FanHouse Tom Hicks

You know how you can purchase playoff tickets for your favorite teams even before they've qualified for the playoffs? It's a conditional thing, with the understanding that if your team fails to make the postseason you'll have your money refunded immediately. Of course, if you are a Texas Rangers fan, that understanding apparently doesn't apply.

According to Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News, the Rangers have emailed those who purchased playoff tickets that they won't be receiving a refund until "sometime in November." That's good to know, I'm sure. The Rangers were only eliminated from playoff consideration on Sept. 30. Why should the fans, who spent their own hard-earned cash, expect to get it back within six weeks? It's not like playoff tickets cost much.

The Texas Rangers were a popular darkhorse pick to win the AL West this season, and for a time they were leading the division. Unfortunately over the last few weeks they've seen their lead on the Angels disappear and are a game back going into Friday night's action. In fact, if you were so inclined, you could say that the Rangers' division lead has gone in the red.

Which seems somewhat apropos at the moment because it's not just their division lead that the Rangers couldn't maintain. Apparently owner Tom Hicks couldn't meet last month's payroll and had to borrow $15 million from Major League Baseball to pay his team.

Last week, Tom Hicks defaulted on a $10 million payment connected to $525 million in loans. Hicks played it off as an intentional, strategic maneuver, which seemed a questionable assertion at best.

The result of the missed payment is that Hicks will have to sit down with his creditors and figure out a payment plan or come to a new agreement, but, I don't know if you've heard that the economy isn't in such great shape nowadays, so trying to tap into the credit markets isn't exactly a viable option. In the end, this can lead to a situation in which Hicks has to give up his ownership of the Stars.

Former President George W. Bush will be kick-starting the Texas Rangers season from the pitcher's mound. When the Rangers square off against the Cleveland Indians on April 6, our country's former leader will be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.

It will be interesting to see how much Dubya has regressed since his last outing. You might recall him bringing a strike with decent velocity in Yankee Stadium back in the 2001 World Series. Last time we saw him throw, however, the results weren't nearly as pretty. He almost threw a wild pitch last season in the Nationals' opener.

Although it looks like Josh Hamilton isn't totally ready to stake his future in the Texas Rangers, that doesn't mean team owner Tom Hicks is going to stop his search for somebody to take some of the team off of his hands. While Hicks, who also owns the NHL's Dallas Stars and 50 percent of the English Premier League's Liverpool FC, isn't exactly bleeding money at the moment, he does see selling some of his share during these times to be prudent.

Hicks says that during times like these you want to "reduce your debt and diversify your investments" and there's no better way to do that than by finding somebody who is looking to take on debt while diversifying their investments during times like these.

Caveat emptor. I'm sure Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks was aware of the phrase prior to his signing of Sean Avery this past summer, and if he wasn't, he most certainly is now.

Avery, the NHL's super-pest, never seemed to fit in the Stars locker room after signing a four-year, $15.5 million deal, clashing with veterans and failing to produce much of anything on the ice in his brief, 23-game tenure in Dallas. Then came December 2, 2008, when the Stars visited Dion Phaneuf and the Calgary Flames.

There's not a lineup in the game that wouldn't benefit from the addition of Manny Ramirez. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of teams that could absorb his payroll, and even fewer clubhouses that could withstand his potential to rock the boat.

As such, the market for him has yet to completely develop. The Giants appear to be front-runners, and now that they're close to ridding themselves of Andruw Jones, the Dodgers seem ready to resume their pursuit. But according to SI's Jon Heyman, another team might join the mix: the Texas Rangers.

Before the rumor mill spins out of control, bear in mind that Heyman has merely stated that the Rangers "are considering a pursuit" of Manny, not that they've actually entered the race. Smart move by Heyman to hedge -- Rangers GM Jon Daniels told MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan "we're not pursuing Manny at this time," and a team source told Yahoo's Tim Brown that signing Ramirez was "unlikely."

Over at The Politico, reporters Ken Vogel and Matt Lindsey did plenty of scout work to determine that when it comes to owners of major league sports franchises, Republican Senator and presumptive GOP Presidential nominee John McCain is doing far better than his Democratic Party counterpart Barack Obama in the fundraising department:

Through the end of June, team owners in the four major sports and their families have given to or raised as much or more than $3.2 million for McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, compared with as much as $615,000 for his Democratic rival Obama, according to a Politico analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission, the campaigns and interviews.

Not only did McCain raise more than Obama from the owners in each of the four major professional sports leagues analyzed, but McCain even raised six times more from the owners of teams in Obama's hometown of Chicago.

As you might expect, there are a lot of familiar names thrown about here. But the most stunning revelation isn't revealed until far deeper into the piece -- apparently, most of the team owners who were big donors to the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have yet to make a contribution to the Obama campaign, perhaps an indication of some lingering resentment after a bruising primary season. Just one example is New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who donated $2,300 to Clinton's primary campaign, but has since made donations to McCain's join presidential campaign committee.

One notable exception to that seems to be Charlotte Bobcats owner Bob Johnson, who donated the $2,300 maximum to Clinton's campaign while "bundling" another $100,000 in contributions -- efforts that Johnson has since matched and then exceeded on behalf of the Obama campaign. And for those of you who might be wondering, Bobcats minority owner Michael Jordan donated $2,100 to Obama's primary campaign, but has yet to make a contribution to his general election bid.

The Rangers made a big move on Wednesday, signing one of the best pitchers of all-time. Will this finally turn around their woebegone rotation? Umm ... no. They signed Nolan Ryan to join their front office. We first heard that this was a possibility last month and it's expected to be officially announced later this afternoon.

Ryan had been "working" with the Houston Astros as a special assistant, a figurehead of a title that most likely means he showed up at various functions and made season ticket holders feel special. Does that make him qualified to run a team?

It may not actually matter, because no matter how prestigious "team president" sounds, it's not necessarily higher on the totem pole than GM Jon Daniels. As Evan Grant explains in the Dallas Morning News, owner Tom Hicks has both the president and general manager report directly to him. That's not to say that Ryan will continue being little more than a figurehead, but he'll certainly have a bit of cushion to learn the ropes as he goes along.

Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks may be pissing off a lot of people in England, but back here in his own country, Texas, Hicks is working on a deal that would be sure to please Rangers fans.

If you're ever visiting Cooperstown to see the Hall-of-Fame and come across Nolan Ryan's plaque, you'll see that he's donning a Texas Rangers cap. For the last few years though, Nolan has been working with the Houston Astros. Hicks would like to see that change, and recently met with Ryan to see if he'd be interested in the Rangers' vacant club president position.

Rangers owner Tom Hicks met with Nolan Ryan over lunch in Georgetown on Friday and might be trying to lure him away from the Houston Astros and back to the Rangers.

The bait might be the club presidency.

Said Ryan of the meeting,

"I would think, if the Rangers offered me a position that's a promotion, I would certainly visit with them," Ryan said.

"[The club presidency] didn't come up in exact terms," said Ryan, who just began the last year of a contract as a special assistant to the general manager with the Astros. "It was discussed that they were doing a search [for a new club president]."

A potential roadblock to any deal between Ryan and the Rangers though would be the fact that the two minor-league teams Nolan owns, Round Rock and Corpus Christi, are both Astros affiliates.