The Lament of a Baseball Ringwraith

To be a Texas Rangers fan is to be a Ringwraith, neither fully alive nor fully dead. Like those dark riders from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rangers fans live in a shadow world. For us, hope and despair are two sides of the same coin.

Yet hope still springs eternal. That has been the mantra of every fan of the Texas Rangers in March since 1972. I was six years old when the team moved to Arlington from Washington, DC, and every spring I have hoped that it was finally our year. It hasn't been yet, but in March, we are alive with hope.

Our slow descent into shadow begins in June. The onset of summer drains our hope, as games that we should have won slip through our fingers. By the dog days of summer, that hope has diminished faster than attendance at the Ballpark in Arlington, and we begin moving into the shadow world of mathematical elimination and being the spoiler. By August, we are dead with disappointment.

The problem, you see, is our history. The Rangers have neither a long winning tradition like the Yankees nor a century-long battle with futility like the Cubs. We are neither a feared dynasty nor a lovable loser. Most of the time, we have simply been mediocre, neither terribly bad nor very good. Ringwraiths.

Even during that bright shining period during the mid-1990's when we actually won the AL West three times, who kept us from getting past the first round of the playoffs? The Yankees, of course. Nothing could stop it, not even our beloved warrior Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez. He ultimately had to flee to Florida to win the World Series ring that he so deserved during his time in Texas.

But spring training 2007 allows our hope to flourish once again, just as it does every year. Cactus League games have us dreaming of finally raising a World Series trophy. And with Hank, Tex, Michael Young, and a reborn Sammy Sosa, why not us this year? We have a solid lineup and improved pitching. The AL West is no monster this year, so why not us? Surely 25 years of futility is enough to appease the baseball gods. After all, as I said before, we're not the Cubs.