Kuzul

When the Texas Rangers returned home from New York, having taken two out of three games at Yankee Stadium, the airport was packed with Ranger fans ready to cheer on their team, ready to see them wrap up the ALCS at the Ballpark at Arlington.

Last night, that same team returned home with absolutely no fanfare at all, and no lead. They were dejected, beaten and shell-shocked. This morning, the media members that were there were saying a few players that were coming off the plane had their heads down, quiet and without a single expression.

Living in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, I got used to the media fanfare that came with the Rangers winning the ALCS. The excitement was evident and there was a feeling of excitement around the metroplex.

Instead of seeing Cowboy jerseys around town, they’ve been replaced by Ranger T-shirts, jerseys, hats, car flags and everything else you can imagine. Ranger nation has stood up strong and rooted for its team.

But, after the last two nights of watching their team get beaten like a drum, the excitement has died down, the excitement is almost gone, and a feeling of being dejected, shocked, and surprised has taken over this town.

This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The Rangers were supposed to be the favorites in this series. They had Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson going in the first two games, yet their team returned home down two games to none.

Last night, my wife and I decided to go to a local restaurant to watch the game with a lot of other Ranger fans that were sure to show up, and show up they did.

They were in their red or blue claw and antler T-shirts, jerseys and hats, ready to cheer on their team.

The first four innings were uneventful, both C.J. Wilson and Matt Cain had thrown up zeros on the board. Then came the fifth inning, arguably the moment that could have been the turning point for the Texas Rangers.

Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler led off the fifth inning and took a high fastball deep to center field. Most of us in the restaurant were already on our feet thinking that ball was on its way over the center-field wall.

The ball hit the padding on the very top of the wall and instead of bouncing over the wall, it came back in play, and Kinsler was held to a double.

He would be left on second as neither David Murphy, Matt Treanor or C.J. Wilson, after a walk to Mitch Moreland, could move or score Kinsler.

That moment, the ball hitting the padding and coming back in, changed the entire complexity of the game. Instead of the Rangers going up 1-0 and taking the momentum and bringing it to their side, the game stayed scoreless.

It was a moment the Rangers needed, it was a run they desperately wanted and it was a run they wish they would have gotten.

In the home half of the fifth, Wilson delivered a good high fastball to shortstop Edgar Renteria, a fastball that he jumped all over and hammered over the left field wall to give the Giants a 1-0 lead.

The Giants fans were in a frenzy and the momentum that could have gone the Rangers’ way was gone.

As if things couldn’t get worse, the Rangers imploded in the eighth inning, giving up seven runs, three of which were given up without a single hit.

Derek Holland was brought into the game and he couldn’t throw a strike to save his life. In 13 pitches, Holland threw just one for a strike. While he was struggling on the mound, Rangers manager Ron Washington could only watch and apparently was so caught up in what was happening, he forgot to get anyone else warm in the bullpen.

By the time he did, it was too late. Holland had walked in two runs and the game had gotten away from them.

The most amazing part of all this was the Giants scored seven runs and all of those came with two outs in the inning. The Rangers needed one out, and it took three relievers, seven runs and three walked-in runs to get there.

Now, this team has put themselves in a hole they didn’t expect to be in. They’ve dug themselves this hole with their own shovels and it’s time to see what they’re made of over the next three games.

Their attitudes need to get better, they need to start having confidence in themselves, and they need to find ways to win. Not only that, but they need to sweep the next three games.

Yes, you heard me right. The Texas Rangers need to sweep their next three games at their home ballpark. They don’t want to see the Giants celebrate on their home field and they don’t want to go back to San Francisco down three games to two.

They haven’t won in San Francisco. In fact, they’ve been embarrassed in both games.

If the Rangers want fans to believe that they are the same team that knocked off the defending champion New York Yankees and if they want fans to show up next season, they need to prove that they are not the team that got it handed to them over the first two games.

Walk back into the ballpark, look around, imagine these fans filing in and imagine the expectations they had for this ball club coming into this series. Then imagine the disappointment they’re feeling this morning.

They’ve watched their team struggle and they’ve been sickened watching the Giants fans celebrate, having a party at the Rangers’ expense.

