Boy Blunder

His rocket rise began at the '01 winter meetings when Daniels first bumped into Hart. The Rangers' GM, inspired by the league's vogue trend of hiring young, creative, stats-oriented geeks, sought to infuse his organization with fresh perspective. And Daniels knocked his socks off.

Daniels soared up the flow chart, through operations assistant to director of baseball operations and assistant to the general manager until Hart, frustrated by the team's 311-337 record during a four-year tenure besieged by big contracts on old veterans and the albatross signing of Chan Ho Park, resigned.

Without hesitation, Hicks had his replacement. And without a real game plan or motivational lifelong dream, Daniels, the kid who carefully navigated one of the world's nastiest cities before puberty, had a GM job before 30.

Keith Grant debuted as a Mavericks teenage ball boy in the '80s and eventually rose to GM Donnie Nelson's right-hand man. And there's little doubt that the Jones boys—Stephen and Jerry Jr.—will ascend to the Cowboys' throne when Jerry finally retires. But never in the Dallas area or the world of sports has a kid climbed so far, so fast up the executive ladder.

"There was a learning curve," Daniels says. "But I'm totally comfortable now."

While Hart showed his face about as regularly as Punxsutawney Phil, Daniels—with Preller serving as his international scouting director and daily sounding board—has affixed accountability to the organization. Though born five years after the Rangers arrived in Arlington and young enough to be the 55-year-old Washington's son, he's exhibited the talent to conduct positive transactions, the testicles to pull the trigger on risky deals and the temperament to admit when he's wrong. Guided in part by 35-year-old assistant GM Thad Levine, senior consultant Hart and Preller, whom he helped land a job in the organization in '04 after a stint with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he's able to talk current events with players his age in the morning and in the afternoon negotiate with 68-year-old Phillies GM Pat Gillick.

The kid whose taste matriculated from eggplant parmesan to sashimi tuna. The guy who resembles The Sopranos' "Christopher." The punch line whose name is only temporarily Jon, until he reaches puberty and the "h" fully develops. The boss they call "JD."

They're all growed up.

As in married to Robyn in '03, driving a Yukon, living near the Four Seasons Resort in the posh part of Irving, turning 30 on August 24 and, most telling, becoming a father to a boy named Lincoln back in January.

"I'm still the guy who learned to love sushi when one of my friends worked as a waiter and brought home leftovers," Daniels says. "Still pretty intense; I wear my feelings because I care so much. But with Lincoln it makes it easier to keep the focus on the big picture. He takes the edge off the tough losses."

Says Robyn: "He keeps things in perspective now. Sometimes he even relaxes."

"I'm going to pick at that if he's done," Daniels says to our waitress, eyeing the remaining two California rolls.

"Fine," I say. "Call yourself out of the bullpen."

It's not the messes Daniels has made in his first two seasons that will define his Rangers legacy, it's the way he cleans them up in the next two weeks.

When he traded Young and Adrian Gonzalez to the San Diego Padres for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka in January 2006—with just four months on the job—the training wheels came off, the honeymoon abruptly ended and the skepticism about Daniels' age escalated into criticism about his actions.

Neither the swapping of Alfonso Soriano for Wilkerson, Francisco Cordero and Kevin Mench for Nelson Cruz and Carlos Lee, nor John Danks for Brandon McCarthy appears headed for Daniels' win column. Cordero leads baseball in saves for the Milwaukee Brewers, Cruz is back in the minors, Danks has five wins for the Chicago White Sox and Wilkerson strikes out more than Lindsay Lohan at a Relient K concert.

In Arlington, home of the worst franchise in professional sports, they're accustomed to losing. There have been just 14 winning seasons since 1972, a cumulative record 193 under .500 and consistent success only in the dot race in the bottom of the 6th inning.

Losing they can take. It's the premature jettisoning of a local pitching talent like Young that really irks fans. And Daniels. "It's really the only deal you can say is one-sided," admits Daniels, who watched Eaton pitch only 65 innings last season because of a pre-existing finger injury. "We underestimated Chris, and Adam never got healthy."