World Series preview, history edition: MLB trivia before yet another Fall Classic in Texas
Andrew Mccoy
Published Apr 07, 2026
The Athletic has live coverage of Rangers vs. Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the World Series
ARLINGTON, Texas — The first 100 World Series had at least one thing in common: None of them were played in the state of Texas.
Now, it’s true that most of those Series were played before Texas had a team. But Houston went 43 seasons before winning its first pennant, and the Metroplex (Dallas/Fort Worth) went 38. So, yes — it took a while for baseball’s showcase to mosey on down here.
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“I watched one of the Astros’ playoff games in my dad’s classroom when I was in high school, and it was probably the closest thing that we got around here to World Series hopes,” said Arizona Diamondbacks bench coach Jeff Banister, who grew up near Houston in La Marque, Texas. “It was something you didn’t see. It was always somewhere else.”
These days, it’s always here. With the Rangers set to host the Diamondbacks in Game 1 on Friday night, this will be the fifth World Series in a row to feature games in Texas. It’s the ninth time the event has come to the state since 2005, when the Astros of Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman and Craig Biggio broke through.
“They had the Killer B’s, those were the guys I looked up to as a young kid in Houston,” Rangers outfielder Robbie Grossman said. “That was a fun time, to see those guys make it to the biggest stage. I just remember the excitement around the town and how much pride the fans took in it.”
The Chicago White Sox swept the Astros in that 2005 World Series, and five years later the Rangers had their own bittersweet introduction, losing in five games to the San Francisco Giants. That was tame compared to the next October, when the Rangers twice came within a strike of clinching a title in Game 6 in St. Louis. They blew both leads and lost in seven.
“It was kind of the elephant in the room pretty much every year and throughout the season that got talked about on a daily basis,” said Banister, who guided the Rangers to American League West titles as manager in 2015 and 2016. “Any time those highlights would be played, it was the talk. I’d go out to dinner and it would be: ‘How are we going to erase some of those memories?’”
The Rangers have a chance to do it now, as the Astros did in 2017 and again last fall. Houston also lost the World Series in 2019 and 2021, and Arlington hosted a neutral-site World Series in 2020, when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays in six games.
Attendance was capped at around 11,400 for those games, and because of Covid restrictions, the teams did not even stand together along the baselines for introductions. It was two coastal teams meeting in the middle — of the country and a pandemic.
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“This is just going to be totally different,” said Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who was part of the Rays’ traveling party here in 2020. “That World Series, they made the most of what they could work with, but this is the real World Series. I don’t want to discredit that — but that’s not this. It’s going to be so loud.”
One state that’s been curiously quiet at World Series time lately: New York. The Empire State was the last to host the World Series in five consecutive years, from 1960 to 1964, but those days are a sepia-tinted memory.
By the end of this World Series, Texas will have hosted at least 29 World Series games — and as many as 31 if this series goes the distance — since 2005. In that same time, New York has hosted just six World Series games: three by the Yankees in 2009 and three by the Mets in 2015.
It’s not as if those teams haven’t tried. According to research by The Athletic’s Jayson Stark — via Cot’s Baseball Contracts — the Yankees and Mets have combined to spend more than $6.64 billion in player payroll to host those six World Series games. That’s a tidy cost of about $1.1 billion per World Series game.
The state of Missouri, meanwhile, has hosted 16 World Series games since 2005 — and been far more efficient than New York while doing so. The St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals have combined to spend almost $3.9 billion, or about $244 million per World Series game.
Oh, and what about California, with its five major-league teams? The Golden State has hosted just 14 World Series games since the state of Texas got in on the action.
All of which is to say that the World Series sure took a long time to come to Texas — but if it gets any more comfortable here, the players might start wearing ten-gallon hats.
“I’m probably a little biased growing up here,” Banister said. “But I love the people, and to have the baseball world focused in on the Lone Star State and World Series baseball, it’s fun.”
First things first
When former President George W. Bush tosses the ceremonial first pitch before Game 1 on Friday night, he’ll extend his lead on Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter for most presidential first pitches at the World Series.