If they can’t fix the problems that have plagued them over the first two games, this series will be over by the time the weekend is out.

If they can fix it, and actually start putting up a fight, then this series will become even more interesting than it already is.

The Rangers shocked everybody by putting a beating on the Yankees, but they’ve been shockingly awful through the first two games of arguably the most important series in franchise history.

So, it’s up to this team to decide whether they want to make history or be known as part of one of the most lopsided World Series in baseball history.

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Nolan Ryan has been the man behind the 2010 Texas Rangers. After he, Chuck Greenberg and the rest of the Ranger fans ran Tom Hicks out of town, this team has gone from cellar-dweller to World Series favorite.

A guy like Ryan knows the game—he knows the kind of talent it takes to get to the ultimate goal. He brought those players in, and they are just four wins away from accomplishing what he set out to accomplish.

But is he the only former player and Hall of Famer turned general manager that could succeed in the same role? Are there other Hall-of-Fame players who could have the same type of success?

What about guys like Ricky Henderson, Dave Stewart, Ryne Sandberg, Ozzie Smith and so many others? How good would these guys be in the same position as Nolan Ryan? Would they be as good or  possibly even better?

Here’s a look at 20 current Major League Baseball Hall of Famers who could be successful general managers.

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We’re less than 24 hours away from the first pitch of the 2010 World Series between the Texas Rangers, champions of the American League, and the San Francisco Giants, champions of the National League.

There have been all sorts of predictions leading up to this game since both teams clinched their respective leagues.

Some have taken the Rangers and some are going with the Giants, but one thing is for sure, this could be a better series than most think.

Sure the Yankees aren’t there and neither are the Red Sox, Dodgers or Phillies, but who’s to say that this series couldn’t be better than a Phillies and Yankees showdown?

The Giants have three great young starters, while the Rangers have a shut-down ace and an offense that made a throttling of the New York Yankees look easy.

For me, I’m going to go with the Texas Rangers. They’ve shown me far too much not to pick them to win. Here are 10 moments that will lead them to bringing home the World Series trophy to Arlington.

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This is a position that the Texas Rangers are all too familiar with. It’s a position they’ve been in through their first two postseason series, and they’ll play the role one more time.

What is that role, you ask? It’s being the underdog.

When the Rangers made it to the postseason, no one expected them to get past the Tampa Bay Rays let alone be the American League Champions. They weren’t supposed to beat the Rays, and they sure weren’t given a snowball’s chance in hell against the defending champion New York Yankees.

Once the Rangers had knocked off the Rays in the American League Divisional Series, the New York media started its onslaught of entitlement. A few of which actually put the Yankees in the World Series before they had even met the Rangers in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.

After the Yankees came back and won Game 1 after trailing most of the night, most of the fans here in Texas thought every bit of momentum from that game was gone, and the series could be over all too soon.

While some might have counted them out after the first night, the Rangers weren’t counting themselves out, and they proved it over the next five games. Finally putting them down for good in Game 6, Texas sent the defending champions home for the ninth time in 10 years.

Much to the chagrin of the media that didn’t expect a thing from the Rangers or the ones that expected them to lay down and let the Yankees walk all over them, it was the Yankees that watched another team celebrate.

Now, after playing the underdog for two straight series, they’ll be in the position one more time, but this time it comes in the World Series against the National League Champion San Francisco Giants.

The team from the Bay Area finished off a 4-2 series win over another heavily favored team, the Philadelphia Phillies.

They have young pitchers in Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez and Matt Cain. Three guys who can shut down just about any team they face.

Most will talk about how the Giants shut down the Phillies offense, but even they pale in comparison to either the Yankees or the Rangers. So far this postseason, the Phillies had a team batting average of .215, a 45 point drop from their .260 combined batting average during the regular season.

But, say what you want about the Phillies, the Giants offense wasn’t much better, dropping 26 points from the regular season (.257) to the postseason (.231).

On the flip side of the coin, the Texas Rangers picked up right where they left off from the regular season. They led all of baseball in team batting average (.276), only dropping three points during the postseason (.273).

When Vladimir Guerrero wasn’t hitting, they got big hits from Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Bengie Molina and Nelson Cruz. But, whey needed Guerrero the most, he came through in Game 6 with a clutch two-run double before Cruz put the game away for good.

