When did Michael Young know the 2010-11 Texas Rangers were special?

We’re approaching the 15th anniversary of the Texas Rangers’ first-ever American League pennant and World Series berth, a team whose de facto captain was Rangers Hall of Famer Michael Young.

Young, who played in over 1,800 games for the Rangers during his major league career, was also lucky enough to be the first-ever guest on The Dallas Morning News’ new SportsDay Rangers podcast with longtime beat reporter Evan Grant and Rangers senior advisor and team historian John Blake.

Below is an excerpt from the podcast in which Young was asked about those 2010-11 pennant-winning Rangers teams and shared a story about when he knew that that group might have a little something. Young says he remembers the moment when he knew they could take down the LA Angels, who had won five of six AL West division championships going into the 2010 season.

See what Young had to say below. To watch the full podcast episode, click here.

Rangers

Question: What do you remember most about that era of Texas Rangers baseball, the chemistry and camaraderie of those teams, when did it start to come together?

Michael Young: “The chemistry and camaraderie were pretty incredible and obviously the talent spoke for itself, but before those stretches we had some incredibly talented teams. You know, 2008, that’s [Josh Hamilton’s] first year, he takes the league by storm. But a couple years before that we have Mark Teixeira, Alfonso Soriano, Hank Blalock. Gary Matthews Jr. had an incredible year. There were players making big impacts, but it wasn’t a very well-rounded club. Obviously.

“Right when we got to 2009 you could see a more well-rounded team taking shape. A lot of those guys I mentioned were gone and we’d started to fill those holes, [Ian Kinsler] had arrived and solidified his role, Josh, [Nelson Cruz] had broken through and established himself. It was starting to really take shape.

“Then you play together for a year, then a second year, and now there’s a really, really tight-knit group of guys. You start filling that in some of the young pitching that’s arriving, you have Colby [Lewis] come over, now we’re in a position to be super-aggressive at the deadline. Hello, Cliff.

“… That four-year stretch, whatever it was, it was pretty damn cool coming to the ballpark every day.”

Question: Is there something in your mind that encapsulates that season?

Young: “I can talk a long time on this one but the biggest thing I remember, right when we signed [Vladimir Guerrero] before spring training, before I left for camp I did an appearance here in Dallas. I get asked the same questions before every season, every season it’s the same answer: ‘If things go our way, we have a shot.’

“And by ‘our way,’ I meant, ‘All of us are on fire, and several Angels get hurt.’ That’d be things going our way, let’s just be honest. They had us outgunned, from a talent perspective.

“But going into 2010, taking Vladdy out of their lineup and putting him in ours, that was the first time I thought we should win if we just play our game. And off that, we start building momentum.

“By the time we got into June, we went off on this crazy little stretch where we started playing really good baseball. I remember there was a quote from one of the Angels players, they were complaining about their interleague schedule vs. ours.

“And I remember thinking, ‘We got ‘em.’ If they’re worried about that stuff, that we’re playing Pittsburgh or whoever we were playing against, no disrespect to the Pirates, but if we’re playing those guys and [the Angels] are worried about that? The tables have turned. We got them now.

“That’s when things really started to build. Again, then we got Cliff. Then we finished strong, leading up to that Alex [Rodriguez] moment where Neftali Feliz punches him out. But to me, it started much earlier than that.”