A Ride on the Ryan Express

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Prior to the 1989 season, the Texas Rangers signed Nolan Ryan, and a new era of Rangers baseball began.

Until that time, the Rangers were a major–league joke. They were seldom competitive in the American League — in fact, in the previous two seasons, they had been last or next–to–last in their division. In my memory, baseball in north Texas in those days was nothing more than a place filler between football seasons.

Nolan Ryan changed that. He energized the team's fan base and attracted new fans. Turned out, north Texas was itching to support a baseball team that was committed to at least trying to win, and signing Ryan was the clearest signal to date that the Rangers management definitely wanted to win.

That really makes all the difference in whether a professional sports team succeeds. There have always been — and always will be — people who watch sporting events for other reasons (those who watch auto races just to see a crash or a hockey game just to see a fight). They exist in every city. In my experience, the larger that demographic is within a team's local fan base, the less seriously that team is taken elsewhere.

I went to a few Ranger games before Nolan Ryan came along, and most of the people I saw were there to see the Rangers' Keystone Kops–style baseball. A few were tourists in the Metroplex, taking in a baseball game because there was nothing better to do.

But, as I say, Ryan changed that. The Rangers of '89 leaped from the gate and took first place in their division on the fifth day of the season. They were 15–4 on April 28 when they began a weekend series at home against the defending AL East champion Boston Red Sox.

A friend of mine and I had been following the pitching results and rotations and we figured that, if there were no rainouts or injuries, Ryan and Boston ace Roger Clemens would be on track to face each other in Arlington on Sunday, April 30. In a remarkable display of confidence at which I can only marvel today, we purchased tickets roughly two weeks ahead of time.

We knew it was risky. We knew the old saying about April showers. We knew it was possible that either team could be rained out at any time. And we knew that either pitcher could get hurt (Ryan, we figured, was particularly vulnerable, being 42 when the season began). But none of those things happened, and Ryan and Clemens faced off as expected in Arlington 25 years ago today.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny late April day in Arlington, Texas. A crowd of 40,429 came out to the ballpark to see the game — it was the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere I had ever experienced at a Rangers game.

The Red Sox took a 1–0 lead in the first inning, and that was the score until the bottom of the eighth when Rafael Palmeiro hit a home run off Clemens with Cecil Espy on base. The Rangers, leading 2–1, then relieved Ryan in the ninth. Jeff Russell retired the Red Sox in order to earn his fifth save of the season, and Ryan's record improved to 3–1. Clemens suffered his first loss of the season.

It wasn't until I was in the car driving home, listening to the postgame program on the radio, that I learned that Ryan had been pitching with back spasms from the second inning on — yet he only yielded three hits all day. (If he had been playing for a National League team, he would have had to take his turns at bat — and, as a result, might not have lasted as long as he did.)

The Rangers didn't make the playoffs in 1989, but they went from being 33½ games out of first place in 1988 to 16 games out in 1989. They didn't make the playoffs before Ryan retired in 1993, but, had it not been for the baseball strike in 1994, the Rangers might have been in the playoffs that year (they led their division by a single game when the strike began).

They did make the playoffs in 1997 and 1999 — and they were in the World Series a decade later.

And I will always believe they did all that because Nolan Ryan joined the team 25 years ago.

What Grieves Us

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"Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size."

Mark Twain

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Traditionally, All Saints Day is observed by Christians on November 1 — but November 1 doesn't always fall on a Sunday so many churches observe All Saints Day on the Sunday before.

In some churches today, it will be noted that there have been fewer deaths in their congregations in the year just past than has been normal — and, in other churches, it will be noted that there have been more deaths than usual.

It is typically assumed — and deservedly so — that death refers to a physical death, but the grief that is brought on by a death can be the result of other losses that are near and dear to our hearts.

Consequently, I've been thinking a lot about Twain's comment in the aftermath of this year's World Series.

His statement applies to everything, really, but it seems particularly appropriate to those who follow sports teams. Defeat can truly feel like death, and the grief and pain people experience when their favorite teams lose can be as wrenching as losing a loved one. It may seem odd, even irreverent, to say that, but it is true.

I've written about this year's World Series a few times this week. I'm sure it will be the subject of many articles and books so I probably won't write about it again — at least, not for awhile. It was a truly remarkable series. Most of the people I have heard speak about it or who have written about it already have said it was the most exciting World Series in their memories.

It really was special — particularly in the cities most directly affected by the series, Dallas and St. Louis — but there were some excruciating moments, as there are bound to be when the participants are so evenly matched, that I am sure resonated with sports fans everywhere.