They have guys who can come up big at any given time. They have a lineup that has speed up front with Elvis Andrus, power in the middle with Guerrero, Hamilton and Cruz, and role players who can pick up the slack with Ian Kinsler, Molina and David Murphy.

The one thing that you can count on being thrown out are “historic stats” between the two teams like ESPN’s Buster Olney has already done this morning. It’s inevitable that people will find some way to make their team look like the favorite in the days leading up to Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday night.

But, no matter how many stats we want to throw out and no matter who has or hasn’t done well in the past against this pitcher, we saw how history worked out for the Yankees in the ALCS. They had owned the Rangers in the past, but the past doesn’t always translate to the present.

Where this game will be won is on the hill. The Rangers were ninth in baseball in team ERA (3.93) during the regular season and have been nothing short of dominant in the postseason, putting up a combined 2.40 ERA.

The Rangers are expected to have Cliff Lee in Game 1 followed by C.J. Wilson in Game 2 and either Colby Lewis or Tommy Hunter in Game 3 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

For the Giants, they are most likely to go with Tim Lincecum in Game 1, Jonathan Sanchez in Game 2 and Matt Cain in Game 3.

Let’s get to the heart of what this World Series is really all about. CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel spelled this out in a brilliant manner and far better than I ever could. This is a World Series between two mid-majors, if you forgive the college football pun.

The Yankees are out as are the Phillie,s and the Los Angeles Dodgers decided to quit with two months left in the season.

The media isn’t salivating over the pinstripes; they don’t get to talk about their crush on Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter for at least another three months and change. They can’t stand that. Who is going to watch a World Series between two teams who actually earned, not bought, their way onto the biggest stage in baseball?

This guy.

It’s a series that will feature some of the best pitching baseball has to offer. It will also feature a guy you can’t help but love (Josh Hamilton), a guy with a beard that continues to get darker by the day (Brian Wilson), a guy who will get a World Series ring no matter who wins (Bengie Molina), and arguably one of the worst, or best depending on how you look at it, haircuts you’ll ever see (Tim Lincecum).

These are two good teams with a bunch of guys who you won’t hate nearly as much as those who hate the Yankees.

There is no Alex Rodriguez type arrogance, there are no Nick Swisher type barrages of ‘f’ bombs to explain their feelings about facing Cliff Lee, and there will be no home made signs that say “Can’t we just sign both Lee and Hamilton,” caught by the TBS cameras while in New York.

The Rangers and Giants don’t have the best players money can buy. These two teams have the kind of talent that makes a World Series worth watching.

The glass slipper could be the most overrated symbol in all of sports. But, we love to root for the underdog don’t we? Well, at least most of us do.

For both cities, this is as big as it gets because neither city has much to root for when it comes to football. The Giants and Rangers are saving the NFL fans who are suffering by having to watch two lackluster football teams. The Cowboys and 49ers are a combined 2-9 so far this season. Yeah, it’s not been a good year for them.

Whether you think the networks will hate this World Series, you can bet that both AT&T Park and the Ballpark in Arlington will be sold out for every game that takes place at each respective stadium. These fans are chomping at the bit for Game 1, and they are ready for a World Series Championship to be brought home to their town.

For the Texas Rangers, this will be the defining moment for their franchise. They have been through an ownership change, they’ve been through slumps, the ineffectiveness of Scott Feldman and Rich Harden and jubilation when they acquired Cliff Lee from the Seattle Mariners.

This is a solid group of guys. Every single one has come up with a big hit during this postseason, every single one has done what the team required of them to get this far.

They’ve knocked off the best the American League had to offer. Now, they are just four wins away from their first ever World Series title.

The team’s mantra, “It’s Time,” has held true all season long. They have one more hurdle to clear and they’ve come too far to lose now.

The Texas Rangers, and their fans, believe it’s their time. They’re ready to celebrate in Arlington, a celebration that, for the first time, won’t have anything to do with the Dallas Cowboys.

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The clouds had started roll in and the rain had begun to come down. It left a lot of the fans in attendance at Rangers Ballpark wondering if Game Six of the American League Championship Series was even going to happen.

