Rangers hope to be a surprise that lasts

Sporting News, The, May 24, 2004 by Josh Lewin

When it comes to surprise teams maintaining that surprise status through the bulk of the summer, the reviews are mixed, at best. So it's wise to keep your yapper shut until you're sure the early success will survive longer than a cab ride across Rhode Island.

In the midst of surpassing expectations, the tendency is to scale a television tower, taunt the masses with a giant, foam "We're No. 1" finger and shriek for joy like you're David Lee Roth in an old Van Halen video. However, if reality happens to belt you in the mouth, you're left to pick up the broken shards of your credibility and ego.

So the suggested motto for manager Buck Showaker's Fighting Nine: "Texas Rangers Baseball ... Shhhhh!" Because just when you're sure they're this year's Marlins, the Rangers could implode like, well ... David Lee Roth.

Early returns are a funny thing--just ask last year's Royals, who bolted out 9-0, then 16-3, but then played nine games below .500 the rest of the way. The 2002 Indians, supposedly rebuilding, raced to an 11-1 start but then remembered the whole rebuilding thing and went 63-87 the rest of the way.

The 2001 Brewers' 23-17 start was long forgotten when the team lost 11 straight shortly after the All-Star break. That streak exposed them as frauds. But that same year, Tom Kelly's "don't-contract-us" Twins sustained their early success into an 85-win season.

Though I believe this year's Rangers can indeed be the '01 Twins (and, if all the planets align, the '03 Marlins), I am haunted by the thought that a losing streak could be around the next corner. Which segues to the question: Do announcers root for their own ballclub? Let's just say objectivity is easy in a national broadcast, and a lot harder when you're reading promos for "Fireworks Night" as shots of happy Texas fans fill the monitor in front of you.

At any rate, it has been a thrill to watch Michael Young emerge as the six-week A.L. MVP, to watch pitching coach Orel Hershiser help R.A. Dickey and Ryan Drese find the confidence to excel, and to watch a home crowd of 45,000 scream themselves silly as the Rangers drop a 10-run fifth on Detroit, overcoming a 10-run deficit in 29 minutes. Whether the sorcery continues still will be determined. If they can finish with 85 wins like those '01 Twins, that would sure beat the tar out of the dire preseason predictions I read.

Josh Lewin is the television voice of the Texas Rangers and a play-by-play announcer for FOX's Saturday Game of the Week.