And, ultimately, even with all the praise for the series ringing in their ears, it was a painful experience for the people in Dallas. I've heard grown people say that they sobbed uncontrollably when the Rangers lost that sixth game the other night. Some said they didn't cry like that when their parents died.

It's a best–of–seven series, but, of course, it doesn't always go seven games. The first team to win four is the champion. If that's done in four games — or five or six — then it is over. No point in playing the rest. This one did go seven games, the first to do so in nearly 10 years.

And, in the end, St. Louis prevailed.

This series had plenty of ebbs and flows, close games and historic performances. Understandably, I suppose, Ranger fans feel frustrated. They suffered through decades of losing only to finally reach the World Series for the first time last year — and lose in five games.

They took it well, though. They were even philosophical about it. Those Rangers, the Keystone Kops of baseball, had made it to a World Series. Why, that was a victory in itself!

This year, the Rangers took it seven games — and were actually one strike away from winning it all — not once but twice — in that sixth game.

They were closer than they have ever been — or ever will be, until they finally cross that threshold — to winning it all. But just being there, just being close enough to taste victory, wasn't enough for the fans this time.

Some Ranger fans have taken a kind of elitist no one can understand our pain attitude in the aftermath of their defeat.

It has reminded me of a time when I was a child, and my family would come to Dallas to visit my grandparents — and they would lament the misfortunes of the Dallas Cowboys, of whom it was being said they could not win the "big one."

The same thing seems to have occurred to Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star–Telegram, who observed that, even though the Rangers went down quickly in last year's World Series, they were treated like kings here during the offseason.

Last winter, the Rangers had arrived as a legitimate baseball team, not just a source of idle entertainment between football seasons, and they were, in Galloway's words, "given the warm and fuzzy treatment."

That was understandable, I guess, given that last year's Rangers had done something that no other Rangers team had ever done. But this time, Galloway writes, it "wasn't about just being back in the World Series. This was about winning the thing."

They returned as two–time failures to a city that was hungry beyond words for a baseball championship. It reminded me of Tom Landry and his Dallas Cowboys of the 1960s — good enough to make it to the NFL championship game but never quite good enough to get to the Super Bowl.

In "the long winter" that awaits them, Galloway writes, the Rangers can expect a less friendly, more demanding fan base. Expectations were raised — perhaps to unreasonable heights — when the Rangers returned to the World Series for the second straight year, and now they must deal with fans who are surly after losing for the second straight year.

Whether the fans here acknowledged it or not, there was a lot of pressure on these Rangers to produce. During the sixth game, I was monitoring the conversations on Facebook between my friends in both places, and the Rangers fans were already speculating about the details of their victory parade — before the Cardinals rallied twice and swung the momentum in their favor for good.

Perhaps the more religious among us will attach some greater significance to what happened, but if there is anything to be learned from that game, I suppose, it is that one shouldn't start taking victory laps until the game is won. Officially.

I guess that falls under the heading of "Monday morning quarterbacking," as one disappointed Rangers fan said to me on Friday, but it's a point that has been made time and time again throughout history.

It is no less painful for those who must learn that lesson anew.

And grief, as Twain knew, is not a small thing.

A Very Special Moment

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The start of the baseball playoffs is a special time for a baseball fan — no matter which teams are playing.

It's been particularly special for fans in north Texas the last couple of years because the Texas Rangers have been participants in the postseason, advancing to their first–ever World Series last year.

But what happened at The Ballpark in Arlington yesterday was extraordinary, touching beyond words.

Cooper Stone, the young son of the firefighter who fell to his death at The Ballpark in July, threw out the first pitch with his mother and Nolan Ryan watching on.

Being in the playoffs is becoming something of a regular thing for the Rangers — at least for the last couple of years — and a lot of people around here hope that appearing in the World Series is going to become a habit as well.

But no one around here wants to repeat what happened on that evening nearly three months ago when Cooper's dad, Shannon Stone, tumbled headfirst over the railing.

It was a traumatic moment for a lot of people around here, whether they follow the Rangers, whether they care about sports, whether they saw it happen. I haven't heard it mentioned much lately, but it never seems to be far from anyone's thoughts.

Surely, that night back in July when his father fell to his death was a traumatic one for Cooper. My understanding is that yesterday was the first time he has been at The Ballpark since that tragic night, and his mother spoke of the occasion as almost an act of closure, which, I suppose, it was.

It was also an act of closure for the people who live in this area. I didn't see Cooper's pitch, but I heard from many people who did — and almost all spoke of the healing effect it had on them.

If the Rangers return to the World Series, I hope they will invite Cooper and his mother to return to The Ballpark. But that might be easier said than done. The Rangers, who were almost never shut out at home this season, lost their divisional series opener with Tampa Bay, 9–0.