Just 10 minutes before the game was scheduled to get underway, the rains came to an end, the tarp was pulled off the field, and the game got underway.

A little over two and a half hours later, it was young closer Neftali Feliz staring down the barrel against former Ranger Alex Rodriguez.

Feliz had worked the count to three balls and two strikes, throwing nothing but fastballs up and a few more fastballs inside. So naturally, Rodriguez expected another fastball was coming his way.

He was wrong.

A perfectly placed curveball on the outside corner left Rodriguez staring with the bat still on his shoulder. It was a called third strike that sent the players and the fans in into a euphoric celebration and Yankee fans left wondering how they could lose to a team they felt was far inferior to their own before this series began.

The Texas Rangers weren’t impressed with the 27 World Series titles that the Yankees rolled in with. They weren’t impressed with the pinstripes that had become so famous over the many years the team has been in existence.

The Rangers earned this title tonight. To be the champ, you gotta beat the champ. They did just that tonight, knocking off the defending World Series Champions and will now await the winner of the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants series that should be finished by the end of the weekend.

This was a long time coming for a team that wasn’t expected to do much of anything. They were never expected to get this far. Not this team, not this year.

But the city of Arlington and all of the long suffering Ranger fans are celebrating on this Friday night. They are celebrating the first ever ALCS Championship in franchise history. They are still riding high from the celebration that took place not only at the ballpark but around several thousand homes, around the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex.

There was even a celebration that took place at a certain wedding reception.

With the Rangers up 6-1 and the game heading to the ninth inning, several of us walked into a room with a big screen television and sat down to watch history unfold.

With every strike thrown and with every out put up on the board, the more the excitement built. Five pitches later, with the count at 3-and-2, Neftali Feliz threw a perfectly placed pitch that Rodriguez could only stare at.

This was a night that was a long time coming. The celebrations are still going on all around Dallas and Forth Worth and they are well deserved.

Fans of this team have waited for quite some time just to feel this kind of night. They’ve waited to be able to celebrate like this and they were ready for their team to have some time in the spotlight.

It was the perfect Cinderella story. The Rangers were the underdog and they beat the bully that thought every team would just lay down for. The bully that stole the lunch money and always came back for more.

Over the next few days, the players, coaches, and families will rest and wait for who their opponent will be next.

Most won’t talk to the media or answer questions about the series they’ve just been through. Most will want their time to be spent away from the spotlight and away from the cameras.

They are the ALCS Champions but they have an even bigger goal in mind. They have the World Series still to win and they want to bring that trophy home for the first time in franchise history.

They want the feeling of being at the very top of mountain. They want to know what it feels like to win the most coveted prize in the industry.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. They will either board a plane bound for Philadelphia or San Francisco sometime next week. They’ll take the weekend to relax and come down from the ultimate high of beating the hated New York Yankees.

This was a series they were next expected to win. But sometimes, Cinderella gets to stay at the ball, even after the clock strikes midnight.

As for the New York Yankees, they’ll board a plane either tonight or first thing in the morning for what is sure to be a very quiet ride to New York.

They’ll wonder what went wrong. They’ll wonder how they ever lost to the Texas Rangers of all teams. Weren’t they the bullies of Major League Baseball? Weren’t they the ones that were always supposed to advance in the playoffs no matter who they faced?

The story did not have the ending that they believe would be scripted for them. The money that was thrown into the team ends with yet another playoff exit, their ninth in the last 10 years.

While the Yankees sit on 27 World Series Championships, something their fans will let you know about every time they have the chance, they will be forced to watch this one from home.

They’ll be forced to watch the team that was better in this series. They were not the team doing the dominating, but the team getting dominated.

It’s back to the drawing board to figure out a way to make sure this doesn’t happen again next season. There will be moves made, trades worked out, and free agents signed. Because that’s what the Yankees do. They find their weakness, they throw money at the best player that can fix it.

The next battle between these two teams won’t have to wait for spring training. It will take place in just a few short months when free agency begins.

The Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, along with a few other teams, will begin wooing one Cliff Lee for his services for the 2011 season and beyond.

While New York will tell Ranger fans that they better get used to the idea of Lee being in pinstripes for the foreseeable future, there are some that believe Lee is going to stay put, and why wouldn’t they?

