Take a hike out of the State of Texas and don't come back until you recognize that the Texas Rangers actually legitimately exist! 

Tom Verducci's top ten stories

Jeff Passan's top ten stories

Jeff Sullivan's top five stories

The Rangers have been in Texas since 1972, had previously won one playoff game in the 39 seasons of baseball in Arlington.  Somehow, perhaps it was in some alternate universe, the Texas Rangers won more than one playoff game, won their first playoff series, won the American League pennant, and actually beat the hated/dreaded New York Yankees.  At least that (the alternate universe) is the way the national baseball writers seemingly treated the Rangers in the end of the year stories they wrote. 

There may have been a few, before the season started, who thought the Rangers could win the West.  Nobody thought they would win a playoff series that I read.  Nobody thought they would win the pennant that I read.  Perhaps this is a matter of convenience, forgetting the Texas Ranger's accomplishment this year, the first ever in so many categories for this franchise. 

If you read the end of the year stories you might see the Rangers were competitive in the Cliff Lee free agency, but then again maybe not!  Or you might read they got beat by the Giants in the World Series, and that's about it! 

I know I may be one of the biggest Texas homer sports fans around, but I honestly think the success of the Rangers, especially compared to their historical lack of success in baseball, deserved a high ranking among the top baseball stories.  But of course, I'm from Texas (Austin) and they're not, and it is just apparently easier to forget, by national baseball writers, that the Texas Rangers actually mattered in 2010.