Death Be Not Proud

Tomorrow, major league baseball's stars will be gathering in Arizona to play the annual Midsummer Classic, the All–Star Game.

The first All–Star Game was played nearly 80 years ago; it was part of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. Only once since that time has the game not been played — when World War II interfered in 1945.

Otherwise, however, it has been an annual baseball tradition. Barring a totally unexpected development, it will be renewed tomorrow night.

Today, friends and family — and even folks who never knew the man — gathered in central Texas to say goodbye to a fellow who probably would have been watching the All–Star Game with his young son, the way they apparently had watched many baseball games together in the past.

But that fellow, firefighter Shannon Stone, fell to his death at Rangers Ballpark last week, trying to catch a baseball for his son — who witnessed the whole thing.

I'm sure you know that story by now. One struggles to find some meaning in it. Death — or fate or whatever — is always doing this. It takes people in horribly random and cruel ways.

We've always known that life isn't fair. Turns out that death isn't, either.

The more religious among us always assure us when tragedy strikes that "God has a plan," and they speak of his incomprehensibly "mysterious ways."

That is intended to comfort those who grieve, even those who never knew the person who died. But sometimes there is little comfort to be found in those words.

For many of us, it is hard to see how this contributes to such a "plan." God's ways are a bit too mysterious for the mortal mind.

As a writer, my inclination on such an occasion is to put my thoughts on paper, but that isn't always easy. Sometimes I want to know what others are saying.

I've re–discovered — as if such a reminder was necessary — that the human mind also looks for someone to blame when terrible things happen. But that's the thing that has been so frustrating about this matter, I suppose. There is no one to blame. Everyone's intentions were good. No one meant for anything bad to happen.

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Should we blame Josh Hamilton because his toss was just a little short? He was only trying to accommodate the fans.

Should we blame Stone because he lost his balance? It's true that fans must bear a certain amount of responsibility for their own safety — and I've heard some people suggest that Stone was negligent, at least in part, because of the "recklessness" of his own behavior and because his footwear apparently provided him with little, if any, traction.

But, although there have been similar incidents at Rangers Ballpark in the past, falls were not epidemic. There was no reason for that possibility to dictate what he wore or anything else.

Should we blame the Ballpark management because the railings, even if they do exceed existing city requirements, are lower than they probably should be? The management couldn't foresee this, although I do think, as I have said, that making certain that stadiums are safe and family friendly, not merely that they meet city codes, should be their top concern now.

I guess I feel I am too close to this one — much as I did 16 years ago when I lived about a half hour's drive from where Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City — and I need the perspectives of those who are farther removed.

In the aftermath of Thursday's tragedy, I have been thinking about something that I hadn't thought about in several years.

When I was teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, a student of mine died in a freak accident at his fraternity.

There was a ritual at this fraternity that involved the members going outside following a house meeting and shaking the flagpole. I don't know why. How does any tradition begin?

I don't know how long it had been done, but nothing had happened to anyone before. On this occasion, however, the upper one–third or so of the flagpole snapped and fell, striking my student and another boy. The other boy suffered minor injuries. My student, however, suffered far more serious injuries and died the following day.

There was no one and nothing to blame for that accident, either. The students who shook the flagpole had no reason to think it might snap. As far as I know, it had never snapped before. No one intended for anything bad to happen. Even so, a young man lost his life.

And, like the tragic case of Shannon Stone, we were left with lots of questions and precious few answers.

In my quest for understanding, I have found some fascinating observations from some folks who may never have been to Texas — but they understand things like childhood and fatherhood and the need to strike a better balance between fun and safety:

• Like Steve Solloway of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, who wrote very movingly of the "purity of the moment" that should have ended in triumph but ended in tragedy instead.
  
  All that Stone sought, Solloway wrote, was "[a] baseball to forever remind him and his son of the July day they watched the Texas Rangers play a game. It can't be any simpler than that, which makes the sorrow that much harder to bear.
  
  "Until this week," concluded Solloway, "Shannon Stone was a stranger to most when in fact, he was always one of us."


• If there is something good to take away from this, it may be that "baseball fans across the country are discussing ballpark safety," reports Paul Blume of FOX9 News in Minnesota's Twin Cities.
  
  Of course, each ballpark is designed differently, and no facility can be prepared for the sizes of all the people who might buy tickets to events there, but if Stone's death leads to an across–the–board requirement of railings that are higher than most adults' centers of gravity, well ...

... as I say, if that is what ultimately comes from this tragedy, that will be a good thing.

