The Dallas Morning News
Texas Rangers manager Jeff Banister and bench coach Steve Buechele watch a spring training game against the Kansas City Royals at Surprise Stadium on Thursday, March 3, 2016, in Surprise, Ariz. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News)
SURPRISE, Ariz. -- So you've pulled yourself up baseball's ladder, from high school catcher who'd rather risk dying than lose a foot to cancer; to college catcher paralyzed from a home plate collision; to professional player who gets exactly one big league at-bat; to baseball lifer, managing the Pirates' Welland club in the New York-Penn League, a place you do everything but take tickets, a place so far from the big leagues, as Jeff Banister once put it, "The South Pole is closer to Pittsburgh than Welland.