There’s a New Sheriff in Town With Rangers

The Angels, who already have their hands full with the Texas Rangers in the American League West, now confront a new Texas owner whose aggressiveness as owner of the NHL’s Dallas Stars is quite familiar to the Disney-owned Mighty Ducks. The Ranger payroll is already $54 million, but the belief is that Tom Hicks, whose $250-million purchase was approved unanimously by major league owners Thursday, won’t hesitate to pop for a needed player or two down the stretch.

Tony Tavares, president of the Angels and Mighty Ducks, jokingly suggests that he will push for the Rangers to move to the free-spending AL East.

“He’s been an aggressive owner in hockey, and I’m sure he’ll bring the same approach to baseball,” Tavares said of Hicks, a USC graduate who is chairman of a Dallas investment firm specializing in leveraged acquisitions.

“He’s been successful at everything he’s done,” Tavares added.

“You would struggle to find a more quality guy to bring into the game, and he’s taking over a good situation.”

Said Hicks: “You’d like to find a way to improve the pitching, but probably every team is saying that. You’ve got to like where we are [leading the West]. Anything we do would be more fine-tuning than anything.”

Right.

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Long Beach resident Bob Lemon will have his No. 21 retired by the Cleveland Indians on Saturday--sort of.

The club will put the number on the right-field pillars at Jacobs Field that display five other retired numbers, but Manager Mike Hargrove refuses to stop wearing it, setting a swell example of a selfish attitude. “It’s been my number since my first day in the big leagues,” said Hargrove, offering up a weak excuse.

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Pedro Martinez continues to light up speed guns with velocity in the high 90s, an indication his arm is sound, but he’s experiencing the toughest stretch of his career.

The Boston Red Sox right-hander has given up 37 hits, including 12 home runs, and 23 earned runs in the 24 innings of his last four starts.

“I don’t usually pay attention to statistics, but I don’t think I’ve ever been hit like this,” Martinez said. “I’ve never been more frustrated or embarrassed.”

Pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who was also Martinez’s pitching coach in Montreal, said it’s a mechanical problem that Martinez also experienced at times with the Expos. “If it wasn’t something I’d seen before, then I’d be worried,” Kerrigan said, “but I’ve seen this before, so I’m not worried.”

At $75 million, the Red Sox worry.

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Orlando Hernandez is 2-0 with a 1.13 earned-run average after two starts with the New York Yankees, and El Duque is confounding scouts as much as hitters with a variety of pitches and deliveries.

Mike Borzello, who operates the speed gun for the Yankees behind home plate, told the New York Times that during Hernandez’s four-hit, 11-1 victory over the Expos on Tuesday, “I would turn to a scout sitting next to me, and would ask, ‘Do you know what pitch that was?’ And he would say, ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ ”

The now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t Hernandez style, of course, is a spinoff of Luis Tiant’s rather than the flame-throwing Nolan Ryan’s. Said Yankee coach Jose Cardenal, who grew up in Cuba, as did Tiant and Hernandez:

“In Cuba, they worry about getting the hitter out. They don’t care how.”