Let the word go forth across the baseball land. The Texas Rangers, long a fumbling, bumbling team and incompetent organization, are a legitimate champion and a team to be reckoned with for years to come.

They have demonstrated their emergence into legitimacy this post-season, knocking off the teams (Rays and Yankees) with the two best won-lost records in the American League. They can further enhance their status in the World Series by beating the Giants, who toppled the two-time National League champion Phillies, who had the best record in the majors this year.

“The old Rangers are gone; they’re a thing of the past,” Chuck Greenberg, the Rangers’ new managing partner, said. “We’re very well capitalized. We’ve got an ownership group with tremendous resources.”

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I’ve referred to it before, and I’ll refer to it again because it’s appropriate. The Yankees have become the latest victim of a number from the Broadway musical “1776:” “Here a Lee, there a Lee, everywhere a Lee, a Lee.”

Cliff Lee has been everywhere for the Yankees in the last two post-seasons. He was in the World Series last year when the Yankees played Philadelphia, and this year he is in the American League Championship Series, where the Yankees are playing Texas.

Lee was on the mound at Yankee Stadium Monday night for Game 3 of the series with the Rangers, and the result was the same as it was when they met twice in the World Series: Lee won, the Yankees lost.

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The question was perfect. It was about the difficulty the Tampa Bay Rays have had attracting fans to their park in St. Petersburg and what their future might be. The question was asked at a panel discussion on the business of baseball held last week by New York University.

It was perfect because it enabled me to raise once again a proposal I have made in print twice in the past 10 years. Major League Baseball would do well, certainly wouldn’t suffer, if it lopped the state of Florida off its map.

That’s right, just slice it off and let it slip into the Atlantic Ocean, the Rays and the Florida Marlins washed away with the rest of the detritus.

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