Fort Worth, Texas ? Johnny Oates and his wife, Gloria, spent Thursday afternoon at home in Virginia watching the Rangers on television. He said he was planning to watch the New York Yankees vs. the Anaheim Angels later that night.

“Gloria has been great,” Oates said. “She’s learning to keep score so I can just sit there and watch the game.”

Earlier this week he went to see the Richmond Braves play. On Saturday he was inducted into the Virginia Hall of Fame along with former NFL linebacker Lawrence Taylor and former University of Virginia coach Terry Holland.

But as much as he’s trying to enjoy himself and his family, he has received bad news. Glioblastoma multiforme, a particularly virulent form of brain cancer, has returned.

Doctors have found at least two tumors in his brain and have told him they can’t be removed by surgery. When the cancer was first detected in October 2001, he was told that if the cancer was left untreated, he probably had four months to live.

He had surgery in November 2001 and was cancer-free until an examination this month found that the tumors had returned and could not be removed. The doctors are trying to treat it with oral chemotherapy.

“We’re just trying a new direction,” Oates said. “I’m feeling great. I’m doing everything I pretty much want to. I just can’t use my legs too much.”

FORMER TEXAS RANGERS manager Johnny Oates sits with his wife, Gloria, at their Petersburg, Va., home.

He has to use a cane to get around. Radiation treatments have left him bald on the right side, and he has gradually lost the use of his left arm and hand. But mentally he is still alert and upbeat, living in the small Virginia town of Matoaca, on the edge of Lake Chesdin, about 30 miles from Richmond.

He still stays in touch with old friends, including Boston Red Sox coach Jerry Narron, who talks with Oates once or twice a week.

“He sounds as well as he has ever been,” Narron said. “Physically he’s doing the best that he can.”

Oates, 57, took over as Rangers manager in 1995 and led them to three division titles before resigning with the Rangers floundering May 4, 2001. It was after that season in which he was diagnosed with cancer.

“From the very beginning it has been tough,” Narron said. “But the way he has handled it and his faith, the way he’s shared his faith, has been a blessing. He’s an unbelievable man, as anybody who knows him already knows.”