A far question that has been asked is, why would Lee sign with the team that the Rangers took down in the ALCS? If the Rangers win the World Series, why would he sign with the team that didn’t get there?

If he wants a chance to win, and believes the Rangers are well on their way to building a team that can win year in and year out, I believe Cliff Lee will be in a Texas Rangers uniform for years to come.

But, for now, Arlington, Dallas, and Fort Worth are buzzing from the events of this night. They are still celebrating something they never thought they would see, and they would much rather this night not end.

There’s still work to be done, there’s still preparations to be made, and there’s still an even bigger journey for this team to make.

The story isn’t over yet, but one more chapter has been written and has come to a close. How the final chapter will be written depends on how bad this team wants it.

If they put up the kind of effort they put forward in this series, there isn’t a team in baseball that can stop them. The World Series could be over before it even starts.

The Texas Rangers made history on Friday night, October 22nd, 2010. This is a night that will be remembered for a long time to come.

The only way this story is closed with the perfect ending is with this team bringing home a World Series trophy to Rangers’ ballpark.

Then, and only then, can the final paragraph and the final sentence be written to what has been an incredible story.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Rangers’ ballpark is quiet, at least for now.

Workers have slowly started to trickle in, the local radio station is doing their broadcast from the home plate entrance, the ALCS banners have been hung for fans to see as they start to file in, and the anticipation has begun.

This Friday night is far different from any other Friday night in Rangers’ history, because it’s on this Friday night that the Texas Rangers, and their fans, will be able to celebrate a franchise first.

An American League Championship.

For the first time, well, ever, this town has talked more baseball than football. For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, the Dallas Cowboys have taken a back seat to the Texas Rangers, and they’ll stay there through the World Series.

The fans that had jumped off the bandwagon, or those that hate baseball, have actually jumped back on the bandwagon, pretending they were there from the start.

But that’s OK. This area has always been known for bandwagon fans, so why should it be any different this year?

From the start of this series against the hated New York Yankees, this Rangers ballclub has been counted out, and most didn’t expect them to put up much of a fight. They expected the Yankees to do what they’ve always done.

Dominate.

What has happened from the very first pitch is something no one saw coming. Say what you want about “believing” in this team, but in the back of your mind you never expected the Rangers to be the ones doing the dominating.

If not for the top of the eighth inning in Game 1, the Yankees would have been staring at a four-game sweep. Instead, the series has shifted back to Arlington, with the Rangers up 3-2 after the Bronx Bombers picked up a 7-2 win in Game 5.

Colby Lewis will take the ball in what will be the deciding game for this team. The last time he toed the mound for the Rangers—Game 2—he gave up two runs through 5.2 innings in a 7-2 Ranger win.

On the flip side, for the New York Yankees, Phil Hughes will take the ball for the first time since he got run out of Arlington in a 7-2 Ranger win. Hughes gave up seven runs on 10 hits, lasting just four innings.

So tonight, the Texas Rangers’ mantra, “It’s Time,” will be put to the test.

Is it time for the Rangers to do something they’ve never done before in franchise history? Is it time for the most storied team in baseball history to exit the playoffs with a series loss for the ninth time in 10 years? Is it time for the Ballpark in Arlington to explode in celebration when the final out is recorded?

Those questions will be answered in just a few short hours.

If you ask me, I’m giving the Rangers the win tonight and watching as the Ranger fans celebrate. I’m ready to watch the fans—not only at the ballpark, but at sports bars and restaurants around the metroplex—to honk their horns, flash their lights, yell, scream, jump up and down, and generally celebrate their team’s ALCS win.

The Yankees, without question, have a storied past, but as they say so famously, “that’s why they play the game.”

You can tell whoever will listen how many World Series Championships the Yankees have. You can crack on the Rangers for being the cellar dweller of the American League for so long. You can stomp your feet and laugh at Ranger fans while telling them that Cliff Lee will sign with the Yankees after this season is over.

But while you’re doing that, just remember this: While you’re talking about “27,” Ranger fans will politely smile back at you and say “while that might be true, it’s our team that’s celebrating tonight while your team heads home to WATCH the World Series.”

