If you are among the Seahawks fans worried about Russell Wilson making an appearance at Texas Rangers spring training, you can relax now.
Yes Wilson will be in uniform for the Rangers’ game in Surprise, Ariz., Monday, and sure he might take a few hacks in the batting cage or field a few ground balls, but Wilson isn’t going to see any game action.
“The guy hasn’t seen a pitch, he ain’t seen nothing,” Rangers manager Ron Washington told reporters Thursday. “I’m not running him up there. It ain’t going to happen.”
If you somehow missed it, or just needed a refresher, Wilson, who played minor league baseball in the Colorado Rockies’ farm system while in college, was selected by the Rangers in December’s Rule 5 draft. The Rangers didn’t take the Seahawks’ Pro-Bowl quarterback because they expect him to suddenly leave football behind, or because they think he’ll try to become a two-sport athlete; they did it because it was a cheap way to get a lot of publicity, and because they hope Wilson might be able to share some of his winning ways with Texas’ young players.
“We’ll bring him in, get him acclimated, let him meet some of the guys, maybe speak to them and just enjoy his day at the ballpark,” Washington said. “…Our intention is to bring him in and try to see if there’s anything he can say that can help anyone around here who has on a baseball uniform. The guy’s a winner, he has tremendous character, he has attitude, and obviously he has a lot of commitment to what the does. That’s what we’re about, and we just want him to feel comfortable.”
Washington does not, however, have any plans to test Wilson’s ability as a baseball player. As Washington noted, not only has Wilson not played organized baseball in years, he also is a fairly important member of the Super Bowl champion Seahawks.
“The guy’s the Super Bowl champ,” Washington said. “You think they want him coming out here and getting hurt?”
Here’s a video of Washington talking about Wilson, courtesy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
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