NYT Melts Down Over Texas Rangers Statue Outside... Texas Rangers' Stadium

The New York Times and its sports section, The Athletic, has found its newest outrage target: a statue of a Texas Ranger outside Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers. Seriously.

That was the basis for Sam Blum's 2,000-plus-word Wednesday piece about the Rangers installing the "One Riot, One Ranger" statue at the ballpark. Fellow Athletic writer Stephen J. Nesbitt piled on by calling it a "deeply controversial" statue and capping off his post with the always-serious journalistic flourish: "Yikes."

He also called Blum's article "important work." Yes, we need more sports journalists doing deep dives on… statues outside stadiums. These guys are really putting those journalism degrees to work.  

OutKick founder Clay Travis responded the way plenty of normal sports fans probably did.

"It's a statue of a Texas Ranger at a Texas Rangers stadium," Travis wrote on X, blasting The Athletic for treating the whole thing like Pulitzer Prize-worthy reporting. 

Hard to improve on that, but I'll try. 

Blum's story lays out the historical argument critics (read: left-wingers who make a living out of finding everything offensive) are making. The perpetually-angry "activists" say the statue is tied to former Texas Ranger Jay Banks, the law enforcement officer associated with blocking school integration in Mansfield in 1956. The article does note that there's dispute whether the statue actually depicts Banks. 

The piece also notes the statue had previously been removed from Dallas Love Field in June 2020 and that local activists and community leaders want it taken down from Globe Life Field.

Keep in mind: the statue came down during the "Summer of Love" when Black Lives Matter activists were burning American cities to the ground and basically demanding that all American history be erased. The statue removal from Dallas Love Field came at a time that practically any statue that depicted a white person was at risk of being removed, defaced or destroyed. The Athletic tries to make a point that the statue being taken out of the airport is a signal it shouldn't exist anywhere, publicly. But that ignores the broader context of 2020. 

The Athletic Presents Moral Outrage as "Important" Journalism 

What The Athletic did here wasn't simply present history and let readers judge it. It wrapped the entire story in the kind of self-important tone that has become all too common in legacy sports media. Every perceived "microaggression" becomes an opportunity for a left-wing writer to climb onto their moral high ground and lecture the "uninformed" public. Is it any wonder Americans are rejecting the sanctimonious legacy media? 

The article blasts the Rangers organization for not responding to The Athletic's request for comment. Why would they comment? They knew exactly what The Athletic was going to write, and it turned out that The Athletic wrote exactly that. By the way, the Rangers released a statement the day the statue was unveiled and probably didn't feel like more was necessary. 

"The Texas Rangers have long occupied a revered place in Texas history dating to the creation of the organization over 200 years ago, before the days of the Republic of Texas. While the ‘One Riot, One Ranger’ statue commemorates the legend surrounding the agency's involvement in the stoppage of an unsanctioned Dallas prize fight in 1896, it also stands as a tribute to all who have served the organization over its storied history," the statement read, in part. 

New York Times-owned entity The Athletic’s posted a lengthy article about the Texas Rangers’ One Riot, One Ranger statue and put their left-wing bias on full display.

(Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images)

The New York Times-owned media outlet didn't include that statement. It did, however, include quotes from multiple outraged local "activists," including the chairman of the NAACP Arlington chapter. Gee, wonder what his thoughts are on the issue? 

Why post the article on April 15? Why, to remind everyone that it's Jackie Robinson Day! Oh, and he also decided to note that the Rangers don't host a Pride Night and opened at full capacity in 2021 when many organizations were sticking to unnecessary COVID lockdowns. Those two notes are apropos of nothing, except the author wants to paint the Rangers organization as being right-leaning. 

How dare they! Don't they know that the sports media is overwhelmingly left-wing, and they won't get glowing news coverage if they don't conform to the narrative?!

The inclusion of the Pride Night and 2021 COVID lockdown points showed that this story wasn't even just about a statue. It was an attempt to stack all culture-war grievances on top of the Rangers and call it accountability.

That doesn't mean every fan has to support the statue. People can disagree, protest, pressure the team and demand the statue come down. That's all fair game and part of the freedom of speech we all enjoy as Americans. 

The problem is that The Athletic is acting like it did some piece of excellent investigative journalism and then presenting it as unbiased reporting. Neither is true. 

This is exactly the kind of coverage that continues to alienate sports fans from legacy outlets. It's grandstanding and virtue-signaling disguised as reporting. 

It's not the statue that deserves a "yikes," Mr. Nesbitt; it's your colleague's article.