So tonight, as Game 6 wraps up and Ranger players spray champagne—or ginger ale in the case of outfielder Josh Hamilton and pitcher C.J. Wilson—all over the clubhouse and all over the fans who have stayed in the ballpark to celebrate with the players, it will be a moment locked into Ranger history forever.

The City of Arlington will celebrate and the American League Championship Series will come to an end. The Rangers will be handed the ALCS trophy and they’ll get set to play the winner of the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants, which is slated to get underway on Wednesday night.

Enjoy this night Ranger fans. It’s been a long time coming, but it doesn’t make it any less sweet.

Texas Rangers, the 2010 ALCS Champions. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

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Did you ever think, in the middle of October, we’d still be talking about the Texas Rangers?

Normally this time of year is reserved for the Dallas Cowboys and football. Instead, the Cowboys have not only taken a back seat but they’ve been so bad that the Rangers have gotten top billing on just about every radio station in town.

Let me take you back to Opening Day here in Arlington, Texas.

A close friend of mine has his own radio show every Monday afternoon just a few blocks from the ballpark at Arlington. He asked me to come on and talk a little baseball and give my predictions for who would win each division.

While I didn’t call a lot of them right, picking the likes of the St. Louis Cardinals to win the National League Central and the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League West, one prediction I did make ended up coming true. It was the last prediction I ever expected to be right.

It wasn’t the easiest of picks and especially not against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. This was a team that had been the dominant force in the American League West for so many years. Not to mention winning the World Series back in 2002 and taking home five AL West pennants this decade, including four of the previous five years.

But I guess you could call it a hunch or maybe it was a little of the homer in me coming out. Though I don’t know how that could be seeing as I was a California boy born and raised.

There was something I saw in this roster. Something that I felt that told me the Rangers were going to be a team to be reckoned with this season.

They had added Vladimir Guerrero, former Los Angeles Angel, a guy that would take the Rangers apart when he would come to the ballpark as an opponent.

Next to him was a guy by the name of Josh Hamilton. He had a story that just about every baseball fan knew from his days as a young man, to the guy that blew thousands upon thousands of dollars on drugs and alcohol, to the man that’s turned his life around completely and has become one of the more prolific baseball players in the game today.

Along with Guerrero and Hamilton are guys like long-time Ranger Michael Young, young short stop Elvis Andrus, who I remember watching when he was with the team’s Double-A affiliate, the  Frisco Roughriders, second baseman Ian Kinsler and outfielder Nelson Cruz.

The team had the look of being able to do big things this season—I just never expected that it would get to this level.

What I also didn’t count on, from Opening Day to now, was the complete ineffectiveness of pitchers Scott Feldman and Rich Harden. Both of whom aren’t even on the Rangers postseason roster.

After finishing 17-8 with a 4.08 ERA last season, Feldman finished 2010 with a 7-11 record and a 5.48 ERA. As for Harden, this is a season he’d much rather forget. In 18 starts, Harden finished with a 5-5 record and a 5.58 ERA, by far his worst numbers in his career.

The guys that have stepped up are 24-year-old right-hander Tommy Hunter, reliever turned starter C.J. Wilson and 31-year-old right-hander Colby Lewis.

Hunter finished the 2010 regular season with a 13-4 record and 3.73 ERA, Wilson has been even better than that going 15-8 with a 3.35 ERA and Colby Lewis was 12-13 with a 3.72 ERA.

These three guys have been some of the biggest reasons the Rangers are where they are right now. But it was one big move at the trade deadline that has made the biggest difference.

A few days prior to Major League Baseball’s trade deadline at the end of July, the Texas Rangers slipped in front of the New York Yankees and stole away left-hander Cliff Lee all by offering up Justin Smoak, one of the Rangers’ top prospects.

The deal looked like it backfired on them after Lee struggled through his first few starts. However, after the Rangers took him out of the rotation and had him checked out by a doctor, he was given a few cortisone shots for what the team called a back issue and was given a clean bill of health.

Since then, Lee has been nothing short of unstoppable. Through three postseason starts, he is 3-0 with an incredible 0.75 ERA and has double-digit strikeouts in all three of his starts, including a 13-strikeout performance in Game 3 of the ALCS against the Yankees.

