-5 lead going into the bottom of the ninth with Neftali Feliz on the mound.

Feliz started the inning by striking out Ryan Theroit. Albert Pujols doubled and Lance Berkman walked before Feliz struck out Allen Craig. The Rangers were one out away.

David Freese was up for the Cardinals, and the Rangers were playing “no doubles” defense in the outfield. That meant the outfielders were supposed to play deep enough to keep anything from going over their head and prevent the runner on first from scoring.

Manager Ron Washington ordered no doubles. Outfield Gary Pettis relayed it to his three outfielders. Then Feliz got two strikes on Freese, and Cruz made his fatal mistake.

“I thought he was going to choke up and just try to put the ball in play,” Cruz told me later. “So I moved up.”

Freese did not just try to put the ball in play. He drove it deep to right and over Cruz’s outstretched glove. Both runners scored as the ball caromed away for a triple, and the game was tied.

Another second-guess from that night was why Washington didn’t substitute Endy Chavez defensively for Cruz in the bottom of the ninth. Chavez, who had pinch hit for reliever Mike Adams in the top of the ninth, had more speed than Cruz.

Washington hadn’t done that all year. Cruz was adequate defensively with average range and a plus arm. Washington had no interest in pulling Cruz’s bat in a two-run game.

Yeah, Chavez has a better chance of running down the ball. So does Cruz is he doesn’t ignore the no-doubles edict.

What happened next gets overshadowed by that one play. Hamilton’s two-run home run in the top of the 10th gave the Rangers another two-run lead, but the Cardinals scored two in the bottom of the inning off relievers Darren Oliver and Scott Feldman.

Freese then won it with a leadoff home run in the 11th to send the Series to a seventh game, and the Cardinals wrapped it up with a 6-2 victory.

It was the most painful two nights in Rangers history, and the pain never did subside until they won it all last year. There were others who were culpable for the Rangers World Series.

You might say Cruz was hanged for the crimes of others.

What happened later was his own doing.

Scandal in Miami

Cruz’s explanation was he fell ill after the 2011 season, suffering from a gastronomical infection called helicobacter pylori. The illness weakened him significantly, and he turned to the Biogenesis clinic in Miami for help. He was given performance enhancing drugs, and they worked. Cruz returned to strength and never failed a drug test.

But then, in 2013, Biogenesis was exposed for being the shady operation that it was, and Cruz was discovered to be one of the clinic’s clients. After an MLB investigation, Cruz was suspended for 50 games with the punishment coming down on Aug. 5.

“I made an error in judgment that I deeply regret, and I accept full responsibility for it,” Cruz said. “I should have handled the situation differently, and my illness was no excuse.”

At the time, the Rangers were in second place in the AL West, 2 1/2 games behind the Athletics. The Rangers had already lost Hamilton, Young and Mike Napoli the previous winter and now were without their biggest power hitter. There were only 50 games left in the season.

The Rangers finished in a tie for the wild card and lost a playoff to the Rays. Cruz, back in the lineup, went hitless in four at-bats.

He was a free agent after the season, and the Rangers gave him the $14.1 million qualifying offer. Cruz turned it down and didn’t get a job until late February, when he signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Orioles. He was 33 years old, but over the next six years — with the Orioles, Mariners and Twins, he hit .285 with 244 home runs, 630 RBIs and a .555 slugging percentage.

For a guy who was 28 at the beginning of his first full season in the big leagues, Cruz ended up having a stellar career. He was a seven-time All-Star, and his 464 career home runs are 37th all time.

But for many Rangers fans, that’s not what they are going to remember him for, and that just doesn’t seem right.