• Rodger Jones of the Dallas Morning News says, in response to a survey on a blog on the News' website, that baseball players should not be banned from throwing balls to the fans.
  
  I agree. That would be a knee–jerk overreaction.
  
  However, he does believe railings should be raised — even if they make it difficult for some fans to see what is happening on the field.
  
  "Sightlines be damned," he writes. "If you disagree, wonder how you would feel if the next accident (and there will be one) involves someone you know."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

We Should Do What We Can

The deeper one goes into the tragic story of Shannon Stone, the firefighter who fell to his death during Thursday night's Ranger game, the more pointless his death seems to be.

But I believe it is a clarion call.

Stone, as just about everyone knows by now, tumbled over the railing trying to catch a baseball. What went through his mind, what motivated him can only be guessed — but the emerging story of a devoted father strongly suggests he was trying to catch it for his son.

Such selflessness only makes this story more tragic.

There was a time when most, if not all, ballparks had netting around elevated sections — but that practice was stopped, as I understand it, because fans went out on the netting to try to catch baseballs, making it unsafe.

Yes, there was a railing in front of Stone's seat — but if you have seen the video, you know that it wasn't sufficient to prevent even an average–sized man from losing his balance if he was leaning forward trying to catch a ball. (I haven't heard how tall Stone was, but, just from watching the video and knowing his profession, my guess is that he was taller than average.)

I was listening to a local sports talk radio show here in Dallas yesterday, and one of the hosts reminisced about when he moved to the area in the 1990s and there wasn't even a railing like the one that could not prevent Thursday's tragedy — as if the fact that the installation of a short railing since that time could somehow mitigate what happened.

It can't, of course, but it is a reminder that there are steps that baseball in general, not just the Rangers organization, needs to consider. Seriously.

Rangers President Nolan Ryan pointed out that players toss balls into the stands all the time now. He doesn't remember whether there was a policy that either encouraged or discouraged it when he was playing, but he speculated that it evolved from a desire on the part of baseball in general to be more accessible to fans.

That's a good objective, but it carries a certain amount of responsibility. What happened in Arlington can happen anywhere, and the co–objective must be to prevent tragedies like that from happening again.

Stadium management can't install a two–foot railing and honestly believe it can keep a six–foot man from falling. You can't take away netting that is supposed to keep people safe because inadequate security permits people to congregate on them.

Stone was doing something that has become increasingly difficult for people to do — take their children to ballgames. Gone are the days when a father could take his kids to a ballgame and buy them hot dogs and caps for a few bucks.

It's a major investment now, especially in this economy, but there are still folks who want to share the experience with their children.

Baseball should do whatever it can to encourage them to do that. To be sure, baseball does have special promotions, yes — Family Night or Ball Night or whatever — but that is really about the profit margin, not fan safety.

It may be more confining — and expensive — for fans to install more adequate barriers to keep them from being hurt. It may be more expensive to hire additional security people to make sure no one gets on the netting during games.

But isn't the good public relations of a safe, family–friendly environment worth it?

Drivers don't like being told to wear seatbelts, and motorcyclists don't like being compelled to wear helmets, but they are required to do so because they make the experience safer.

Really, I believe this should be a no–brainer.

I sort of feel the way the panels investigating the sinking of the Titanic must have felt when they heard that there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate everyone on board.

Why not?

The people who operated the Titanic justified their decision a couple of ways — (a) the Titanic was believed to be unsinkable, and (b) the lifeboats on board met specifications. As I recall from my studies of that disaster, the number of lifeboats actually exceeded what was required at the time. But still there weren't enough.

We know sports events aren't always safe — and there are certain things you really can't prevent — but it is incumbent upon stadium management to do whatever it can.

When Reality Intrudes

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I've heard this said in other ways — more eloquent ways — so please forgive my feeble and wholly inadequate paraphrase:

People watch sports in part to escape from reality.

They may wish to get away from any one of several kinds of realities, and sports events are diversions. They're almost like fiction, like a movie or a TV show, a drama that people watch for a few hours before returning to their lives and whatever it was they wished to escape.

Sports events are the way we wish our lives could be. Someone wins and someone loses. No one wins all the time. But athletes learn from their failures, and they know that tomorrow is another day — a new day. No mistake, no miscalculation is final. Redemption is always possible.

Sure, sometimes there are tears in the losing locker room after a particularly hard fought athletic contest. But deep down, most athletes know — even if they have just lost a championship — that they will have another opportunity. The sun will come up tomorrow. The slate will be wiped clean.

Perhaps one of my favorite journalists of all time, sportswriter Red Smith, once wrote that people go to athletic events to have fun — and then they pick up the newspaper the next day to read about it and have fun all over again.