Now, with the Rangers up three games to one in the American League Championship Series, this franchise is one win away from their first-ever trip to the World Series.

After struggling to get past the Tampa Bay Rays in the first round of the playoffs, the Rangers have dominated the Yankees in every aspect of the game. If not for one bad inning in Game 1, the Rangers would be coming home with a four-game sweep of the defending champions. That in itself is far more telling of how this series has gone.

The Yankees bullpen has been, for the most part, ineffective, as has their ace CC Sabathia, No. 2 man Philip Hughes and the October disappearing act Alex Rodriguez, who has just two hits in 15 at-bats against Texas in this series.

What might make this win even sweeter for Rangers fans is reading an article like this from the New York Daily News, showing the kind of respect or lack thereof that was given to this ball club before this series started.

So as Dallas and Fort Worth, along with the outlying North Texas areas, get ready to celebrate tonight if the Rangers can wrap this series up, I sit here and wonder if this changes the dynamics of sports here in Texas.

With the new ownership in place and guys like Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg running the team, they are set up to be a franchise that can contend year in and year out.

With that in mind and the fact that the Dallas Cowboys have just one playoff win in over 15 years, could this slowly become more of a Ranger town than a Cowboy town?

Before you say no, don’t forget that this is one of the biggest bandwagon towns in sports. Those that were saying, “Who cares about the Rangers?” at the beginning of this season are the same ones that are wearing the “claw and antler” T-shirts and yelling, “Go Rangers” at the top of their lungs.

That’s a question that can be debated until the Rangers take the field for the 2011 season. But, for right now, these sports fans are throwing their support behind, and keeping their focus on, a team that deserves it.

There’s excitement in Texas and it has nothing to do with football.

The Rangers are one win away from the World Series. How do you like that?

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

If not for one inning, the Texas Rangers would be staring at a three-game-to-none lead in the ALCS against the team that is supposed to dominate in the playoffs.

They’ve dominated 26 of the 27 innings played, and they’ve outscored the defending champion New York Yankees 21-8, including an 8-0 shutout on Monday night.

After most thought the Yankees would run right through the Rangers, this resilient young team has showed that they still have fight in them and that they are every bit as good as the potent Yankees lineup. What they’ve also proved is they have better pitching. As history has shown—especially in the playoffs—good pitching beats good hitting every day of the week.

With the Rangers up two games to one after the win on Monday night, they are playing well enough to wrap this series up before it ever shifts back to Arlington, Texas.

Here are 10 reasons why they’ll do just that on Wednesday, and why they’ll make the Yankees—and their fans—watch as the Rangers celebrate as ALCS Champions.

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Growing up around baseball, I was well aware of the history that came with the New York Yankees mystique. I was well aware of what that franchise had accomplished, and I’ve respected that my entire life.

However, that’s where my respect comes to a grinding halt.

With the 27 World Series Championships, all bought and paid for in full, come a certain amount of arrogance. Maybe not with every fan, but you know the ones I’m referring to.

I hate to liken this to football, but sometimes it’s the same kind of arrogance you might get with SEC fans. It’s apparently the best thing since sliced bread all while playing the likes of Jacksonville State, San Jose State and Louisiana-Lafayette.

I know that all Yankee fans aren’t like this. I know quite a few who are very contrite and very down to earth. If the Yankees win, they’re the last ones to rub it in your face or let you know, more than once a month, how many championships the Yankees have in comparison to everyone else in Major League Baseball.

With the 2010 American League Championship Series just a few hours from first pitch, you know there are going to be several articles published from just about every news source you could possibly think of.

They’ll be coming from the two cities represented as well as anyone who has an opinion or prediction on how this series will end.

But the one thing I didn’t expect was to read an article that was so far beyond the arrogance boundary that it actually made me take a stronger side in this series than I had planned on.

Living in San Diego for eight years of my life, and being a Junior Padre when I was a kid, my allegiance has always been to the San Diego Padres.

I’m not a bandwagon jumper, even though I now reside in Texas, so I was planning on just standing on the sidelines and watching this series strictly as a baseball fan.

Not anymore.

