There's a general feeling in all of sports, from the pros down to high schools, that once a team is eliminated from the postseason, coaches and players generally quit caring about the playoffs in their respective sport.
For instance, you'd be hard pressed to find Elvis Andrus watching the World Series on his couch pulling for the Red Sox. It just doesn't happen very often.
Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said that's usually the case with him, but not in 2015.
The Rangers, of course, suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the ALDS at the hands of the Blue Jays, who went on to lose to the Royals in the ALCS. Daniels understandably felt it could've been his Rangers playing the Royals in the ALCS, but that's the breaks.
After the Rangers were ousted from the postseason, Daniels said he found himself in the rare position of rooting for another team the rest of the way, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it was his team's spring training brethren.
The Rangers and Royals have shared the facility in Surprise, Arizona, for years now, and Daniels said he was definitely pulling for them in a recent visit with ESPN 103.3 FM.
"In 2014 I didn't watch a pitch of the playoffs because we were so focused on the managerial search and the year was such a rough year — 97 losses," Daniels said. "This year, even when we were out — and I thought we should have been playing Kansas City, hopefully we were going to beat Toronto there — I found myself legitimately rooting for Kansas City. We've been across from these guys for 12-plus years now.
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"We get a lot of interaction with [GM] Dayton Moore and their whole staff, we have a genuinely good relationship. So it's been great, I've been really happy for them, honestly. I'd rather them finish second to us, of course. Usually in the playoffs I can't really find a team I'm rooting for because I have to find a reason because I want them all to lose. Actually this year I was pulling for Kansas City."
