Being sort of familiar with Harris Polls/Panels.

• July 9 release, and media outlets have featured Ranger All Stars most of whom were All Star MVP's recently
• Sammy Sosa's amazing recovery from baseball reject to mediocre slugger
• A June/July surge that got favorable publicity in major market media
• (inversely) Being on the receiving end of a Buehrle no hitter and a total gem by Erik Bedard.
• (wry) People who live and die by national politics desperately looking for something good about Texas
• (acrid) Baseball fans who think their team will end up with Mark Teixeira
• (personal) A growing understanding that where they live really sucks compared to living in Texas

Since the DFW is (depending on who's list it is) in the top 8 metro areas by population the Rangers really ought to be one of the 16 most popular teams in baseball no matter who is on the squad.

I've never seen anything like this.  Some comments:

1> It looks like our bad ranking last year was the weird one - #27 after 4 years between 15 and 21.  

2> Its funny how some teams are very regional (high rankings) and others are local (lower rankings).  Atlanta gets a huge boost from being the first team in the South, and the LA Dodgers and Giants just swamp all the other Southwest clubs.  The latecomers to the area - the Padres, Angels, A's and DBacks - are all basically locked into their market and no where else.  

3> On a related note, Seattle looks like they've solidified a large regional market.  I'd be interested to know how much of this effect is due to Ichiro... Long term, this can't be good for the Rangers...

4> Looks like Texas was favored over Houston until recent years when they went to the playoffs several times and world series once and we did badly.

You should have looked at the history of the poll before making this diary.  The Rangers have historically been somewhere in the mid-teens in terms of popularity in the poll.

Last year was the clear anomaly.