As I was driving home yesterday, I was listening to one of my favorite radio stations talking about this upcoming series. I heard one of the hosts read, verbatim, from an article that was written by the New York Daily News.

What I heard made me shake my head in disbelief. I couldn’t imagine that anything like this could be written from a professional source such as the Daily News. Could it?

I understand that the object of a writer is to reel his or her audience in and keep them captivated and keep them coming back. This most certainly did both of those.

In a portion of this article, New York Daily News writer Filip Bondy writes, “The Yanks should win this series just by throwing their pinstriped uniforms onto the field and reading from a few pages of The Baseball Encyclopedia.”

Bondy went on to say, “The Rangers are the oldest of three existing major league clubs never to have won a pennant. They should be ashamed to bring their media guides to the Bronx.”

Want one more excerpt from this lovely piece? I thought you might.

“Why are they even playing this series? Why don’t they just use the scores from ’96, ’98 and ’99?”

Since Mr. Bondy brought up the Baseball Encyclopedia, I’m going to dust mine off and open it up to the last eight years. Just to see how that “history” worked out for the Yankees.

In 2001, the Yankees faced the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series. The same “history” Bondy refers to held true in this series as well. In what was Arizona’s first trip to the World Series, the Diamondbacks stared the Yankees down, took Game 7, and the World Series trophy, thanks to a walk-off single in the ninth by Luis Gonzalez off Mariano Rivera.

In 2002, the Yankees were back in the playoffs and about to take on the then-Anaheim Angels in the American League Divisional Series. The Yankees had history on their side against a team that didn’t have a single World Series championship. Sound familiar?

The ALDS lasted four games with the Angels, the eventual World Series champions, moving on and the Yankees going home.

The 2003 season saw the Yankees finish with the league’s best record (101-61). After knocking off the rival Boston Red Sox thanks to a dramatic walk-off, series-winning home run by Aaron Boone, the Yankees were about to face the Florida Marlins in the World Series.

The Marlins had just one World Series Championship, coming in 1997, under their belt to the 26 that had piled up for the Yankees franchise.

Like the Angels and Diamondbacks before them, the Marlins stared the Yankees down and let them watch the celebration that took place as the Marlins won the World Series four games to two.

The 2004 season saw the Yankees make baseball history, but not the kind of history they want to be remembered for.

After getting through the ALDS, the Yankees took a commanding three games to none lead on their hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, in the ALCS. That’s where history stepped in.

The Red Sox came back and won the next four games, making the New York Yankees the first team in North American sports history to ever lose a best-of-seven series after winning the first three games.

Boston would go on to win their sixth World Series title in franchise history.

For the next three seasons, from 2005 to 2008, the Yankees would be eliminated from the ALDS twice and would miss the playoffs in 2008 for the first time in franchise history.

So, from 2001-2008, they would make seven playoff appearances and two World Series appearances. In each of those playoff series, two of which came with the same number of World Series Championships as the Texas Rangers currently hold—zero, they lost them both.

The Yankees can throw their jersey on the field at Rangers Ballpark, but if they think the Rangers are going to back down just because they’re the New York Yankees, they have another thing coming.

The Texas Rangers are must more improved from the teams the Yankees knocked off in the late 1990s. They have pitching, they have the bullpen, and they have the offense to go toe-to-toe with the 27-time world champions.

The 2010 ALCS is not going to be the cake-walk that the Yankees experienced against the Minnesota Twins.

So, before shots are taken at the Texas Rangers because of their history and before you throw up bulletin board material, you might want to see how those other teams without a World Series title did against the Yankees.

And then maybe, just maybe, you’ll realize that history doesn’t always repeat itself.

Because, as the ever-famous saying goes, “That’s why they play the game.”

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The 2010 ALDS was probably one that I will say I hadn’t seen before for one reason alone. The home team didn’t win a single game the entire series.

Texas took the first two games in Tampa and the Rays repaid them by taking two in Texas to bring the series back to their home stadium for game five. They still couldn’t get it done as Texas took game five to move on to the ALCS.

It’s widely known that the Rays’ front office is planning on cutting payroll from this past year which means they will probably not re-sign a few of the free agents that are on their list.

Here are 10 things the Rays can do to get to the 2011 ALCS despite their lower payroll.

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