If you know anything about sports, you know that Arlington, Texas has both the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL and the Texas Rangers in the MLB. You would also know that both teams haven’t been the most successful for the past decade. I was born in Arlington, Texas in October, the prime time for football season and baseball postseason. Needless to say, I’ve grown up loving the Cowboys and the Rangers.
When I was a kid, my dad would always have some kind of sport on the TV, especially football and baseball. Because I love my dad and wanted to spend time with him, I would watch sports games with him. I took a particular liking to baseball and became an “expert” (according to nine-year-old Kendal) in the sport. In the fifth grade, I left school early and went to the opening day game for the Rangers. In 2010, I was allowed to stay up late to watch the Rangers win the ALCS and go to the World Series. In 2011, I was allowed to do the same thing. When they lost the World Series both years, I was devastated.
Despite their back-to-back losses and the subsequent losing years where the Rangers didn’t even make it to the postseason, I remained true to my team. I went to the games with my family every year and rejoiced with the rest of the fans when we finally got a baseball field with a roof in 2020. I collected Rangers baseball cards and would watch the games on TV whenever it was available. Every season, I would swear that this would be our season to win our first World Series title. So when it finally happened on November 1, 2023, I cried.
During the 2023 season, the Texas Rangers took us on an emotional rollercoaster. They started off strong, then lost their mojo, then picked it up again, only to lose the division in the last game of the regular season. Then they swept the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Wildcard games and the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Division Series games. The Rangers started off strong in the ALCS series by winning the first two games, but then lost the next three games. Somehow they rallied together and won the seventh game to become the ALCS champions and proceed to the World Series. They ended up winning the World Series in five games even with our star player, Adolis Garcia, taken off the roster after the third game due to a back injury.
I am a busy college student in her early 20s with an active social life. Despite other plans, I still managed to watch the Rangers games in the postseason. The second game of the ALCS series against the Astros was split-screen on my laptop with my class notes during my memory and cognition class. I watched the third game of the same series against the Astros on a tiny screen behind the bar of a concert I was at. During the fourth game of the World Series, I was at a different concert watching the end of the game off of my phone during the encore. My phone’s screen time on the ESPN and YouTube TV apps significantly increased for the two weeks the Rangers were in the postseason.
The fifth (and final) game of the World Series had me doing every other task known to man until the very end. It was the game that could win the Rangers their first World Series title. I watched the score stay stagnant for the first few innings on the ESPN app while I was at a meeting. When I got home, I took an everything shower. After applying every possible skincare serum I had in my 400-square-foot apartment, I sat down on my couch to watch the final few innings of the game. I watched as Mitch Garver hit an RBI to bring Corey Seager in for our first run. It wasn’t much, but it put us in the lead. The ninth inning rolled around, and I was partially watching the game through the cracks in my fingers. When Jonah Heim hit his triple that secured us two more runs, I screamed so loud my poor cat ran and hid under my bed for the rest of the night. My excitement was only solidified when Marcus Semien hit a two-run home run that gave us a 5-0 lead in the top of the ninth inning. The bottom of the ninth rolled around and I was on the edge of my couch, hoping the Rangers wouldn’t screw it up at the last second. Pitcher Josh Sborz managed two outs and I called my parents to see how they were doing during the final moments of the final game of the World Series. I will never forget the moment Sborz pitched the final strike that ended the game. My parents and I cheered so loud, and I could hear the cheers of other Rangers fans around my apartment complex. The Rangers had finally won their first World Series title after fifty-two years and two consecutive disappointments in the World Series a dozen years before.
Crying tears of joy in my apartment while the Rangers were presented with the World Series trophy is definitely a core memory of mine. I still get emotional thinking about the fact that we won, that we did it.
My whole life has been a rollercoaster of emotions following the Rangers. From missing school in the fifth grade for the opening game, to losing the World Series two years in a row, to being the worst team in the league for nearly twelve years, to finally winning our first World Series title, I have been through it all with my Texas Rangers. We really went and took it.