"Ever since Tom Hicks bought the Rangers in the summer of '98, dubious readers have called, e-mailed, whispered and wailed.

He doesn't have any money, they'd say. He's broke. Can't you tell from his other businesses?

Don't you get it?

No, I'd say. I don't.

Granted, I was never a candidate for The Wharton School, but the reason the charges never carried much weight was simple enough:

Players keep cashing checks, don't they? And not at your local grocer, either.

But the issue became critical in the last couple of days after we got a tip that the Rangers had, indeed, missed payroll. We were still getting to the bottom of the story when a caller to Kevin Kennedy's national radio show told the former Rangers manager that Major League Baseball loaned his old club $15 million just so it could pay its players.

Just like that, the rumors were out. What was true and what wasn't? A Rangers source says the club made payroll and Hicks remains in charge. But he wouldn't say how they did it.

Yahoo reported Thursday that Hicks has borrowed millions of dollars to meet payroll and "he won't be running the team much longer."

The Rangers won't comment publicly, which suggests they couldn't refute the stories entirely. "