Wow, did the Rangers kill his first born?

dude, too soon

I pronounce this article...LAME.

I can't go back and erase #1. I hadn't heard the Neshek news when I posted.

My heart just bleeds.

you can't necessarily say the game has seen a team fail dramatically on the World Series stage, come back in less than a year and then go belly-up once the regular-season stove got real hot

Of course you can say this – the 1959 Braves are one good example – but in any case the point is somewhat inane. So what? Some teams fail dramatically and then go on to be lousy the next year (the 1987 Red Sox). Most teams never get good enough to almost win something two years (in this case three) in a row. Some perspective is needed, though I realize perspective never sold a newspaper :)

As a Bills fan, I support all teams choosing to lose multiple straight championship games.

in the last four years texas has won 87, 90, 96 and 93 games.

that's a very good run not including two world series appearances.

sorry the team won 'only' 93 games and made the playoffs again.

If there's a god and he cares about Ranger fans like Randy Galloway, the team will return to the irrelevance they enjoyed in their first few decades.

Orioles fans hope for one last choke...

That being said, I hated the tone of this. The Rangers didn't 'choke', they got outplayed and outmanaged. The A's were hot, and put it to them. The Rangers aren't as scary on the road. Why didn't he write about that?

Yes, going 4 and 2 in playoff series the past two seasons is an obvious sign of choking. Sure.

I'm not sure what exactly they've "choked". Last I heard they made the playoffs and can still win the World Series. Ask the 2006 Tigers whether they want to change places with the 2006 Twins. I mean they lost the WS, but still.

[4] You and David Cone ought to have your chopsticks taken away. Or something.

Come on Galloway, don't get all Yankee entitled on me now. It's still a very good team with a very good chance to get back to the World Series again.

Man, that's a lot of bad metaphors in one excerpt.

Oh yeah this article provides a new screenname

Every year there's 30 teams, one winner, and 29 chokers.

Kind of a hysterical overreaction, but understandable given that the Rangers have never won anything significant. Oh yeah,wait, those two American League pennants in the past two years..

I agree with everyone above, but it's worth noting that losing the division is a bigger deal this year than in previous years due to the new Wild Card structure. In the past, teams could be somewhat indifferent to whether they won the division as long as they made the playoffs. Not anymore.

Teams aren't indifferent to division titles any more, but they should be indifferent between winning the division and winning the wild card game, more or less...HFA excepted and all that.

Oddly enough – I imagine this has been remarked in several other threads – the AL this year would have exactly the same postseason draw under last year's rules: three outright division champions, and two teams tied for the Wild Card (with, I reckon, a one-game playoff for the berth). The main difference would have been that the Yankees, having won 94 going into the final game, would have clinched at least the outright Wild Card (either Texas or Oakland was going to finish at 93), and thus wouldn't have had to exert themselves against the Red Sox yesterday. Not that they needed to exert themselves very much anyway …

it's worth noting that losing the division is a bigger deal this year than in previous years due to the new Wild Card structure. In the past, teams could be somewhat indifferent to whether they won the division as long as they made the playoffs. Not anymore.

It's also worth noting that under last year's format, the Rangers would be in exactly the same position they are in today (except possibly playing the do-or-die game on the road instead of at home). And they'd have been sweating out the O's/Rays game last night because a Baltimore win would have eliminated them from the post-season entirely. IOW, one more Orioles win and losing the division would have been a bigger deal for the Rangers under the old wild card structure.

EDIT: should have refreshed, but Bob only gets a six-ounce coke because I'm one of the guys who remarked in another thread.

Choking is better than starving to death. At least you got to the table.

Choking is better than starving to death. At least you got to the table.


That's one lousy epitaph.

I'm a Twins fan. We've lost 195 games the past two years following a 94 win 2010. This team is spending a lot of time sorting through epitaphs these days.

As a Bills fan, I support all teams choosing to lose multiple straight championship games.

Zack - I've always wondered how Marv Levy is historically viewed as a coach, both by outsiders and Buffaloans (is that even a word?). On the one hand, he never won the Big One so he is probably viewed as being short as a tactician on X's and O's.

On the other hand - how do you motivate a team to keep coming back year after? I'm not sure which is more crushing to a team's fighting spirit - losing by 1 point when your kicker misses a field goal? Or getting buried 52-17 where your team was just never even in the game. Yet in both situations he somehow got his team motivated to come back the following year and make it back to Super-land. That's gotta be tough to do.