I thought it would never happen.
Not after one strike away. Twice.
Not after Game 5 of the ALCS.
It was over.
I grew up in the DFW area in the 1980’s, when sports teams were assigned to you based on where you lived. The Montreal Expos might as well of been on the other side of the world. They never came to town. They were never on television.
Hell the home team Texas Rangers were only on television when they were on the road, unless you were one of those fancy pants that had cable television.
It was sometime in elementary school that we were fancy enough to get cable television. I was astounded by how white the home white Rangers jerseys were.
HSE. Norm Hitzges.
We never once thought about winning the World Series. Are you kidding?
We were just happy when were lucky enough to go to a ballgame and walk up the ramp and see that pristine green grass while munching on a hot dog.
Other teams had the marquee talent. Sure, the Rangers could hit, and every now and then they’d get a wild hair and win a few ballgames.
But they would always fade after the All-Star break.
That’s okay, because it was football season then.
Then a crazy thing happened. The Rangers were in first place. In August.
Sure they were 10 games under .500. But it was first place.
Then the players went on strike and the season was cancelled.
Two years later the Rangers made the playoffs.
They went into Yankee Stadium. Juan Gonzalez hit a three-run home run and the Rangers won! Let’s go! The New York papers were calling Gonzalez “Señor Octubre” because he hit five home runs that series.
They lost the next three and were out.
Two years later they were back!
They would meet the Yankees again and be out in three games. They scored one run all week.
The next year they would meet the Yankees again and be out in three games. They scored one run all week.
The window closed.
Major League Baseball came up with a rule in the early 2000’s that the winner of the All-Star game would determine the home-field advantage in the World Series.
The Rangers finally broke through in 2010, besting the Yankees in the ALCS to reach their first-ever World Series.
Of course, for the first time in 14 years the American League had lost the All-Star game so they would open up on the road against the San Francisco Giants.
The Giants won in five.
That’s okay though, they were experienced, the Rangers would back! And they were. The very next year.
The American League lost the All-Star game again. So the Rangers would have to go on the road to play the St. Louis Cardinals for four games if it went all seven.
It did.
And you know how it turned out.
There was David Freese. There was a completely asinine rain-out when there wasn’t one single drop of rain in St. Louis, allowing the Cardinals to rest their star pitcher one more day.
The Rangers would make the playoffs three more times in that window. But alas.
It was written that that is what the Rangers were destined to be.
A team of fun ideas and marketable players but never a winner.
A club that finished near the top of the league every year in attendance but never sniffed the playoffs in the first thirty years of their existence.
It would be Harold Baines getting traded here and hating it so much he pouted his way out of town.
Julio Franco and Mickey Tettleton’s batting stances.
The dot race.
The antics of Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus.
David Dellucci’s double.
El Caballo Ruben Sierra and that leg kick.
Attending games at three different ballparks. One that we loved because we weren’t smart enough to know better, another we loved but only a few months out of the year and another that we love but didn’t quite yet have the character of the other two.
Charlie Hough.
Rafael Palmero blasting one off the foul pole against Roger Clemens.
Kenny Rogers’s perfect game.
Michael Young in the All-Star game.
Zonk.
The nuns.
HOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT DOOOOOOOOGGGGGG.
Nolan Ryan teaching a thing or two to Robin Ventura.
On the flip side, Nelson Liriano against Nolan in Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.
Marwin Gonzalez against Yu Darvish in Houston.
The ups and downs of Bobby Witt.
Oddibe McDowell.
The Rangers opened their newest ballpark in 2020. They lost 234 games the first three years of that ballpark and the only reason it was that low is because 2020 was a COVID-shortened year.
Then this year.
They swept the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies in the first series of the year. They then went on a tear in April and May despite several key injuries. They started to falter just before the All-Star break and our Rangers-PTSD minds were conditioned to think “here we go again”.
Then they won coming out of the break. And then lost.
The Houston Astros came to Globe Life Field in early September for a pivotal series. They proceeded to hit about 45 home runs and just demolished the Rangers.
It was over. We all knew it. Maybe next year! Again!
The only ones that didn’t know it were the men in the clubhouse.
They came back. Retook the division lead. Went to Seattle and clinched a spot in the playoffs.
And then on the final day of the season, with the division, a bye in the first round of the playoffs on the line, they were shutout.
It would be the last road game they would lose all season.
They swept the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles, who had won about 200 games between the two of them.
Next up were the Houston Astros, who had just wrecked the Rangers this season.
They left Houston up two games to none.
The Astros would win the next two. Then in Game Five, Houston jumped out in front but Adolis Garcia blasted one over the left-field wall for a three-run homer. He slammed his bat down with authority after hitting the biggest home-run of his life.
The Rangers were going to be up 3-2 going back to Houston. They were on the cusp.
But then came the incident in the Bottom of the Eighth, where Garcia was hit by a pitch and the benches cleared. The Rangers had inserted their closer in the top half of the inning. His arm was getting colder the longer that brouhaha went on.
Sure enough, in the Top of the Ninth, Jose Altuve did what he did.
A Rangers rally died in the bottom of the ninth.
I turned the television off and spiked the remote into the living room rug.
I sat on the back porch, listening to the sounds of the high school football game across the way.
Why do I do this? Why do I watch so many games every year of a franchise that just continually breaks my heart? Why do I invest so much time into a franchise when this is obviously not going to happen?
It isn’t supposed to be like this. The Rangers were just a hobby to get us from one football season to the next. They’d hit a lot of home runs and it was always fun at the ballpark.
So why was I so obsessed with seeing this team of perennial also-rans succeed, when they were never going to do it?
Because sports, and baseball in particular, romanticizes us.
We do it because it is a part of us, something that was instilled in us by our parents and which I hope to pass down to my son.
We go through life changes. Grow up. Go away to college. Come home for the summer. Graduate. Find a job, lose a job, find another one. Stress out. Get married. Get divorced.
But you know through all the turmoil that is life, you can flip on a switch and hear Eric Nadel tell me, “It’s baseball time in Texas,” and tell me about the blue piping down the white pant legs.
And the great game is there to be had.
And every now and then, they win more than they lose.
And that they did.
Rangers fans are conditioned to not get excited. They were up 3-1 but any Rangers fan worth their salt felt like they were down 3-1 instead.
We were going to get no-hit in the World Series.
But this team doesn’t have those scars.
When the young centerfielder made the error last night, I first felt horrible for him. Because we have been there.
Then Marcus Semien hit the two-run homer to put the exclamation point on it all.
We knew then.
I let out a primal scream. They were going to do it.
And when the final pitch was thrown, I screamed again. Sborz screamed.
We all screamed.
And started crying my eyes out.
They had did it. They had erased 2011. They had erased all of those years of futility. You couldn’t call this a loser franchise anymore.
They were World Series champions.
All of us have family members who are no longer with us. This is for them, who filled up their Thermos with Coca Cola or made sandwiches or shelled out a few bucks for a way too expensive pickle or just provided a reassuring pat on the back when the home nine would lose yet again.
They did it. They really did it.
Flags fly forever.