Low & Outside: AL Notes

What a change of fortunes for Rangers manager Ron Washington.

Back in spring training, his job security looked tenuous. Now with the Rangers' recent roaring success, he's looking like the obvious choice to be AL manager of the year.

He's only the third manager in team history with an overall winning record, MLB.com reports, and he ranks third on the list of those with at least 100 games with a .510 winning percentage, behind Billy Hunter and Johnny Oates. Billy Martin ranks sixth, followed by Buck Showalter and Bobby Valentine.

As A-Rod knocks on the door of 600 homers, a revered figure in Japan must be smiling, and now this icon also has a museum in his honor to lift his spirits.

Sadaharu Oh, Japan's home-run king with a staggering 868, said this to Agence France-Presse back in 2007, at a date when Alex Rodriguez was up to 518:

"I think A-Rod will eventually hit his 1,000th. Technically, he is already capable of doing so and he has been free from injuries. I hope he will set his goal that high and challenge it."

With A-Rod turning 35 on Tuesday, the chronological math doesn't seem to work - he would have to keep going at this rate, which he can't due to age creep and withdrawal from steroids and hair-frosting chemicals, through age 45. Still, his relentless push since 2007 bears out the spirit of this viewpoint.

This month, a museum honoring Oh opened in Fukuoka, the Japan Times reported. Along with memorabilia from Oh's playing and managing careers, there's a replica of the Tokyo home where he grew up, which was a Chinese restaurant; his father was Chinese. Visitors can have virtual encounters with pro pitchers.

Even within Japan, Oh's records are not without controversy.

At least three times, a foreign-born player was threatening his single-season record of 55 homers while facing an Oh-managed team, including the Yomiuri Giants. Each time, the pitcher refused to throw strikes to him.

From the archives of the Japan Times:

"The phenomenon had first surfaced in 1985, when American Randy Bass . . . was walked intentionally four times on four straight pitches and would have been walked a fifth, had he not reached out and poked a pitch far outside the plate into the outfield.

"Oh denied ordering his pitchers to walk Bass, but Keith Comstock, an American pitcher for Yomiuri, reported afterward that a certain Giants coach imposed a fine of $1,000 for every strike Giants pitchers threw to Bass.

"A subsequent investigation by the magazine Takarajima concluded that the instructions had probably originated in the Giants' front office, which wanted the home-run record kept in the Giants organization."