ELVIS is Gone to Oakland, of all places!

The Trade: Oakland Athletics send outfielder/designated hitter Khris Davis and catcher Jonah Heim and right-handed pitcher Dane Acker to Texas Rangers for shortstop Elvis Andrus and Catcher Aramis Garcia and cash considerations.

It was probably time to bid good-bye to a player, who has been a crowd favorite for twelve years now, a player who has been full of enthusiasm and a little bit of childish mischief at times, a player who bonded oh, so well, so very well with Adrian Beltre, who seemed to become a type of big brother or father figure to him, a player who has been reliably consistent and not a trouble-maker at all, a player who may well be returned one day to enter the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame.

Let us take a quick look at the statistics of ELVIS ANDRUS and his rank on the all-time list of Rangers. 1st in “stolen bases” with 305- ----2nd in “triples” with 48; in “sacrifice hits” with 100; in “at-bats” with 6,366; in “games played” with 1,652-- ---3rd in “runs scored” with 893; in base hits with 1,743- ----5th in “total bases” with 2,370-----8th in RBI with 636. Not too shabby, I would say!

As the Rangers Organization moves forward, as any business must to survive, Andrus will always remain alive in the group’s past.

And apparently, even though he was no longer going to be the shortstop, he was going to get a “strong look” at 3rd base, but there were to be no guarantees other than, at least at this point, he was still a Ranger until his contract ran out! To go from being “the man” to being “the substitute” is a hard thing to take, even if it is “your choice,” but even harder if it is someone else’s! Elvis did not oppose the trade!

According to newspaper accounts of the trade (between Texas and Oakland), the deal is a “swapping of ‘bad contracts’ and making the money wash.” I may be a dreamer, but I bet Elvis goes the way of most players who are told “it is time,” but do not believe that it is “quite yet.” Most of them find out that it was! I hope Elvis Andrus is not one of them! And, I hope Davis has a season or two left of the home-run hitting slugger I always feared would knock one out against the Rangers each time he came to town!

And I am really going to miss seeing Elvis rubbing the head of his beloved mentor, Adrian Beltre!