Friday, November 5, 2010

What a Ride

Now that the dust from the World Series has settled, I can sit back and reflect.

Yes, the Rangers got their hides tanned by the Giants. They couldn't hit and therefor they couldn't win. It sucked.

Oh well.

The bigger picture is that the Rangers made an improbable run to their first World Series ever.

The ride was wonderful and it's something that only a certain few baseball teams can appreciate. A few years ago, the country watched all the Boston fans go crazy as their curse was lifted with the arrival of a title.

It was a good story, but the Red Sox have been a flagship team over the years. They weren't a city joke like the Rangers have been.

Texas has been so bad over the years, it's been comical. They've lost since they came to Dallas in 1970. In that time, teams like the Marlins and Diamondbacks have been created and have won a World Series title. Even the Rockies made a run a few years ago. The Rangers had more than a 20 year head start on these teams and still lagged far behind in success.

As the playoffs began this season, Texas had exactly one playoff win in 40 years. One. Teams have had long championship droughts (hello Cubs and Indians fans), but very few are like the Rangers where there isn't a person that can remember at least a good playoff run.

That putrid history is what made this year so much more special. There is nothing like your first championship run in sports. The genuine excitement of the crowd, the way the team takes a city by storm...imagine what Charlie felt like when he first entered the chocolate factory.

It's a feeling you can't ever recreate again. Sure, Rangers fans will still celebrate a championship should one come in the future, but the journey has been taken already. We've seen an ALDS and ALCS series celebration. It's not new territory anymore. There isn't a mix of exhilaration and disbelief from loyal fans who have watched a lifetime of bad baseball with the hope that this moment might one day come.

So excuse me if I don't get angry when fans talk smack to me after the World Series loss (oddly, it's not the Giants fans doing the talking, but a collection of fans from teams who's seasons ended long ago.) If you think a team has a failure of a season because they didn't win the championship, you are missing a lot. Just go back and look at Texas during the 2010 season.

Sincerely,

Claw and Antlers.

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