With the Rangers on the brink of entering the World Series, the city of Arlington still hasn't wrapped up a food bet covering the previous round of play.
According to the mayor's assistant, Tampa Bay hasn't anted up the seafood package it promised Mayor Robert Chuck if the Rangers won.
"Yeah, we never got it," Angie Summers says. "The mayor asked me about it yesterday, so I need to follow up. It's been like two weeks."
Summers, who likely doesn't want to spoil her shot at a fresh seafood lunch, stressed the Tampa Bay area mayors had been "very gracious in the way they sent the e-mail and all."
After the Rangers earned a spot in the ALCS, city of Arlington staffers contacted their counterparts in New York City to negotiate another edible deal. But the New Yorkers weren't playing.
"They declined because they have too many teams," Summers says. "It would bankrupt the city."
That doesn't mean there aren't iconic foods riding on the series' outcome. As the Abilene Reporter-News noted this week, a pair of Episcopal ministers has worked out a wager: The New Yorkers are putting a basket of bagels and lox up against tenderloins from Perini Ranch.
"When I announced the bet to our congregation, they applauded," the Reporter-News quoted Abilene's Church of Heavenly Rest's rector as saying. "When the wager was announced in New York, their congregation did the same thing."
The National League Championship Series features two teams from well-regarded food cities, but Summers refuses to say whether she's pulling for a chance at Philadelphia cheese steaks or San Francisco cioppino in the World Series.
"I don't think the mayor's rooting for a specific team except the Rangers," she says.