ARLINGTON -- Rangers right-hander Tony Barnette is a believer that people are a product of their environment. For the better part of the last six years, his environment was Tokyo, Japan, as a closer for the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball.
Barnette, a 32-year-old rookie this season, called his time in Japan was a transformative process.
"Ages 26 to 32 -- that's pretty much half of my adult life in a foreign country," Barnette said. "If I'm not going to change in that situation, I don't know when I would. That's a lot of time, and a pretty important time, in anybody's development in life.