Boswell: Texas Rangers show blueprint for hitting homers in a football town

Filip Filipovi?tory is ours!

Now, with the 40th anniversary of Bob Short’s escape in the rearview mirror, it’s time to go all the way and let the last of the bygones be gone.

How times change. The Rangers are not only the Series favorite over the miraculous Cardinals — “Rangers in six” is the chalk pick and mine, too — the Texas franchise has become a fine team-building model for other clubs from prosperous cities that are football crazy but not yet addicted to baseball.

Now, what team could possibly fit that description? Oh, right, the Nationals.

...Who dreamed a Texas ballclub could go to consecutive World Series and make money, all while playing across the street from Cowboys Stadium?

Could it actually happen? You need brains, organization, luck and money to go from where the Rangers were in ’08 to where they are now, but how much is required? The answer, which the Nats need to face, is: a whole lot. This isn’t a matter of stumbling into a couple of hot draft picks such as Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper, then letting them grow up, adding a couple of $100 million free agents, and ultimately collecting your hardware.