The alarm bells are ringing. The MLB world has noticed. And it isn’t pretty.

The Texas Rangers are among the worst clubs in baseball. Yes, the defending World Series champions are dwelling in the proverbial cellar.

The latest Power Rankings from MLB.com place the Rangers at No. 22 among the 30 teams. That’s the lowest point for Texas this season.

When the Rangers won the World Series last year, it didn’t seem like some sort of out-of-nowhere thing: They had a ton of young talent, spent smartly to improve the roster and seemed to have a solid foundation. But now that they’re eight games under .500, it should be noted that, if they can’t get over .500 by season’s end, they’ll have notched only one winning season since 2016: last year, when they won that World Series.

– MLB.com

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The championship is seemingly more of an anomaly than the Rangers turning the corner to be considered among the top franchises in baseball. Is the Texas title a fluke?

There is still plenty of time to turn it around and make a run at the division title, which is the best bet for the Rangers to reach the playoffs. The Wild Card route appears out of reach.

The two teams the Rangers are trying to catch in the American League West are considerably higher on the list. The streaking Houston Astros – once left for dead early this season – are ranked No. 11. The Seattle Mariners check in at No. 12.

As for the rest of the AL West, the Oakland Athletics fall in at No. 26 and Los Angeles Angels are No. 27.

Catch up with Texas Rangers on SI on Facebook and X. 

AUSTIN, Texas — State lawmakers heard from the public Monday as the push to get Gov. Greg Abbott’s priority legislation over the finish line next session takes shape. After the March primary, Abbott claimed he has the votes to pass private school vouchers next session. 

The House Committee on Public Education heard from a panel of out-of-state private school voucher stakeholders. 

“I urge policymakers to avoid including onerous regulations that drive away quality private schools,” said Dr. Patrick Wolf, a professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas. 

Some Republican lawmakers are once again pushing legislation to create an education savings account program which would allow parents to use public tax dollars to help pay for private schools. Opponents worry it would take away from public school funding.  

Last fall, Abbott refused to sign bills to increase school districts per-pupil funding without a voucher provision. 

“The basic allotment actually does not even represent the majority of funding that school systems receive,” said Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath. 

While hearing from Morath, one Republican representative claimed multiple streams of funding create an adequate amount for school districts. 

“It would be correct to say that we did have a significant increase in per-pupil spending,” said Rep. Brian Harrison, R-House District 10. 

Harrison claims the state can afford to divert dollars meant for public education to accounts which families can use for private school. But Democratic lawmakers argue that there is not an increase in funding when accounting for inflation. 

“The Legislative Budget Board shows that in inflation-adjusted dollars, funding has dropped $590 per student over the last 10 years,” said Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-House District 49.  

Many members of the public reminded lawmakers that many school districts are facing a budget deficit and urged the state to do something about it. 

“The Legislature had a $30-plus billion budget surplus to try to restore the funding for these school districts, and yet they spent it on border protection, they spent it on the grid,” said Carl Jones with Grandparents for Public Schools. 

But public-school funding got caught in the crosshairs with the voucher push and both ultimately failed. That led Gov. Abbott to campaign against fellow Republicans who tanked his voucher plan. He was largely successful and says he now has the votes to pass voucher legislation next year. Some primary winners still have to face Democrats in the November election, but most are in safe GOP districts.

“A lot of parents want to see their kids go to schools that align with their family values,” said Mary Elizabeth Castle with Texas Values.  

There was no formal mention of an educational savings account bill, but such legislation is expected to be introduced next session, which begins in January.

This year’s Paris Olympics were a fantastic showing of athletic prowess, comeback stories, camaraderie and friendship, and Texas athletes helped more than we could have hoped to make that possible.

Nineteen Texas athletes won 28 of the United States’ 126 medals, according to The Washington Post. Current and former University of Texas student-athletes won 16 medals, including six gold, according to UT. The number of medals won by athletes with Texas ties is higher still, according to The Dallas Morning News SportsDay team.

That’s worth celebrating. And this year’s games came with a few comeback stories that have made us positively giddy.

Sha’Carri Richardson, the 24-year-old Dallas track star and finalist for our 2023 Texan of the Year award, proved she still has her stride. After she was suspended from the Tokyo Olympics for testing positive for THC, Richardson this year helped lead the U.S. to a gold medal in the women’s 4x100m relay final, Dallas Morning News columnist Kevin Sherrington reported from Paris.

Brittney Griner made a great comeback as well. Two years ago, Griner was imprisoned in a Russian penal colony, unsure of whether she would ever get home, let alone play basketball again.

But a 2022 prisoner swap brought her back stateside after spending 10 long months in prison, and this year, Griner did better than just compete in the Olympics again. She helped bring home a gold medal for the U.S. women’s basketball team in a nail-biter of a game against France, marking the team’s eighth consecutive gold medal in the event.

And who could forget about the woman who is perhaps the greatest gymnast of our time? She calls herself “Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, that loves to flip,” Sherrington reported. After withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics for mental health reasons, she brought home three gold medals and a silver this year.

If winning a silver medal in the Olympics can be called a defeat, Biles showed extraordinary graciousness in it. After the floor exercise event, she called Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who won the gold, “queen,” Sherrington reported.

There have been a couple of sour notes, like the dispute over a bronze medal involving Jordan Chiles and Romanian Ana Barbosu in the floor exercise. But even still, the Olympic games, and the athletes who made them so wonderful to watch, reminded us why these events mean more than medals. They are about people who come together despite differences of culture, language and politics.

They set the example of graciousness in victory and in defeat.

In an age when many of us don’t watch the same things or talk about the same things, these Olympics brought us together. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that a little unity can go a long way, especially with divisions all around us.

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