It is hard to believe that it had never happened before.
Prior to 2023 the state of Texas had never seen two professional teams in America’s four major sports win titles in back to back seasons. To be clear this is only possible in some senses since there is only one NHL team across the state, but it has been possible for some time now between football, basketball and baseball.
The Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans have never gone back to back (nor the Houston Oilers back in the day). While the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks all have titles to their name they have never won them right after one another (although the Rockets did go back to back themselves).
It took all the way until 2022 and 2023 when the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers won the World Series in consecutive seasons for this phenomenon to occur. This is something that I discussed with legendary pitcher Roger Clemens on my radio show The Morning Huddle when he joined us on Friday morning over at 94.1 San Antonio’s Sports Star.
As an Astros fan myself it was fun to hear Clemens say that he has received videos from the likes of Hunter Brown and Justin Verlander working on this or that. Even though they lost to the Rangers in an ALCS for the ages last year, Houston is heavily favored to win their fourth AL West title in a row (seventh in eight years) according to FanGraphs. Texas is currently third in odds behind the Astros and Seattle Mariners.
The Astros have reached the ALCS an incredible seven years in a row and bolstered their bullpen this offseason by signing Josh Hader. Only the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers have greater World Series odds than they do with Opening Day just around the corner.
Interestingly Clemens wanted to talk a lot of football when we spoke and mentioned how much he believes in the Dallas Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott. It is not often that my worlds intersect so much, mandatory shout out to Blogging The Boys, so I appreciated the opportunity to talk a bunch of different sports with one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
Clemens joined us to talk about the Cologuard Classic by Exact Sciences, a PGA TOUR Champions tournament which is taking place at La Paloma Country Club in Tucson, AZ this weekend (March 8-10). The event regularly draws one of the strongest fields on the PGA TOUR Champions, but the tournament is about much more than golf. Its mission is to raise awareness of the importance of colon cancer screening and recognizing those that have been impacted by the disease. It also helps kick off National Colon Cancer Awareness Month, which is March.
Our thanks to Clemens and to Cologuard for the time.