And, nearly every time that people have gathered for sports events in human history, it has been fun.

But what happened last night at a Texas Rangers baseball game in Arlington, Texas, definitely was not fun, particularly for the folks sitting in an upper section of the Ballpark. A man was reaching over a railing, trying to catch a ball, and he fell head first to his death after he apparently lost his balance.

The Dallas Morning News quotes a witness as saying that "[i]t looked awful because you knew there was no way he was going to land on his feet."

The man's young son was with him and, presumably, saw the whole thing.

Since I heard about this tragic story, I've been thinking about the (admittedly few) times that I have gone to professional baseball games.

Most of the time, I've attended minor league games in small, intimate ballparks where virtually all the seats were on the ground level — so such a tragedy was not really possible.

But there have been times when I have attended major league games in their palatial stadiums, and I have sat in upper decks — although never on the front row behind a railing.

Nevertheless, from time to time, it did cross my mind, as I ascended each level, that the farther up we went, the greater the chance of something bad happening.

But something bad never did happen. It was just my imagination running away with me. The fantasy was safe.

That fantasy has been shattered now for a young boy — and countless others, too, although his loss is clearly the greatest.

I presume that his father, like most of the men who live in Texas, was a sports fan who would have wanted to pass on his love of sports to his son.

But, after watching his father die, I can only wonder if such a thing is possible for that young boy now.

Will he ever be able to watch a baseball game — or any sports event — without seeing his father tumbling over the railing in Rangers Ballpark?

Will he ever be able to erase the memory of seeing his father on the pavement below, his head apparently bleeding profusely?

I have loved sports since I was small. It was a passion my father passed along to me. Dad was never much for "having a catch," as Kevin Costner put it in "Field of Dreams," but he has always loved the drama of athletic competition and admired the skill it takes to excel.

And, if I outlive my father, one of the ways I will honor his memory is by watching and savoring athletic contests.

I hope that young boy will be able to do the same.

The Power of Prayer

I can sympathize with Detroit Lions fans.

Really, I can. As I have written many times before, I have been a Green Bay Packers fan since I was a child.

If you aren't old enough to remember the time before Brett Favre came to Green Bay, there were many grim seasons for the Packers — occasionally interrupted by a season or two that transcended mediocrity — between the Vince Lombardi era and the Brett Favre era.

When I hear the phrase "long–suffering fan," I know precisely what it means. I've been one, and I probably will be one again, perhaps not with the Packers, perhaps with some other team that I follow.

It just seems to me that everyone, at one time or another, knows what it is like to support a team that never — or almost never — wins.

Your favorite team doesn't always win the championship; heck, it doesn't always make it to the playoffs. Football fans here in Dallas (who went into the season thinking the currently 3–7 Cowboys would become the first team to host a Super Bowl) have been coming to grips with that very reality this year.

I'm not talking about narrowly missing the playoffs, either. I'm talking about (seemingly habitually) finishing so far out of the playoff race that you feel like one of the jockeys who rode the horses that Secretariat left in the dust at the 1973 Belmont Stakes.

Around here, of course, football is king. But there are baseball fans here, and life has not been easy for them. Texas Rangers fans know all about that long–suffering jazz. It took them nearly four decades to reach the World Series. Winning one, apparently, is going to take awhile longer.

But even the Rangers' suffering pales when compared to the Lions'.

The Lions haven't had a winning season in a decade. They haven't been in the playoffs since 1999. They haven't won a division title since 1993. They haven't played for a conference championship in nearly 20 years. They haven't won one in more than 50 years.

They recently set a new standard for futility, losing their 25th consecutive road game. Fittingly, that milestone was achieved against a team that had lost all of its games this season.

The Lions' fans know how that feels, too. They went 0–16 a couple of years ago. Only one other team in modern NFL history has lost all of its games, and that was before the NFL started playing 16–game schedules.

When you consider their history, you have to wonder what could possibly entice anyone in Detroit to go to Ford Field where the 2–8 Lions will play the 8–2 New England Patriots tomorrow.

I mean, along with the fact that the Lions just plain stink, as usual, the temperature is supposed to be in the 30s tonight, and the predicted high temperature tomorrow is 48°.

The game is indoors, of course, but the elements won't be too pleasant, even if exposure to them will be brief — there's a 90% chance of rain in Detroit tomorrow, and, even if the only time one must spend in it will be the time it takes to get from one's car to the stadium, who wants to spend any time on Thanksgiving in a cold rain?

It is in just such conditions, however, that a couple of Christian leaders from Detroit are planning to hold a prayer vigil for the Lions.

