The Mariners are under no curses other than ordinary media and disgruntled fans. The Rangers on the other hand. . . Let us examine the elements of baseball curse lore: 1. A despicable act, whether it is trading the Bambino, or kicking a mascot goat out of a world series game because it smelled, or you sign A-Rod. 2. An aggrieved party either expressly or implicitly utters a curse. 3. Bad results. The most important elements are 1 and 3. Element 2 is largely optional but left in there to cover the Billy Goat Curse.
Here, we have the Rangers. They kicked a hall of fame pitching legend Nolan Ryan to the curb this winter for no apparent reason. This is a despicable act. Ryan told the press that he had been dumped into Jon Daniel's sandbox (whatever that means), and now the Rangers are maiming themselves back to their twenty ought form. This is some curse material. Whether we call it the curse of Nolan Ryan, or the curse of the sandbox, this is some good stuff.