No longer an exercise in futility

Neither the Giants or Rangers looked particularly potent when the season began, in April. And when they made the play-offs, neither was thought likely to advance to this final stage.

This is a World Series few saw coming. The San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers? One of these benighted franchises, perhaps. Certainly not both.

Neither side looked particularly potent when the season began, in April. And when they made the play-offs, neither was thought likely to advance to this final stage.

The Giants had reached the World Series only three times in the past 55 years, and lost each time. The Rangers had never appeared in Major League Baseball's championship series in the 49-year history of the club.

So while this best-of-seven championship series may lack for superstar power and traditions of recent success, it is destined to make sweet history for one of these two star-crossed (and sometimes ineptly run) teams.

The current Giants and Rangers have little in common, aside from their modern history of failure.

The Giants were often formidable during seven decades in New York, winning five World Series and boasting greats such as Willie Mays, Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell.

But since their move to San Francisco, in 1958, they have struggled to remain competitive and have failed in somewhat bizarre circumstances in those three World Series appearances.

They lost to the Yankees by inches in 1962 (when what looked like a game-winning smash was caught for the final out); having their 1989 appearance marred by the Loma Prieta earthquake one hour before their first home game in the series; and squandering a five-run lead in the seventh inning of what would have been a clinching victory in 2002, before losing a psyche-scarring series to the Anaheim Angels.

The Rangers, meanwhile, came into existence in 1961 as the Washington Senators, replacing the original Senators who had moved to Minneapolis.

The new franchise was wretched, with forgettable players, and that situation did not change after their move to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in 1972.

Included in their three futile decades in Texas was a nine-year stretch during which George W Bush, the future US president, ran the club.

Until two weeks ago, the Rangers had never won a post-season series, and as an afterthought in an American football-crazed community dominated by the Dallas Cowboys, few seemed to care.

The clubs offer sharp contrasts in playing styles.

The Giants lean heavily on their pitching, most effective in baseball this season as judged by their 3.36 earned-run average. Their staff is led by the bohemian left-hander Tim Lincecum and culminates with the colourful closer Brian Wilson.

But their hitters are a barely competent assemblage of castoffs and journeymen who play for one run at a time. Two hitters in the middle of their batting order, Cody Ross and Pat Burrell, were so lightly regarded in the middle of the season that they were dumped on the open market by their previous teams.

The Rangers, meanwhile, have one great pitcher, Cliff Lee, who faces Lincecum in Game 1 tonight in San Francisco, but the rest of their pitchers have sketchy CVs. CJ Wilson, for example, was an often ineffective relief pitcher until this year; Colby Lewis is freshly returned from two years of exile in the Japanese leagues. Neftali Perez is in his first season as a closer.

Texas cover for their erratic pitching with a potent batting order which includes five hitters - Josh Hamilton, Vladimir Guerrero, Ian Stewart, Michael Young and Nelson Cruz - with more impressive credentials than anyone who plays for the Giants. They expect multi-run eruptions and often get them.

The Rangers may have allowed 90 more runs during the season than did the Giants, but they scored 90 more than their series opponents. If this becomes a high-scoring series, the Giants are in trouble.

The supporters of each team are starved for success.

The Giants are the better supported franchise and seem more deeply ingrained in the fabric of their city, one of the most cosmopolitan in the US.

Despite the club's shortcomings they have sold more than three million tickets almost annually for the past decade - over one million more than typically pay to see the Rangers play.

Many of those numerous Giants fans have been scarred by their team's failures. Michael Wolgelenter, 43, a Giants fan who lives in Hong Kong, said: "It may be fatalism [but] I'll believe a World Series title when I see it."

He added: "There's more than a lingering doubt that if it doesn't happen this year, it might not happen for a very, very long time, given that the Giants can't compete in baseball's big-money world."

Brian Woodward, 29, a Rangers fan from Texas who lives in Dubai and Doha, said: "I thought it was our fate never to reach the 'Fall Classic'. For now, reaching the World Series is enough for me."

For one of these clubs, futility is about to become relegated to history. That guarantee alone makes this World Series a compelling event for baseball fans.