Apparently, this began when Derrick Hills of the Communications Ministry called a sports radio show and "realized that something needed to be done to make a difference and to help our struggling team improve."

Anyway, tomorrow Hills and a Detroit–area Baptist minister are going to hold a prayer vigil for the Lions near one of Ford Field's gates. It's set for 11 a.m. local time, about 90 minutes before kickoff.

It's probably safe to assume that Detroit will not have reached its predicted 48–degree high by 11 a.m.; it is probably also safe to assume that it will be raining at that time. I'm thinking this prayer vigil could be a good test for the commitment of Detroit football fans to the local team.

"I believe that if we all can come together and pray that we can assist in making the Detroit Lions a truly competitive team who can one day become a Super Bowl champion," Hills said.

Now, I know that there are people who believe — some devoutly — in the power of prayer, but that seems improbable.

Scenes From a Series

History will be made here tonight when the Texas Rangers host the first World Series game in their existence.

No doubt many folks in these parts had something quite different in mind, though. They didn't expect to need to rally these Rangers from a 2–0 deficit in this best–of–seven series.

It was bad enough when, as Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News wrote, the Giants claimed a "psychedelic" 11–7 victory in Game 1.

They were playing in San Francisco, after all, so I guess it was appropriate that the first game was something of a mind–altering experience. Certainly, it altered perceptions — of players, of pitching rotations, of victory scenarios.

Of teams.

But at least the Rangers were conscious in that game. It was hard to tell in Game 2. The Giants won, 9–0.

Tonight, they return to Arlington, to home cooking and their long–suffering fans. And the objective should be clear, writes Jean–Jacques Taylor in the Dallas Morning News.

In the words of Al Davis — Just win, baby.

Just win this game. Worry about Game 4 tomorrow. And Game 5, if there is one, on Monday.

But don't think about those games — or the games that were played in San Francisco on Wednesday and Thursday.

A win can make a big difference, at least temporarily.

A win can take that monkey off the Rangers' backs. They will know that they can win against these Giants, that it is possible.

That is not something they can say with confidence today.

But if they win today, they know they will get two more games in Arlington. And they will have a chance to return to San Francisco with a 3–2 lead.

But if the Giants win today, the Rangers will be down 3–0. They will have to run the table against a team they still haven't proven they can beat at least once.

So they better not think about that right now.

Or that, historically, teams who got off to 2–0 leads in the World Series went on to win it all about 80% of the time.

The odds are against these Rangers, no matter what happens tonight.

But the odds will be much longer if they don't win this one.

And, Now, the World Series ...

As I wrote the other day, folks in north Texas have been waiting a long time for a World Series to come here.

Tonight, the long wait comes to an end.

Well, not literally.

I mean, the first World Series game to be played in north Texas is still a few days away.

But tonight, the Texas Rangers will make their first World Series appearance when they take the field in San Francisco.

And a fellow named Darrell Cook — who happens to be a lawyer from Irving — will be there, too.

Cook made a motion to postpone a pretrial conference in a lawsuit in which he is participating so he could attend the game. That conference was supposed to be held this afternoon. But the judge granted the request.

OK, the postponement really isn't a big deal. As Mede Nix writes in the Dallas Morning News, the hearing really is a routine matter.

Still, why did it have to be postponed? The case involves the City of Irving and the Villas of Irving (which, Nix reports, Cook represents). If Cook has a partner, couldn't the partner attend the meeting in his place?

Should a baseball game — even the first game in the World Series — permit the judicial system to be slowed down even more than it already is?

Around here, I guess, some folks would say yes. Certainly, that's what Darrell Cook would say — if you could reach him. But he's probably flying to the West Coast right now — and you know the airlines don't like for folks to use their cell phones during flight.

Tim Cowlishaw writes, in the Dallas Morning News, that the Rangers will win in seven games — which would be quite dramatic. It certainly would set up a storybook ending with the Rangers looking for their first title and the Giants looking for their first since they were the New York Giants.

Over at the Fort Worth Star–Telegram, Ray Buck has learned there is some mileage to be gained from this Cinderella angle.

And Gil LeBreton, in a Star–Telegram column that most Giants fans are not likely to see (unless they surf over to the Star–Telegram's website), urges San Francisco baseball fans — for whom "Giants baseball ... torture" appears to have become a local rallying cry — not to compare their stories of victimization to the Rangers' fans. It's just no contest.

In another year — when the Cowboys weren't 1–5 and the Texas Longhorns weren't 4–3 — even a berth in the World Series for the Rangers might not warrant this much attention.

But sports fans around here are hungry for a winner, damn it!

And a majority of Sports Illustrated's "experts" think they'll get it.

