Now that baseball is over I need to check what I said back in the beginning. I will say this, at the start of the season, I was one of the very few, if any, that picked the Texas Rangers to finish close, right behind the Houston Astros. Now, if we just go by the regular season, I’m right on but I was wrong because I picked the Astros to win the World Series. I picked Texas to be in the playoffs and did they ever get in the playoffs!

I think they made some smart moves. One was the General Manager that they have now and he was smart enough to get Bruce Bochy as the Manager. They, in turn, were smart enough to take a good ball club and add some pieces and make a great ball club out of it.

The Astros stumbled at the start, stumbled through the majority of the season, got hot right at the end, and were able to claim the League Championship, but they were not the team that I thought they would be. Now, I’m not going to make excuses for them. I am, though, going to say one thing about the people who have jumped on late with the Texas Rangers and talk about all of this stuff that they did and all of the magic that they found. Let me tell you what they found. They found a boat load of money! And apparently that’s what it takes to win. But, that’s not all. You see, there are teams in the majors who spent as much money as the Rangers to try to buy a championship, but the Rangers got it right. They got the upper management. They got the players they needed to have and they got a great field manager. You see, they had the short stop and the second baseman last year when they lost a huge number of games and finished dead last. What they did was bring in a lot of pitching this year and some rookies grew up fast. Simple as that! You say well, they didn’t get deGrom for the whole season. They didn’t need him. They will in the future though and they will have him.

So, this is a good ball club. I congratulate the Rangers. I actually picked them to win next year with Houston winning this year. That’s not going to be the case. I’ll tell you what, let’s switch out. Let’s have the Astros win next year and the Rangers can finish second.

The Astros are a good ball club. I think they need one or two pieces to be a “great” ball club. First off, they need to get healthy. They can win it next year, but they have to be healthy. They’re getting some age on them but I think if they can get their pitching back, its certainly possible. Like I say, if they can get their pitching back – they had two starting pitchers who didn’t even play this past season, so if they can get them back, if they can stabilize their pitching core and maybe add a piece or two, they could be good. They could be real, real good. I think personally 2024 may be an absolutely great race to the finish. I think it’s a two team race – Houston-Rangers – and I think the winner of that one will win the World Series again.

We ought to be in for a treat in the State of Texas this coming year. It may be one of the great races we’ve ever had in baseball.

Until next time, so long everybody.

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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].