The Texas Rangers are the Detroit Lions of the American League. The St. Louis Cardinals are the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National League. But no one knows it. Perspective rules everything, and although the Cardinals and Rangers are as far apart historically as any two franchises that have ever met in the World Series, no one seems to notice. Both are considered lesser franchises to the Yankees and Cubs and Phillies and Red Sox, teams that are still talked about constantly on ESPN, even though they've been out of the playoff race for weeks. The biggest story in baseball right now might be the drinking habits of Red Sox pitchers.
The unsung mismatch that is the 2011 World Series; why the sport is failing
Is it because the Rangers and Cardinals are western teams? Probably. This World Series is destined to be one of the lowest-rated ever, which speaks to how bad the sport is really doing. Sure, the attendance is fine. People still go to the games, and owners still rake in the cash. But in terms of national prominence, baseball is in third place behind the NFL and NBA. It has absolutely no marketable franchises outside the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and maybe the Phillies, and so even though the Rangers are in an enormous market, and St. Louis has been to three World Series in the last seven years and has the best player in the sport, the ratings are going to tank. They simply can’t sell it to the general public.
What the storyline of this World Series should be is actually quite obvious. Although the St. Louis Cardinals went on a remarkable run just to get into the postseason, the Rangers should be the darling of the country. They have been perennial underdogs their entire life. Compare the two franchises and it’s hard to believe there’s even a discussion as to who to root for. The Cardinals have now been to 18 World Series and have won 10 of them, the most of any National League team. They have won 128 postseason games. Since 1926, they have never gone longer than four years without having a winning record. The Rangers, on the other hand, have been an unmitigated disaster since 1961, when they entered the league as the second incarnation of “Washington Senators.” The Rangers have never won a championship in their 50 years of existence, which is the second-longest drought in the American League. Prior to 2010, not only had they never been to the World Series, they had won only one postseason game in 49 years and had never won a series.
And really, they're even worse than that. They are the direct successors of the original "Washington Senators," who moved to Minnesota in 1960 to become the Twins. The original Senators were also a complete laughingstock, enough that people used to joke: "Washington: first in war, first in peace and last in the American League." That Senators team last won a title in 1924, and although the Rangers aren't considered a continuation of them, it's merely by technicality. When a second version of the Cleveland Browns was launched after the original Browns moved to Baltimore, the NFL decided to link the Browns franchises, effectively making the Ravens the expansion team. It was a practical decision, since if a new franchise was started with the same name as the old team, it wouldn't have made sense to allow a completely other franchise to run off with their history.
Had the Washington Senators franchise “stayed behind” in Washington, had the Twins been considered the expansion team and had the new Senators, now the Rangers, been linked to the old ones, the Rangers would have a World Series drought of 86 years -- the second-longest in baseball behind only the Cubs.
Alas, that storyline goes unnoticed. The problem with baseball is that although it has a tremendous history, it's history is, for the most part, centralized in the eastern part of the United States. And so when two western teams pipe up to make the World Series, even if it's an exciting matchup with minimal pitching and great offenses, even if there's a clear historical underdog, even if there's the giant over-arching story of where Albert Pujols will go when the season is over, baseball doesn't know what to do with it. It's so stuck in the past that instead of meeting it as a breath of fresh air, executives are no doubt lamenting this matchup with cataclysmic expectations. They're wishing it was more derivative. They're wishing it was the familiar battle between eastern teams that could be counted on to deliver good ratings. And it's that line of thinking that has baseball lingering behind football and basketball in the first place.
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