The very large and very proud – some would say overly proud – state of Texas has a nice collection of professional team sports championships in its portfolio.
Unless we are talking baseball. There the story is humbling.
The Houston Astros’ expansion franchise began play in 1962, and Dallas welcomed the Texas Rangers (formerly the Washington Senators) in 1972.
If the Rangers do not win the World Series this autumn, it will be a combined 100 seasons of championship futility for the two franchises. It is getting to be Cub-esque in the Lone Star State.
Now, there is no question that American football is king in Texas. Word has it thousands of boy babies are placed into their cribs for the first time alongside their first footballs.
The Dallas Cowboys of the NFL have rewarded the obsessed faithful with five Super Bowl titles, and fans are admittedly getting restless over a current 21-year drought.
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Baseball is not light years behind in popularity, or participation. Texas has produced such legendary Hall of Fame players as Rogers Hornsby, Frank Robinson and Nolan Ryan.
Current notable Texans include the best pitcher in the game, Clayton Kershaw, and one of its brightest newbies, Noah Syndergaard. Sluggers Chris Davis and Jay Bruce are from Texas as are multiple World Series winners Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt.
There are more than 50 players from Texas on MLB squads. Oddly, though, none of them play for the Rangers, meaning it will be up to someone else’s favourite sons to bring Texas their first baseball championship this fall.
In Texas’ championship-void department, baseball sits alone among major North American team sports. The San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks have combined for eight basketball titles in NBA. As a pairing, while ice hockey and Texas bring to mind onions and chocolate, the Dallas Stars of the NHL won the Stanley Cup in 1999.
We can even include Major League Soccer and note that the Houston Dynamo did their part with championship seasons in 2006 and 2007.
The Astros and Rangers rarely have even raised such hopes since 1962. Houston have played in one World Series, a 2005 debacle against the Chicago White Sox that resulted in the Astros being swept away in four straight games.
The Rangers reached their first World Series in 2010 and were flattened in five games by the San Francisco Giants.
The next year was a different story. Perhaps the only story worth telling in Texas baseball lore.
The Rangers were one out away from the World Series championship in Game 6 against the St Louis Cardinals. But then-right fielder Nelson Cruz misplayed a long, but catchable, fly ball into a triple, prolonging the game that the Cardinals went on to win. Of course, St Louis also won decisive Game 7.
This year’s Rangers hopefuls are solid, having posted the best record in the American League, and are led by veteran power-hitting third baseman Adrian Beltre and a deep contingent of experienced pitchers.
They will enjoy home-field advantage at every stage of the post-season. Fortunately for them, the fact that their state has never won a baseball championship is an under-the-radar concept, not something that gets much attention.
What Beltre knows most of all is that he and most of his teammates have not won.
"Winning the World Series would be the thing to define my career, to say I was a champion," he told the New York Times.
If Texas happens to come along for the ride, well, that would be OK, too. And about time.
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