It's Mid-May and Guess Who's Still Employed?

By RANDY GALLOWAY

Keeping it honest...

Go ahead and admit you had May 15 as the baseball date Ron Washington wouldn't see in Arlington, a month and a half into this season.

He'd be fired by yesterday. The cocaine thing in spring training, combined with an over-hyped team, fueled by Nolan Ryan throwing around his "92 wins" expectations, seemingly put Washington on an early collision course with unemployment.

And that was even before the games started, before so much went wrong for the Rangers. And don't underestimate how much did go wrong in April and into May, and is still going wrong.

Speaking of wrong, see Rich Harden, the team's big-ticket pitcher from last winter. He's a serious waste of money for a club that was squeezing dimes last winter just to sign Harden.

Plus, the rotation failure of Scooter Feldman is a major blow.

But through it all -- and with pitching surprises named C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis -- ol' Ron, he tricked us again. So, of course, have the Rangers, at least from the standpoint of all the issues that conspired against any early success on the field.

As of Saturday, the team has hit another shallow ditch, with back-to-back losses in Toronto, but you know what, even with the ongoing give-and-take on Washington's managerial work, which is separate from that volatile cocaine thing, this guy is good at what he does.

Or, basically, really good at some of the key elements that lead to managerial shelf life, and go beyond the basic component, which comes down to how much talent is a manager blessed with.

Ron owns the clubhouse. That's his No. 1 skill.

Players play for Ron. If you don't respect Ron, the clubhouse does. Why?

"Communication skills and his honesty," said Jackie Moore, the team's bench coach, and someone who has been in pro baseball for 50 years. "Ron is so damn honest, it's sometimes to a fault."

(I know what you are thinking right now. If Washington is that honest, why didn't he admit last season, or certainly in the off-season, about the cocaine thing? The answer is it was an organizational decision to keep it quiet. A big mistake as it turned out, but also a decision that was taken out of Washington's hands.)

More from Moore: "When something goes wrong, and it always will in this game, Ron is like a duck coming out of water. He shakes himself, and here he goes again, jumping right back in there. He's always the first to admit he was wrong.

"Ron is a very genuine, good person. Don't think there aren't values there. He's a baseball lifer who understands the culture of a major-league clubhouse from a player's standpoint, a coach's standpoint and now a manager's standpoint. The outsider might not understand how important that is."

That's interesting, coming from Moore, who himself has been a manager on all levels, including the majors. Jackie has been everywhere and seen it all in baseball. Which is why Ryan used executive power before the '09 season to name Moore as Washington's top assistant, the same thing Nolan did with the hiring of pitching coach Mike Maddux.

It's accurate to say Ron was initially uneasy with both those moves, sensing job security threats. It's also accurate to say that over the course of last season, and certainly now, Ron's two most trusted advisers are Moore and Maddux.

Washington wants input, he wants to hear other opinions. He's not dug in, he's not scared to fail, nor scared to say "blame me." Which is also why Washington's managerial career in Arlington is going longer, now into the fourth season, than many of us, starting with me, expected.

Certainly a lot of people also overdid it on predicting his early demise this season, including an abundance of "shortest leash in the majors" proclamations on Washington.

Honestly, I didn't think so.

No. 1, Ryan himself said before Opening Day, "I have more faith in Ron than I've ever had." That was a message that Washington had earned Ryan's respect.

No. 2, if management didn't can Washington after the cocaine thing surfaced (which I thought they would do), then it'd look silly to put him on a short leash for the regular season.

Management had gone to great lengths to support Washington in his self-inflicted cocaine ordeal, with Nolan being the strongest voice, which both surprised and disappointed probably a majority of the fandom.

But maybe more important, the players had also gone above and beyond in their support of Washington after the cocaine thing went public.

Second-guessing managerial decisions is a God-approved right in baseball. Ron gets plenty of that, some of it deserved, and most of it as intense as ever seen with a local manager.

But never forgiving him for the cocaine thing is your choice.

Then again, here it is, mid-May, and with everything that has gone wrong in so many areas, the Rangers are hanging tough.

Asked on local ESPN radio (The Ben and Skin Show) the other morning to grade himself so far, Washington's answer made me laugh.

"I think I'm doing a great job," he quickly answered.

Well... OK.

If not great, Ron at least deserves plenty of credit. If you're keeping it honest, you will admit that.