It’s 26 miles from Anaheim to Los Angeles; 20 from Arlington to Dallas.
Anaheim’s estimated July 2006 population was 334,425; Arlington registered 367,197.
The second-largest city in America, Los Angeles has 3,849,378 known residents. Checking in at number nine, Dallas boasts 1,232,940, making it the second-largest US city to exist without a proper MLB team playing within city limits behind San Antonio.
California is home to five major league teams for a population of 36,457,549; 7,291,509.8 potential fans per club. Texas hosts two for its 23,507,783; 11,753,892 fans of each team just waiting to be converted.
Since changing their geographic affiliation following the 2004 season, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have averaged 41,548 people per game. The best the Rangers have done in the past decade is an inexplicable 34,951 per game in 2001, a season they spent in last place every single day from May 9th onwards.
Do you see where this is going? In the spirit of boosting Lone Star State morale and advancing the love of the game, I present to you:
The Dallas Rangers of Arlington.
It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Now all they need to do is develop a rock-solid farm system, hire one of the best managers in recent memory, tame their horrifically hitter-friendly park, somehow become more popular than both Longhorns and Cowboys football, and stop losing all the time. Although in all fairness, they actually tried the last approach once and it didn’t work out so well.
Case in point: the Johnny Oates-led juggernaut of the late 1990s. Oates’ teams took AL West titles in 1996, 1999, and an abysmal 1998 campaign which actually won the division with an 88-74 record. Staff ace Rick Helling won 20 games with a 4.41 ERA that year. Number two Aaron Sele posted a 19-11 record with a 4.23 ERA, both thanks in large part to the highly-juiced efforts of catcher Ivan Rodriguez and right-fielder/AL MVP Juan Gonazalez. The results of those glory years? A combined 1-9 showing across three different ALDS matchups against the Yankees.
Against all odds, this year’s team is keeping its head above water despite having a zero-man rotation and a two-man lineup. Three games over .500 (48-45) is not too shabby, until you realize that kind of showing is good for exactly two things:
- Third place.
- Sitting 7.5 games behind those infernal Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Yeah, I’d want to change my name too.