What these Texas Rangers really did you won’t even recognize ‘til much later
Baseball will never regain its spot atop America’s sports pyramid, but if you find the right location, the right game, or the right team, the sport can still grab your attention the way it did before football.
Before basketball. Before hockey. Before television. Before cable television. Before Blockbuster. Before the internet.
Before Netflix. Before Hulu. Before iPhones. Before streaming.
Before modernity.
In the past month, following the Texas Rangers on this run to the World Series served as a sweet reminder of the Mother nature-force of baseball.
On the same day the Rangers defeated the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of the American League Division Series, Oct. 7, I happened to walk out of the corn stalks on to the Field of Dreams baseball outfield in Dyersville, Iowa.
TCU was playing at Iowa State that night, and I drove to stand in the spot where James Earl Jones delivered his immortal, “People will come” speech in the 1989 film, “Field of Dreams.” You’d have to be a corpse not to feel this.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game -- it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.
Playing catch with a stranger on that field takes you back to when baseball was just so much damn fun, an unknown key to a vault of memories.
For a lot of people in North Texas, following the Rangers serves as a marker for their own lives. The people who have invested in this team will never forget any of this, good or bad.
A Rangers fan can look at a calendar from any year, beginning when they moved to Arlington in 1972, and they can remember much of their own life. They will never forget October of 2023.
Sweeping Tampa in the wild card round. Sweeping Baltimore in the American League Division Series.
In disbelief that the Rangers took Games 1 and 2 in Houston of the AL Championship Series.
Watching the Astros’ Jose Altuve hit his 9th inning home run to win Game 5 of that series to take a 3-2 lead.
Coming back to win Games 6 and 7 in Houston to win the ALCS. Watching outfielder, Cuban-born Adolis Garcia conduct his post game interview on the field in Houston in English.
Watching Rangers shortstop Corey Seager hit one of the most dramatic home runs in the history of the World Series, in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie Game 1 against Arizona.
Celebrating when Garcia hit his walk-off solo home run to win that game.
Bemoaning when the pitching staff was blitzed in the Game 2 blowout.
Holding your breath through the final four innings of the Rangers’ 3-1 win in Phoenix in Game 3.
Being sick before Game 4 when you saw the news that Garcia and starting pitcher Max Scherzer were both ruled out of the rest of the series because of injury.
In disbelief when Garcia’s replacement, Travis Jankowski, was in the middle of the Rangers’ offense scoring 11 runs in their Game 4 win.
You won’t forget any of these moments; in that flicker of a thought, you’ll be be “back there” with your mom, your dad, your spouse, your son, your daughter, your friends, watching the Rangers in the fall of 2023.
Over the last 20 years no sport has damaged itself more than baseball, most of it quite unintentional as teams found measures to help them win but often made the game brutal to watch.
Over the last 40 years, baseball lost its grip on America; its monopoly on its sports scene ended because of football, basketball, hockey, and a million other alternatives that didn’t exist in 1950.
Whether it’s standing in the middle of that field in Dyersville, Iowa watching kids “have a catch,” or following multi-millionaires do the same thing in a billion dollar facility to play the same game, baseball can still be great.
You just need to find the right location, the right game, or the right team, and baseball’s still got it.
For so many people all over North Texas, the 2023 Texas Rangers have done just that.
