Here's how Texas honored 'Mr. Ranger'

This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry's Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe_ _to get it regularly in your inbox.

ARLINGTON -- Tom Grieve admittedly wasn’t happy to leave Washington, D.C., after the 1971 MLB season.

An outfielder for the Washington Senators, and a born-and-raised New England kid, Grieve did not know Texas. But soon enough, the entire Senators squad would grow to love Texas, and Grieve would become one of the most beloved figures in franchise history, soon to be nicknamed Mr. Ranger.

Maybe it was the Southern hospitality, maybe it was the not-so-freezing winters back then, but whatever it was, Texas soon became home.

“I think for all of us that didn't want to come to Texas in the first place, it was almost instantaneous,” Grieve said about when he started to appreciate the relocation. “I mean as soon as we got here, there was something about it that was different from where we came from. ... I think what I liked the most was the fans. We didn't have many in the first couple years. There weren't many people coming, but the ones that did were passionate and loved baseball.

“It turned out that, yeah, we didn't want to come here, but once we got here we would never have wanted to go back. It was great and I’m so happy it happened.”

So happy that Grieve was almost a Rangers lifer.

He played for the Rangers from 1972 through '77 before joining the Texas front office in 1980. He started off as a color commentator for the television broadcasts during that season and took over as general manager in '84, a job he served in until 1995. He has since continued his work on the Rangers television broadcasts, though he has split color duties with C.J. Nitkowski since 2017.

In all, Grieve, who announced his retirement last week, spent 56 seasons in baseball -- 55 of which came with the Rangers/Senators. In his honor, the City of Arlington proclaimed Sunday as Tom Grieve Day. Mayor Jim Ross presented Grieve with a proclamation from the city prior to the Rangers’ matchup against Cleveland.

“It’s a huge deal,” Grieve joked. “The fact that I'm retiring is kind of a natural progression. But the fact that the Rangers are having this weekend and this whole thing ... is an incredible thrill for them. It's very meaningful for me too.”

When asked jokingly by a member of the media if his single season with the Mets in 1978 was miserable, Grieve admitted it was not good for his career.

But the silver lining of his year in Queens was that he got to sit on the bench with Bobby Valentine, whom he would eventually hire as the Rangers manager in 1985.

“I lived with Bobby for most of that season,” Grieve said. “We sat on a bench together and we talked baseball together and it led to, well you know, all the things that happened after that. I got to play for Joe Torre, which was an incredibly positive experience. We had a lousy team. … So that part of it, the baseball part wasn't great. But, spending that summer with Bobby, having Joe Torre for a manager and the fact the reality is that I was still a big league player. You got to play big league baseball every day. It was still a worthwhile experience.”

Of all the worthwhile experiences Grieve encountered in his career, he pointed to a couple that stand out above all else: The first being his big league debut.

The second, arguably a bigger deal, was broadcasting one of his son’s games. Tom and Ben Grieve were the first father-and-son combo to be selected in the first round of the MLB Draft, Tom, sixth overall by the Senators in 1966, and Ben, second overall by Oakland in '94.

It wasn’t Ben’s first game in the big leagues, and not the first he had even been to, but to be on the call for that game, Mr. Ranger's son facing the Rangers, was a special moment.

“He, as well as my other son, I think shared the same dream that I had when they were young,” Tom Grieve said. “ I didn't have to push them to play baseball. That's all they wanted to do. To see him go up, and get the chance to become a baseball player, and then come back here and play [in Arlington], I kept saying to myself, 'How, what am I going to say, when [he] comes to bat?' And for the most part, I didn't say anything.

“I didn't play in an All-Star Game. I didn't play in the postseason or anything like that. So those two things were easy.”

So now, after 56 years, Grieve -- the man who was a Ranger before the Rangers were even the Rangers -- gets to ride off into the sunset of retirement. He’ll spend time with his family, try for his fourth rewatch of his favorite show, “Friday Night Lights,” or maybe just do nothing.

Whatever he decides to do, he’s still Mr. Ranger.

“I'm going to do the same thing I've been doing,” Grieve said when asked of his post-retirement plans. “Once I stopped doing all the games, and I've gradually gotten down to the amount I'm on now, I've been retired most of the time anyway, as a broadcaster. I found I'm not a Type A personality. At the end of the day, if I haven't done anything, I don't feel bad about it. I've got plenty of grandkids to keep me busy. So I’ve got a routine, I work out, I have things I like to watch on TV, I do a lot of traveling. And that routine works great for me.”