The Success and Business Ventures of Former Rangers Player, C.J. Wilson

“I like to follow the progress of Rangers. I’m happy every time I see a team I played for have success,” says the man who also wore the colors of the Anaheim Angels. “And next year, the Rangers will be even better with all these young players. And imagine if Jacob DeGrom hadn’t gotten injured early in the season. It would be impossible to stop them if he was on the mound! »

Even though the Rangers didn’t win the World Series in 2010 and 2011, Wilson doesn’t hesitate to call those finals the greatest moments of his 11-year big league career.

Good performance

“There’s nothing like the feeling of playing for the championship in front of a full stadium. Once in the final, it’s something very difficult and you tend to give yourself a bad mark at the time after a defeat whereas, years later, you can have a more accurate vision of things”, explains the who had three good starts and an excellent outing in relief for a 2.95 earned run average in the World Series.

“Let’s be honest, in 2010 against the San Francisco Giants, we got outclassed on the mound. There was nothing we could do,” admits Wilson about his first appearance in the final.

“The second time (against the St. Louis Cardinals), we only had one win left to win. Just one, but it’s always the hardest. We made a lot of mistakes and we lost the last two. At that moment, I couldn’t have known that it was the last time I would experience this,” Wilson said.

Business success

“And I would add that being a little bitter about not having won the World Series helped me later to be successful in business,” explains the man who now runs an Audi and Porsche dealership in Fresno, in California.

“I’ve been at this since 2012, but full-time since I retired from baseball. This sport taught me so many things that serve me today. Like baseball, business has a schedule that never stops and you rarely have days off,” Wilson explains.

“And it takes a lot of work to build something. I also learned to work better as a team thanks to teammates like Michael Young and the fact that the Rangers have done such a good job in developing young players also inspired me,” he analyzes.

Straight edge

Another aspect of Wilson’s personality that contributed to his success on the field and in business was his adoption at an early age of the straight edge philosophy, developed by punk singer Ian MacKaye with his former band Minor Threat, who consists of abstaining from alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

“At a very young age, I saw members of my family having problems with drugs and alcohol and, as an athlete with high aspirations, I also saw several guys fail the test from outside the terrain, he illustrates. For me, at the beginning, it was a philosophy like in martial arts. The music came later. »

“You know, when I was a kid, I watched guys like Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry play, talented players who fell out of favor because of drugs. I preferred to take inspiration from a guy like Nolan Ryan, who always stayed away from that,” continues the man who was also the teammate of Josh Hamilton, whose life was marked by several problems linked to abuse. of substances.

“Josh is the most special player I have seen in baseball besides Shohei Ohtani. He was even better than all the stars in the league. It’s very sad, because when you manage to get rid of an addiction, you can’t use again and think that you won’t suffer the repercussions. If you want to succeed, you have to constantly work on refining your approach and your art,” concludes Wilson.

THE NUMBER

2

Number of game-clinching wins for Texas Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi in the season-ending playoffs this year. After eliminating the Tampa Bay Rays in a 7-1 first-round victory, the Texan put the final nail in the Orioles’ coffin this week with another 7-1 victory. The one who won the World Series in 2018 with the Boston Red Sox allowed only two runs in 13 2/3 innings, striking out eight rays and seven sparrows.

THE GRAND SLAM

Cuban outfielder Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros breaks everything in the end-of-season series. Before Wednesday’s game against the Twins, he led the majors with 6 hits in 12, all more than one base, namely two doubles and four home runs, as well as six RBIs. His four home runs tie Juan Gonzalez’s 1996 and Bob Robertson’s 1971 record for most home runs in the first three postseason games.

GOLDEN HAT

It’s hard to have a worse start than Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers last Saturday against the surprising Arizona Diamondbacks. The man Vin Scully called “the best they have” allowed a hit to each of the first five batters he faced, including a three-run homer to Gabriel Moreno, and left the game having given up six runs and n having retired only one batter in this crushing 11-2 defeat. His earned run average in the playoffs this year? A nice 162.00…

2023-10-15 08:35:17
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