Former MLB first baseman Mitch Moreland knows what it’s like to be on both sides of the World Series. The Texas Rangers came up just shy in his first two seasons in 2010 and 2011 but he went on to finally win the World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2018.
Moreland joined Rob Bradford on the Audacy original podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” and detailed the difference between winning it all and falling short in the Fall Classic.
“My buddy said this to me and I think this kind of says it. He goes ‘It was cool that you played in those two before but at the end of your career, people say you’re a world champion. They don’t say that you played for two of ‘em. They say you’re a world champion,’” Moreland said (45:50 in player above). “Half the people that I know don’t even know I played for the Texas Rangers because I won a World Series with the Boston Red Sox.”
“That will live forever,” Moreland continued. “That is your ultimate goal as a player is to be a major league baseball player and play and win a World Series. That’s the difference. It changed my life.”
Moreland came up as a rookie in the 2010 season and immediately made back-to-back World Series appearances with the Rangers. Unfortunately, Texas came up short against the Giants and the Cardinals, but those losses helped Moreland down the road.
He went on to win the 2018 World Series with the Red Sox. He came up with a clutch pinch-hit home run in Game 4 on the final pitch he ever saw in the Fall Classic.
“It did not have the same effect just by playing in two others. Obviously, I’d been there, got the experience, and that experience probably helped me more as a player relating to the other players and being able to tell them my experience from it than winning one would, to be honest with you,” he continued. “I think right now that’s probably considered the greatest World Series game of all-time is that 2011 Game 6 and I was there for it.”
The Rangers were one pitch away from glory. They captured that on Wednesday night after 12 long years of waiting.
Moreland knows what the Rangers felt back in 2011 and the Diamondbacks felt this year.
The thrill of victory is one of the best feelings in sports but the agony of defeat is even heavier.
“The heartbreak that you feel, there’s not many other ones out there that trump that one as far as a player goes; being a pitch away,” he said. “It definitely had an impact on me and I’m grateful for it, but winning it is what changed it for me. That’s what you play for is to win it all. Doing that, I can’t put that into words.”