Field of Dreams

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Baseball fans in these parts have been dreaming for a long time.

The local major league baseball team, the Texas Rangers, began its existence as the Washington Senators in 1961. Following the 1971 season, the team relocated to north Texas and has gone under the name of the Texas Rangers since 1972.

It took the Rangers nearly a quarter of century even to get into the postseason — and they only recently tasted victory in the playoffs for the first time — but, although most of the early Rangers teams weren't very impressive, loyal baseball fans still sang the official team song before each home game and after the team's triumphs between 1975 and 1980 ...

... And dreamed of scaling baseball's heights.

Those long–suffering fans are entitled to savor the Rangers' American League championship, writes Richard Justice in the Houston Chronicle. It's been a "long, odd, agonizing trip," he says, "and because it has taken 39 years, because the Texas Rangers have had a view of the bottom of the baseball world for so long, this moment is that much more special."

This morning, the Rangers are closer than they have ever been to proclaiming themselves kings of the baseball world. Believe it or not. And even I have to pinch myself at times to remind myself that — wait for it — the World Series really is coming here.

We already knew that the Super Bowl will be played here next February. They determine those things years ahead of time. But there was no way — until last night — that anyone could have known that the World Series would be played here just a few months before.

America's two greatest professional sports championships will be played here in north Texas within four months of each other. How incredible is that?

As Jon Paul Morosi writes for Fox Sports, the Rangers' series with the New York Yankees was pretty one–sided. With the exception of a single late–game meltdown, the Rangers simply overwhelmed New York.

Surprisingly, it never really was close.

Evan Grant writes, in the Dallas Morning News, that the Rangers need an icon that is worthy of their never–say–die resilience.

"All things locally are now officially possible," writes Randy Galloway in the Fort Worth Star–Telegram, "even logical."

And, after the Rangers disposed of the two best teams in the American League, who's to say they won't be able to toss aside either the Giants or the Phillies like rag dolls in the World Series?

I guess, to a certain extent, the Rangers have a lot of folks in this city dreaming this morning. Even me. And I'm not even that much of a baseball fan anymore. I used to be — and I still pull for the team I have always pulled for, the Los Angeles Dodgers, even though I've never lived less than two time zones from L.A. — but it's been more than 10 years since I attended a game.

Anyway, I stand corrected. I was skeptical about their chances against the Yankees, and they proved me wrong.

As Galloway said, all things now seem possible. Perhaps we'll have a World Series parade in Dallas in early November.

North Texas is an area that is hungry beyond words for a champion. It's been more than a decade (and, pardner, that's a long time by Dallas standards) since a champion in any professional sport was crowned around here — and that was in, of all things, hockey!

The basketball team did play in its championship series a few years ago but fell flat.

And the football team hasn't lived up to local preseason expectations for 15 years.

(That's a lifetime for you and me.)

Now, the Rangers can erase — at least, temporarily — the disappointments and the frustrations that have been shouldered by sports fans in this city for years.

I think it is safe to say that, if this city must wait another 39 years for a World Series to come to Arlington, most of us will not be around to see it.

So, for those of us who live here, this is probably our chance.

But this is their moment.

Both the Giants and the Phillies have had their opportunities to win it all in my memory. But not the Rangers. Never before.

My father always encouraged me to root for the underdog. He grew up in Dallas, but he wasn't a product of years of pulling for the woeful Rangers. He'd been away from the Metroplex for many years before the Rangers came to town.

I don't know if the Rangers will be the favorites or the underdogs in this World Series.

And I've been a National League partisan most of my life.

But I'll pull for the Rangers in this World Series.

Rangers Take National Stage

Tonight is a remarkable night in the history of baseball in north Texas.

Tonight, a league championship series begins in Arlington for the first time ever. I know there were many — myself included — who thought this day would never come.

And I have been to a Rangers game that was played in what was probably as close to a World Series atmosphere as anything anyone in these parts could imagine.

In late April 1989, a co–worker and I got tickets and went to Arlington to see the Rangers play the Boston Red Sox. Nolan Ryan had just signed with the Rangers, and we had calculated, based on the pitching rotations, when Ryan and Roger Clemens were likely to face each other, and we got tickets about 10 days ahead of time.

It was a gamble, of course. Either team could have been rained out once or twice, and that could have altered their pitching rotations. But nothing like that happened, and Ryan and Clemens faced off on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon before what seemed to be a capacity crowd.

The game was a pitchers' duel. As I recall, the Red Sox took a 2–1 lead early in the game, and it remained that way until the bottom of the ninth, when Rafael Palmeiro belted a two–run homer, and the Rangers won, 3–2.