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Bush has done it before Game 3 in 2001, Game 4 in 2010, Game 4 in 2011 and Game 5 in 2017. His father, former President George H.W. Bush, joined him in 2010 and 2017.
The others to do it:
• Woodrow Wilson: Game 2, 1915 (Philadelphia)
• Calvin Coolidge: Game 1, 1924 (Washington)
• FDR: Game 3, 1933 (Washington) and Game 4, 1936 (New York Giants)
• Dwight Eisenhower: Game 1, 1956 (Brooklyn)
• Carter: Game 1, 1992 (Atlanta) and Game 6, 1995 (Atlanta)
Former catcher Todd Greene, who caught Bush’s emotional first pitch at Yankee Stadium just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, is now a scout for the Diamondbacks. But a different former Ranger, the Hall of Famer Iván Rodríguez, will serve as Bush’s catcher on Friday. Rodríguez played for the Rangers when Bush was the team’s general partner from 1989 to 1994.
Adrián Beltré, the former Rangers third baseman, will throw the first pitch before Game 2 to Fergie Jenkins, a Hall of Fame righty who pitched six seasons for Texas. Beltre, who had 3,166 hits and won five Gold Glove awards, is the leading newcomer on next month’s Hall of Fame ballot.
A different differential
Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo was talking Thursday about balancing old-school intuition with modern metrics when he made a telling point.
“Did anybody know what a run differential was 30 years ago?” Lovullo said. “No way. But for some reason, it’s pretty close to being accurate.”
Pretty close, but not always. The Diamondbacks’ negative-15 run differential (746 scored, 761 allowed) would usually have led to a sub-.500 record. Instead, they were 84-78 and became just the second team to reach the World Series after giving up more runs than it scored. Good news for Arizona: The other, the 1987 Minnesota Twins, won the championship in seven games over St. Louis.
Ex-Diamondback, current Ranger, future Hall of Famer
Only two players have appeared in 200 games for both the Diamondbacks and the Rangers (Rod Barajas and David Dellucci), and only two pitchers have logged 200 innings for both (Doug Davis and Brandon McCarthy). But the dual-alum with the most career WAR, by far, is Rangers starter Max Scherzer.
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Arizona drafted Scherzer 11th overall in 2006 and promoted him to the majors two years later. Scherzer made a perfect debut — 13 up, 13 down in relief, with seven strikeouts — and had a 3.86 ERA in parts of two seasons before he was traded to Detroit as part of a three-team deal that sent two starters, Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson, to the Diamondbacks.
“Everybody kind of has that dream of the team you get drafted by you’re going to play with forever, and then the business of baseball punches you in the face and boom, you’re traded,” Scherzer said. “I got exposed to the business side of the game extremely early in my career.”
The Diamondbacks liked the notion of getting two starters for one, and Scherzer’s unusual mechanics made them worry about his durability. That was a big mistake: In the 14 seasons since that deal, Scherzer has worked 2,608 1/3 innings, the most in the majors.
He also has a chance to enter an exclusive club. If the Rangers win this World Series, Scherzer would join Sandy Koufax, Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander as the only pitchers in MLB history with multiple Cy Young awards, no-hitters and World Series championships.
“I don’t necessarily let my mind go down that rabbit hole,’ Scherzer, who won a title with the 2019 Nationals, said of his place in history. “I keep it a little bit simpler. The conversations I have with (daughters) Brooke and Kacey is that ‘Dada wants to win another trophy, and we’re playing to be the best in the world. I’ve got one of those trophies on the mantel at home, and I’m trying to win another.’”
Yes, in addition to a championship ring, players can receive a replica of the World Series trophy. The ring is a gift from the team. The trophy?
“You’ve got to buy it,” Scherzer said.
When Ryan helped Randy
The Nolan Ryan Expressway leads to the Rangers’ ballpark, and the street in front of the Diamondbacks’ home is known as Randy Johnson Way. Ryan was the first player to go into the Hall of Fame with a Rangers logo on his cap, and Johnson holds that distinction for the Diamondbacks.
