This is going to sound crazy considering they did lose 107 games a season ago, but don't go sleeping on the Houston Astros' chances of a reunion with Nolan Ryan. And you, all you Astros. Stand up straight, for god's sake. Tilt up your chin. Beat your chest and at least fake a little bit of swagger. Daybreak Wednesday marked Day 5 of Ryan's self-imposed silence about the way that Texas Rangers' principal owners reorganized him out of part of his job, did it not? And the best reason to believe Ryan could be just mad enough to consider an offer to return to the cellar-dwelling Astros is this: The Rangers fear it too.

"Don't think I haven't thought of that," Rangers co-owner Bob Simpson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Randy Galloway on Sunday, laughing as he said it.

If Nolan Ryan isn't happing sharing power with Jon Daniels, there are other in-state jobs. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

It had to be a nervous laugh.

Ryan is 66 years old, it's true, with more of his career behind him than before him. But he is also the big league's career leader in hit batters and he is reproving that he still knows how to play a little chin music. Other than his seven no-hitters, one of the more indelible moments of Ryan's career was when 26-year-old Robin Ventura, a man 20 years Ryan's junior, stormed the mound to fight Ryan for drilling him in the back. Ryan was 46 and half-bald at the time, and yet he grabbed Ventura in a headlock and proceeded to land five noogies on his addled skull before finishing him with an uppercut that left Ventura rubbing a fat lip.

To this day, the video lives on the Internet, of course, and there should be an unbreakable universal rule that every iteration of it must be titled: "Best. Baseball Fight. EVER."

Especially since Ryan's amused quote afterward was the perfect coda: "It was like bulldoggin' a young calf," he drawled.

The point here is Ryan is not a man who shies from confrontation. He is also not a man who is likely to be willingly led out to pasture until he's damn good and ready, as his 27-year playing career attested. So the Rangers should have anticipated (or at least been better prepared to spin) that Ryan might be displeased about their announcement Friday that he was still CEO, but that they had split his other title -- team president -- into two parts, promoting general manager Jon Daniels to the dual role of president of baseball operations/GM and Rick George to president of business operations.

Now that the Rangers have gone and diluted Ryan's power, the Astros should woo Ryan until he gives them a yes or no. They should work the back channels like crazy, show up on his front lawn, rent a plane to fly over the Dallas-Fort Worth area towing a banner that reads "It's nicer in Houston" or goose a Twitter trend (#rangersaredumb). Whatever it takes.