A piece of Texas Rangers history now belongs to a fan after selling at auction on Sunday night.
A handwritten copy of longtime team radio play-by-play announcer Eric Nadel’s call of the final out of the 2023 World Series sold for $13,500 ($16,200 with a 20% buyer’s premium applied) during a charity auction held by locally-based Heritage Auctions in support of the Suicide and Crisis Center of North Texas. The package also includes Nadel’s headset, which he wore during broadcasts for the last 10 years.
According to WFAA Dallas, the call was appraised at $2,500 before the auction, but Heritage Auctions revealed the bids surpassed that mark quickly.
“Two days into bidding, it’s already surpassed that,” Heritage Auctions sports department production manager Mike Provenzale told WFAA. “It had a lot more value to Rangers fans than we even thought. We’re excited about where the money will go.”
According to Heritage Auctions, Nadel took inspiration from the Rangers previous collapse in the 2011 World Series and wrote the call on a piece of stationery from the Arizona Biltmore hotel, beginning with the now famous words, “Rangers Fans, You Are Not Dreaming!”
“It dawned on me other Rangers fans must be feeling the same way, and they certainly would when we actually won,” Nadel told Heritage Auctions. “So it felt appropriate to wrap up the final out of the World Series by letting them know they were not dreaming.”
Nadel spent much of the season dealing with depression but returned to the booth late in the season, just in time to witness the team’s historic run. Because of his experiences and ties to the issue, he wanted to make sure the auction would help people with their mental health.
“I wanted to make sure, not having any idea how much money would get raised, that the money was going to a mental health charity that really needed it,” Nadel told Heritage Auctions. “(The Suicide and Crisis Center of North Texas) always needs money. They need money to run their operation. They need money for their training program. They need money to advertise the fact that they need volunteers to man the crisis lines.”
The auction also included more items from Nadel’s career collection, like photocopies of his scoresheets and a signed poster of Nadel executing the championship call.