Ryan, who was 42 at the time, pitched into the eighth. I didn't find out until I was in the car on my way home that he had been having back spasms since the second inning. But he kept pitching — and kept shutting out the Red Sox — until the Rangers could scratch out the runs they needed to take the lead.

The 2010 Rangers may need that kind of endurance. They had to go the distance in a best–of–five series with Tampa just to get this far, and, fittingly, the team that has won more World Series than any other, the New York Yankees, stands between the Rangers and their debut in the Fall Classic.

Many of my friends in these parts are adjusting their schedules so they can watch the Rangers in the World Series. A couple of days ago, I heard on a local radio station that folks were already camping out at the Ballpark so they can be assured of getting World Series tickets when they go on sale on Sunday. I hope they can get a refund if the Yankees turn out to be the American League's representatives.

Because one thing is for sure — nothing will be certain about the World Series by this Sunday. Yet there are people who will sleep in pup tents and sleeping bags outside a ballpark for four or five nights just to get tickets for what may be a once–in–a–lifetime event.

That's a tribute to Ryan, who is part–owner and team president now. His journey in baseball has seemed, at times, wildly improbable.

Early in his career, he was a relief pitcher for the Amazin' Mets of 1969. Many observers may have written him off in the 1970s, when he labored for a mostly weak California Angels franchise, but he wound up taking them to the playoffs in his final season with them and putting them on the road to continued baseball success. After that, he returned to his native state and played for the Houston Astros for most of the 1980s, helping them to their first playoff series. He concluded his playing career with five seasons in Texas.

There is great anticipation here — where baseball may belatedly join the other major team sports (football, basketball, hockey) that have played for championships. In a sense, the Rangers already have joined that group (or, at least, they will when the first pitch is thrown in Arlington tonight) in this series that will decide the AL champion.

But I speak of overall championships, and, in baseball, those are only won in the World Series. The Rangers must get past the Yankees before they can play Philadelphia or San Francisco for all the marbles.

In a year when the Cowboys, Stars and Mavericks have all been disappointments locally, the Rangers have been bringing back some of that Texas swagger.

"Bring on the Evil Empire," writes Jeff Wilson in the Fort Worth Star–Telegram.

Well, I hope folks enjoy it while they can because I think that expecting to deprive the Yankees of a World Series appearance in the same year that George Steinbrenner died is asking a bit much of the baseball gods.

The Rangers have been playing ball here in north Texas for nearly 40 years. Who knows when they will see fit to send another league championship series this way?

The Field of Dreams

In a couple of hours, my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, will take the field against the University of Virginia in the College World Series. The loser is eliminated and goes home. The winner remains in Omaha, Neb., to pursue college baseball supremacy — however slim the odds may be.

But that's the way it is with baseball fans. Until that last out is recorded, hope springs eternal. Comebacks are always possible, even if you appear to be down to your last strike. This isn't like football or basketball, where the players and fans are at the mercy of the clock and leads can become too great to be overcome in the time that remains.

Anything can happen. That's why they call it the field of dreams.

The pastor of my church here in Dallas is a baseball fan — from what I gather, a pretty knowledgeable one, too. He grew up in this area so he remembers the very first days of the local major league franchise, the Texas Rangers, and he's been here to see all the local fans drink the Kool–Aid before the seasons began — and listen to the rationalizations when the dream inevitably came apart at the seams.

Usually, they stop passing around the Kool–Aid here by May and start anticipating football season, even though the first exhibition games are more than two months away. But sometimes the Rangers tantalize their fans a bit longer, and that's what they've been doing this year.

When the season began back in April, my pastor gave, in his blog, his case for withholding support for the Rangers until they had proven themselves worthy of it.

But the Rangers got off to a strong start this season. And, unfortunately, my pastor still seems to be prone to drinking the Kool–Aid — at least, to a certain extent.

Not that he's alone. There seem to be a lot of people in this area who are eager to see the Rangers in the playoffs, and they have readily welcomed the Rangers' hot start this year.

The Rangers have cooled off a little lately. They won the opener of their series with the majors' hottest club, the Dodgers, last Friday, but then they proceeded to lose the next couple of games. They beat Houston last night, so they're 5–5 in their last 10 games, but their primary division rivals, the Angels, are on a five–game winning streak and have pulled to within two games in the standings.

In his blog last week, my pastor said he could admit when he was wrong, and I've sort of said the same thing recently. But I've been warning that the Rangers tend to wither with the heat. I still think that's what is going to happen. And it's been unusually warm here lately.

If I'm wrong, well, I, too, can admit it. But I don't think I'll have to.

Because I've seen this movie before. Several times.