Astros owner Drayton McLane confirmed Saturday afternoon he has given Nolan Ryan permission to speak wih the Texas Rangers about a front-office position. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Saturday's editions that Ryan, 60, who's in the fifth year of five-year personal services contract with the Astros and is a special assistant to the general manager, met with Rangers owner Tom Hicks, his son Tom Hicks Jr., and club vice president Jim Sundberg over lunch for 90 minutes Friday in Georgetown. Among the topics discussed, according to the paper, was the Rangers' opening for a president of business operations. "He's going to get back to me after he's had time to visit with Tom," said McLane, who returned to his home in Temple on Friday after a business trip to Poland and Germany. "That's a business job, not a baseball job. If somebody thinks they can get a better job, we won't stand in their way." The Rangers have been searching for a new president of business operations since Jeff Cogen left to join the NHL's Dallas Stars, also owned by Hicks. Hicks called McLane a few weeks ago to ask persmission to talk to Ryan. "Tom asked if he could just talk to Nolan," McLane said. "Nolan said he would sit down and talk to him, and I haven't heard anything since Nolan asked me." Ryan spent nine seasons with the Astros from 1980-1988 before finishing his 27-year career with five years in Arlington, where he struck out his 5,000th batter and threw his sixth and seventh no-hitters. Ryan, who is the ownership group of the Astros' Class AAA affiliate in Round Rock and Class AA affiliate in Corpus Christi, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with a Rangers cap on his plaque. Ryan will be at Minute Maid Park beginning Monday for the four-day Nolan Ryan Elite Camp and Jeff Bagwell Elite Camp. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5488528.html
Nolan for President of Business? It takes a lot of people YEARS to reach that status AFTER they get their MBA.
