By Ryan Nicol ’25
Given the 17th-worst odds to win the World Series in February, the Texas Rangers have won their first championship in franchise history, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games. There are many statistics to explain the unlikeliness of this World Series outcome, like how Texas and Arizona had the lowest combined win total of any World Series in a full season at 174. For as much as the baseball world is shocked at the total outcome, no one might be more surprised than a Chaminade High School student. In the days leading up to the Wild Card Series, Chaminade students were polled by Tarmac to see who they thought would compete in and win the 2023 World Series. The response was not surprising.
Out of all American League teams in the postseason, 37.6% of students thought the Houston Astros would make the World Series, while another 28.3% disagreed in favor of the Baltimore Orioles. The Astros have established themselves as a dynasty after winning the 2022 championship and their controversial 2017 title. In 2023, they joined the 1991-1999 Atlanta Braves as the only franchises who had been to seven straight League Championship Series, with Houston attending every year since 2017. They beat the Rangers to the AL West crown via tiebreaker, and were tied with their intrastate counterpart for the third-best record in the AL. They were playoff material, and were a pretty easy choice for most, except those who preferred the young Orioles. After rebuilding for a few years, Baltimore, led by their young players, became the first team in MLB history to go from 110 or more losses to 100 or more wins in just three seasons. They were a powerhouse in the AL East, taking it from the Tampa Bay Rays who began the year winning 13 straight games.
On the other side of things, there was a very clear favorite in the National League. The Braves won their sixth straight division title and coasted to Major League Baseball’s best record in 2023. Their lineup featured nine straight hitters with video game numbers, and they tied the single-season record for home runs by a team with 307 throughout the year. Picking them was certainly a safe option, and one the majority chose over the five other NL teams in the postseason, at a 60% rate. The Braves were also picked by 46.8% of students to win the entire World Series. The second-highest pick in the NL, the Los Angeles Dodgers, was also very justified. The Dodgers have been a regular season powerhouse for over a decade, but only have a championship in the shortened 2020 season to their name. Chaminade students thought that it was time, if not the Braves, but it certainly wasn’t.
Arizona came into the playoffs as the #6 seed in the AL, whereas Texas was #5 in their own league. The Diamondbacks embarrassed the Milwaukee Brewers in two games, then did the same to the Dodgers and their ace Clayton Kershaw when Los Angeles got upset in three straight. They moved onto Philadelphia, a tighter matchup, but won in the winner-take-all seventh game to advance to the Fall Classic. Texas had pretty much the exact same playoff run. They started off by embarrassing the Rays in two games, then did the same to the Orioles in three. They played an epic ALCS against the rival Astros, which went seven games and resulted in the Rangers moving on to the final matchup.
It turns out that when Jacob deGrom said, “That’s the goal, winning a World Series,” upon signing with Texas, he wasn’t kidding. The two underdogs fought across the entire series, but it was the Rangers and their historic six All-Stars that won it all in five games. Chaminade students swung and missed on the predictions, in line with baseball fans everywhere. Just 9.8% and 0.5% of students believed that the World Series would include the Rangers and D-backs, respectively. Just 2.9% of responses included the Texas Rangers winning it all. Chaminade students might have gotten it wrong this time, but there’s always next year.
chstarmac.com 