Is there any doubt about the best moment in Globe Life Park history? Cue Frozen A-Rod
Editor’s note: The last in a countdown of the most memorable moments in Globe Life Park history. The Texas Rangers will move into Globe Life Field for the 2020 season.
Baseball has been played at Globe Life Park for 26 seasons, with 81 opportunities each campaign for a special moment to occur.
And they have occurred.
Special players have done special things. Historic things. Things people don’t forget.
Those moments are what will keep Globe Life Park living in the memories of Texas Rangers fans, club employees all varieties (not just players), baseball fans and media.
Of course, one moment stands out most with the players, coaches and club executives.
It happened on perhaps the only fall Friday, perhaps ever, in which Friday Night Football did not dominate the local sports world.
Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, Oct. 22, 2010.
Rain fell, and then so did the New York Yankees.
“That was a riot, man,” said Rangers Hall of Famer Michael Young, who played third base that night. “We took our franchise to a place it hadn’t been before, and our fans were chomping at the bit for it. That whole night was fun.
“We got rain-delayed for a little bit. It’s a pretty special feeling when you have a bunch of guys sitting in a clubhouse knowing we’re about to punch our ticket to the World Series knowing 100 percent we’re going to win tonight. That’s what we felt that night.”
Colby Lewis allowed one run in eight innings, and Nelson Cruz launched a two-run homer in a four-run fifth inning en route to a 6-1 victory.
The signature moment of the game, and also in history of the franchise and Globe Life Park, came on the game’s final pitch.
Neftali Feliz sent the Rangers to their first World Series when a slider froze Alex Rodriguez, the perfect foil, for the out that gave the Rangers their first AL pennant.
Feliz and catcher Bengie Molina started the celebration between home plate and the mound, an embrace that is seared into every Rangers fans’ memory and has been immortalized in a statue at Texas Live!
The celebration was on.
“I was in the bullpen,” left-hander Derek Holland said. “That might have been the fastest I’ve ever ran, to go into the pile. That might have been the highest I’ve ever seen Vladimir Guerrero jump.”
That it was Rodriguez who struck out was icing on the cake. He represented the reckless spending that eventually led the Rangers into a rebuild mode in 2007, not to mention the use of performance-enhancing drugs he admitted in 2009 after his three seasons with the Rangers from 2001-2003.
“I have nothing against A-Rod,” Holland said. “But it was just like a storybook to watch A-Rod get punched out.”
The moment was delayed by rain before the scheduled first pitch. B.J. Thomas, the Arlington resident noted for singing Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head, performed the Star-Spangled Banner as a light rain fell.
The Rangers scored once in the first inning, and the Yankees tied it with a run in the fifth on wild pitch that Lewis said should have never scored. The ball actually hit Nick Swisher.
“I threw a backdoor slider, he kind of checks his swing, and it bounces and hits him in the back leg, and the umpire didn’t see that it hit him,” Lewis said. “I told the umpire, ‘Just go back and look at it.’”
The Rangers, though, countered with four two-out runs in their half of the fifth. Mitch Moreland started with an infield hit and moved to third base on consecutive groundouts.
Josh Hamilton, who would be named series MVP, was intentionally walked ahead of Guerrero. He doubled in Moreland and Hamilton, and trotted home from second base as Cruz followed with a blast to center field.
The Rangers added a run in the seventh, and Lewis breezed through the eighth inning and assumed he would return for the ninth. Manager Ron Washington, though, came up and hugged Lewis.
“’Hell of a job, Colb,’” Lewis said, doing his best Washington impersonation. “’We’re going to let Neffy go do what he do.’”
And he did, freezing Rodriguez and providing the best moment in Rangers and Globe Life Park history.
“That strikeout, that moment, to see someone like Michael Young, who had never been to the playoffs and we’re going to the World Series, those moments speak more to me than just because of the meaning,” Holland said. “I’m more of a team guy. I want my guys to benefit, and to see them get to go to the World Series, it’s such a cool moment.
“It’s something I’ll never forget.”
