Ex-mayor honored for role keeping Rangers put

ARLINGTON – The Rangers staying in Arlington was not a sure thing. Not even close, not after manager Bobby Valentine had led the club to an unexpected 87-win season in 1986 and the Rangers were popular again.

Owner Eddie Chiles was struggling financially during a deep oil slump, Arlington Stadium was clearly an inadequate facility and other local cities were openly coveting the Rangers. Dallas officials were especially brazen with their intentions, but Plano, Addison and others were interested, as well.

Richard Greene found himself facing a huge challenge after being elected mayor of Arlington in 1987.

“I had absolutely no idea whatsoever,” Greene said. “I actually campaigned on a list of things that the city needed to address, and nowhere on that list was there anything about the Texas Rangers -- or the General Motors plant, for that matter. As things unfolded quickly, that became the dominant assignment for us to make sure we kept our Major League ballclub and status. That became dominant pretty quickly.”

Greene proved to be a formidable advocate for the city of Arlington, and that’s why he was inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame on Saturday night. The induction took place at Globe Life Park, which opened in 1994 because Greene made it clear there was absolutely no way the Rangers were going to leave Arlington on his watch.

“Just a period of time that was a turning point in the whole history of the city,” Greene said. “If we lose our ballclub, then everything changes about the future of Arlington. Today, we are sitting looking at the result of hanging on to our team and assuring that they are going to stay here. We were going to go backward, or we were going to go boldly into the future -- and that sounded like what we ought to be doing.”

There were some close calls, but the decisive battle began after the group headed by George W. Bush and Rusty Rose bought the team on March 18, 1989. Immediately, other cities made it known to the new owners that they were interested in the Rangers.

“The day that press conference was held, the next morning I picked up the Dallas Morning News and Times Herald and everything was all about the team was going to move to Dallas and get a new ballpark,” Greene said. “A new ballpark was going to be required as the future of this team unfolded with new ownership.

“There were diagrams of the locations in downtown where the ballclub was going to move to. So I’m kind of waving and saying, ‘Wait a minute. This is our team, and they are not going anywhere.’ It took quite a while to make sure everybody else got that message.”

The Rangers did. Tom Schieffer, part of the ownership group, was assigned by Rose and Bush to be the partner in charge of ballpark development. He eventually became club president.

It was the partnership between Schieffer and Greene that made the Ballpark in Arlington possible.

“We were very fortunate that we had men of integrity that were running that ownership group,” Greene said. “We all had one common focus, and that was to develop a win-win outcome where the team got what they needed and the city got what it needed and deserved, a partner that would help fund the new ballpark.”

Both sides realized that the Rangers would never be a successful franchise without getting a new ballpark.

“Three previous ownership groups over the [previous] 18 seasons had failed in their efforts to get the Rangers into postseason play,” Schieffer said. “Richard Greene knew that without a new ballpark, our group would meet the same fate. Mayor Greene told me we could find no better place to play than Arlington.

“I told him the Rangers preferred to stay in Arlington if we could work out a public/private partnership that would build a new ballpark. With that, Richard Greene became the engine that could for the city of Arlington.”

Funding for the ballpark was approved in January 1991 by Arlington voters, and it opened in 1994. Greene and his wife, Sylvia, did not miss a game for the first two seasons, and they remain devoted fans. They were there for two World Series and will be in attendance when the Rangers move into Globe Life Field next season.