The Arms Race

Henry Kissinger once said “The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.”Over the past two years, a new cold war has developed in the A.L. West. The Angels and the Rangers have emerged as the superpowers of the division. With all due respect to Oakland and Seattle, they are secondary players, capable of inflicting damage on the superpowers, but not strong enough to contend on their own.Like the Cold War superpowers, the Angels and Rangers spent the offseason in a major arms race. The Angels fired the opening shot by signing C. J. Wilson. Wounded, Texas responded by signing the Japanese star Yu Darvish. Like two heavily armed men feeling their way around a room, the Angels and Rangers both believed that the other had a clear vision on how to win the A. L. West, and acted accordingly.Since last Wednesday, I’ve been asked many times what I thin...