Major League Baseball

'Hello, Win Column'

Published Oct. 14, 2010 10:09 p.m. ET

foxsports

"Hello, win column."

We hope you heard Eric Nadel's call on the radio just after 10 p.m. Tuesday. Yes, Game 5 of the Texas Rangers-Tampa Bay Rays series was on television, but baseball, as we've known it, is more aural than something to be crammed into a screen.

With those three words, Nadel both saluted his late and longtime radio partner, the great Mark Holtz, and tied off more than four decades of mostly difficult days and nights for Texas Rangers fans. The hard times never quite evaporate - like sweat on those aluminum bleachers at the old Arlington Stadium - but maybe they just made us stronger.

If the champagne, beer or ginger ale hasn't finished dripping off your couch, pause with us for a moment and take some joy in living through the best time ever to be a Rangers fan. Even before we heard "Hello, win column," it was - win or lose - the best season in club history. This team is built to win now and into the foreseeable future.

But as one diehard fan told us just before the first pitch Tuesday, "You know, being the only team to have never won a playoff series ... I'm tired of carrying that around."

Well, unburden yourself. The better team, with the better pitcher, won. Hustle, speed and daring produced three runs. A more typical Rangers staple - the two-run homer - gave Cliff Lee more cushion than he would need.

Then it was over: Hello, win column.

And hello, New York Yankees.

Could you find a sharper contrast for the American League Championship Series? The Yankees: the "evil empire," with more world titles than anyone else, more haughty tradition and, as they prove year after year, more money. The Rangers: a team in bankruptcy deep into this season, patched together with homegrown talent, bargain parts and one consequential trade.

Except for this: Can you really say these Yankees, even with their many multimillionaire stars, are the better team? We can't, either.

It sells the Rangers short to imply they are in the midst of some magical season, that somehow they've been touched by the baseball gods. It sells short the talent Jon Daniels assembled, against all odds, or the way Ron Washington managed this club, or Nolan Ryan's stewardship or Chuck Greenberg's ownership.

Most important, it sells short Cliff Lee, Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Elvis Andrus, Ian Kinsler, C.J. Wilson, Nelson Cruz, Vladimir Guerrero and everyone else, players with skill and character who play the game hard and the right way. Four wins to the World Series, four more to win it.

Is that so hard to imagine today? Maybe it's the Yankees who should be worried.