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Chris Young must be one helluva of a salesman.
The Texas Rangers general manager, who wasn’t even the head man in charge entering the offseason of 2021, helped coax two baseball superstars to the team after it lost 102 games and then pulled one of the greatest managers in baseball history out of retirement the next offseason after 94 more losses.
And the world’s best starting pitcher. And another who was a hardened postseason ace.
Young sold them on a farm system and a billionaire owner’s willingness to spend. The 2021 shopping spree was on shortstop Corey Seager and second baseman Marcus Semien. The 2022 spree was on right-handers Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi.
Headed by a promising native Texan named Josh Jung, the farm system would soon start to contribute.
It would all come together under new manager Bruce Bochy.
That was the pitch.
We’re all sold now.
The Rangers captured their first World Series title Nov. 1, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 to clinch the best-of-7 series in five games. The Rangers went 11-0 on the road, the most consecutive road postseason victories in MLB history.
“I’m from the Houston area, and I grew up an Astros fan,” Eovaldi said, unapologetically. “But now, to be over here and be able to part of the Rangers organization and be able to bring that first World Series championship to us, it's an incredible moment and incredible feeling.
“When you start every spring training, everybody has the same goal in mind to become World Series champions. For us to overcome all the adversity and the challenges that we faced from the start of spring training on, for us to be able to come out on top, it's a very special feeling.”
Players spilled onto the infield at Chase Field after Josh Sborz caught Ketel Marte looking for the final out. Players and club personnel spent time with their families and friends on the field before going into the clubhouse and spraying beer and champagne without remorse.
Back home, the Metroplex rejoiced, even if the national TV audience largely yawned. They may all go to hell, the Commissioner’s Trophy is going to Texas.
But the Rangers are Tarrant County’s team. They have been playing home games in Arlington, just south of I-30, since 1972 when mayor Tom Vandergriff finally lured a team to town. It was the Washington Senators 2.0, and they weren’t good.
Rangers players and manager Ted Williams donned cowboy hats during pregame introductions for the first home game. It’s doesn’t get any more Texas than that.
Wins, though, were hard to come by as the first two teams lost 100 and 105 games. That’s where the fans’ suffering began.
For those who were there then, and some who have carried on Rangers fandom for loved ones who didn’t live to see the club win it all, the Game 5 victory was heaven on earth. Fans who have been hungover since the Game 6 collapse in the 2011 World Series woke up for the first time in 12 years without a headache and a hankering for Waffle House.
“They’ve waited a long time for this,” Young said. “The wait is over.”
Seager, who rests comfortably on the 10-year, $325 million contract he signed Dec. 1, 2021, was the World Series MVP for the second time in his career, joining Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson as the only other players in MLB history with two Fall Classic MVPs.
“I don't think you can ever fathom that,” Seager said. “It's a pretty special group to be part of.”
Seager’s game-tying two-run blast in the ninth inning of Game 1 at Globe Life Field saved the Rangers. He delivered daggers with no-doubt shots in Game 3 and Game 4 at Chase Field. And don’t overlook his seventh-inning single in Game 5. It was the Rangers’ first hit of the game and was followed by two more hits that pushed him home with the game’s first run.
Maybe the Baltimore Orioles, who were swept by the Rangers in the division series, had the right idea when they walked Seager nine times in three games.
The breakthrough star of the postseason, at least nationally, was right fielder Adolis Garcia. He showed fight, literally, against the Astros in the championship series and also pushed 15 runs across home plate.
El Bombi, a nickname generated during his childhood in Cuba for the shape of his head and not the bombs he hits, was injured in the World Series but won Game 1 with a walk-off homer.
Jung, from San Antonio and Texas Tech, showed some postseason pop and played so well defensively at third base that even Rangers legend Adrian Beltre was impressed. Another kid from the farm, Evan Carter, came to the Rangers in September to fill in for Garcia and ended up remaining a starter.
He’s never going back to the minor leagues.
For all the runs the Rangers were able to score, their MVPs might have been Eovaldi and left-hander Jordan Montgomery.
In Game 5, Eovaldi gave the Rangers six of the gutsiest innings in club history and was rewarded with his fifth win of the postseason. Arizona threatened in each of the first five innings but could never push a run across.
“Balls of steel,” left-hander Will Smith said.
Montgomery, added at the trade deadline from St. Louis, was nearly just as good, especially as the Rangers dethroned the Astros, the defending world champs, in the championship series.
Pitching and defense, the adage goes, win championships.
But, let’s be honest, so does money.
Ray Davis and the ownership group spent $500 million on Seager and Semien and $56 million on Jon Gray in 2021, and another $185 million on deGrom and $34 million on Eovaldi. The deGrom money didn’t go very far this season, as his elbow gave out, but the other investments were totally worth it.
A World Series title is priceless.
Whatever Bochy and pitching coach Mike Maddux are making, the Rangers ought to double it. Bochy won his fourth World Series, the first three with San Francisco and the first of those in 2010 against the Rangers.
“It's special to come here in my first year with a team that was determined to play winning baseball and had never won a championship,” Bochy said. But as far as me, that's a by-product of what those guys did out there and what the front office did. I was along for the ride, trust me.”
The Rangers will continue to spend in order to keep their competitive window open. Young didn’t lay out a one-year plan when wooing Seager, Semien, Bochy and all the new additions the past two years.
This team is built to continue to win.
“We were at the bottom,” Young said, “and there was only one way we could go.”
Now that they have their first title, why stop at one?
“Obviously, we have a window,” said Max Scherzer, who was limited by injuries after he was added at the trade deadline. “A bunch of us guys are back. I’m not going to be stupid and say we’re going to win this thing again because I have respect for the rest of the league.
“I’ve been part of teams that don’t win. That’s why this moment is so special. You never know how you’re going to get here, and the fact that we found a way to do it is unbelievable.”
Jeff Wilson writes for Rangers Today and us, too, when the Texas Rangers win the World Series.