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The two are linked by their strikeout prowess, of course, with Ryan leading the career list with 5,714 and Johnson ranking second with 4,875. Ryan also had an indirect impact on the mechanical change that helped Johnson curb the wildness that plagued his early seasons.
In 1992, when he was pitching for Seattle, Johnson was scheduled to throw a bullpen session before a game against the Rangers at the Kingdome. Tom House, the Rangers’ pitching coach, spotted Johnson — a fellow USC Trojan — and invited him to watch Ryan throw in the bullpen.
“We’ve seen some things that you’ve been doing,” House told Johnson, urging him to land on the ball of his right foot, not the heel, which would allow him to drive his momentum toward the plate and keep a consistent arm angle. The tip was a revelation for Johnson, who never led his league in walks again after 1992. He showed his new form in a start against Ryan late that season, striking out 18 Rangers over eight innings on a staggering 160 pitches.
One-man three-peat
If it’s the World Series, that must mean Will Smith is here. Smith, the veteran lefty reliever, closed out the World Series for the Braves in 2021, was active on the Astros’ roster in 2022 (though he did not appear in a game) and now pitches for the Rangers.
That means Smith is either so good that winning teams always want him, or he’s a human good luck charm.
“I’ll take it,” he said, smiling. “Rabbit’s foot.”
Smith will become the third player ever to appear on the World Series roster for three different teams in consecutive seasons. The others: Don Baylor (1986 Red Sox, 1987 Twins, 1988 A’s) and Eric Hinske (2007 Red Sox, 2008 Rays, 2009 Yankees).
Raise the roof and toe the turf
Retractable-roof technology came to the majors in 1989, when the Toronto Blue Jays opened what was then known as SkyDome. Somehow, the feature never became standard for new ballparks (it’s kind of pricey), but we finally have our first World Series with two retractable roofs.
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There are seven such venues in MLB, but three — in Seattle, Milwaukee and Miami— have never hosted the World Series. The Blue Jays and Astros have hosted multiple times, but never against a similar roof-optional opponent.
This will also be the first World Series contested entirely on artificial turf since the Blue Jays and Phillies met in 1993. The Diamondbacks switched from grass to turf in 2019.
That change eliminated the strip of dirt from the mound to the plate, a quirk designed by the Diamondbacks’ original manager, Buck Showalter (1998-2000). In Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, Damian Miller’s bunt hopped off that dirt strip and landed awkwardly in the glove of the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, whose wild throw to second base helped fuel Arizona’s winning rally.
Home is where the host’s team … isn’t?
It took a long time, but there’s precedent for a ballpark hosting another team in the World Series before actually hosting its occupant. That time, though, it wasn’t a neutral-site Series necessitated by a pandemic.
In 1915 and 1916, the Boston Red Sox left Fenway Park to hold their World Series home games at nearby Braves Field, which held more fans. (Babe Ruth pitched a 14-inning complete game against Brooklyn there in 1916.) The Boston Braves would not play World Series games at Braves Field until 1948 against Cleveland.
Stargazing
The Rangers’ American League championship ensured that Bruce Bochy will be working at the All-Star Game next July, managing the AL team against Lovullo’s NL squad. At least Bochy won’t need to go very far: The game will be played in Arlington, making Bochy the first manager to use his own office for the All-Star festivities since the Braves’ Bobby Cox managed in Atlanta in 2000 after winning the pennant the year before.
Bragging rights
Both regions have teams in MLB, the NFL, the NBA and the NHL, but their championship history is reversed: While the Diamondbacks are the only Phoenix-based team to take the crown, the Rangers are the only Dallas-area team not to do so.
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The Coyotes and Stars have never faced off in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but the regions’ respective teams have played each other in the NFL and NBA playoffs, splitting four meetings. The Cardinals beat the Cowboys, 20-7, in the wild-card round in Jan. 1999, while the Mavericks have taken two of their three playoff series from the Suns – including in 2006, when they beat Phoenix in six games to advance to their first NBA Finals.
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(Top photo of Rangers third baseman Josh Jung during Wednesday’s workout: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
