Full disclosure: I’m a selfish person, a curmudgeon far beyond my years.
My favorite baseball team, the Texas Rangers, are defying their very genetic makeup by challenging for their first playoff appearance since 1999. I’m starting to worry that they will make it.
Futility comes naturally for the only team in the Major Leagues to have never won a playoff series. The oldest team in American professional sports to have never appeared in its league championship is looking like they may actually intend to change that fact.
The very possibility frightens me.
This team has been a constant in my life since I started watching baseball as a child, consistently crushing my dreams and teaching me evermore creative ways to lose.
Aside from a brief departure from the norm in the late 90s, the Rangers have been the very picture of constancy and stability at the bottom of the standings. Beyond simply the win-loss record, though, their consistent refusal to play decent baseball has had an impact upon their fan base.
Unlike whichever team happens to be in first place at any given time, the majority of the people willing to watch the Rangers actually care about them. The putrid nature of Rangers baseball actively discourages the worst person in all of sports from attending their games, the bandwagon fan.
Bandwagon fans, if you’re out there (Who am I kidding? Of course you are!), take this as a desperate plea from the twelve of us Rangers followers who could pick out Rusty Greer if he was standing between Jeff Frye and David Hulse:
The Yankees are playing well this year! Sure, you rooted for the Sox while the Yankees mismanaged themselves into an expensive, underachieving shell of their 90s glory days for the last half decade — but those days are over!
Dust off your pinstripes and get ready to loudly over-agonize about your Yanks’ recent loss when the results flicker across the ESPN “BottomLine,” despite not even knowing that they were in action, much less who they were playing!
Don’t even begin to worry that living your entire life in Houston or Tulsa, Norman or Purcell might make your rooting for a team 2,000 miles away seem a bit suspicious.
Remember, not only did you vacation in New York City for a week back in high school, but you applied to NYU and Syracuse! Rooting for your Yanks is practically a birthright.
Despite being totally removed from the only geographic region where one could possibly develop such a feeling, be sure to let everyone in your immediate vicinity know just how much you hate — no, loathe those Red Sox at every opportunity.
When some similarly out of touch guy in your class snidely brings up the Yanks’ failure to reach the playoffs last year, it is imperative that you go to great lengths to convince everyone in the room that the very mention of that season causes you immeasurable pain.
Of course, by doing so, you completely miss out on what makes following sports so fun. By watching a team develop over the course of many years, you become more invested in their performance.
By suffering through the rough spots, the good times become even greater.
The Rangers’ exciting run this season is the payoff for the necessary growing pains experienced in the last one. Those that watched last year caught a glimpse of what was to come, and feel more connected to today’s successes. As a fan, the ride was just as much fun as the end result.
So, with October looming, those of you starting to decide who will be your favorite team this year would do well to stay far away from Arlington, Texas.
If history is any judge, there probably will not be a World Series there this year or even the next few.
Whatever success may be in the future for the Rangers, it will not be fully appreciated by the newcomers.
Unless you’re here for the long haul, this bandwagon is closed.
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saxman 2 years, 9 months ago
Amen!
eightbitgirl 2 years, 9 months ago
I kind of feel your pain and a lot more since I'm a Cubs fan. Sorry, I couldn't read all this, my team just dropped two to the freaking NATIONALS.
is it football season yet? sigh.