There I was, watching my baseball hero, my baseball idol, basically the reason why I love baseball, pitching in front of a great crowd in a critical postseason game. He was on the mound, soaking it all in. He lives for these games, and I lived, waiting five years, for one of these games. Just like he did so many times before, Roy Oswalt picked up the baseball, fired strikes, shut down the opposing team, and won a playoff game. All the while, I could not help thinking, "This is not how it was supposed to turn out." I expected to be enthralled watching Roy Oswalt pitch a gem in a postseason game, and I was, but I was nowhere near as excited as I thought I would be. If anything, seeing Roy Oswalt pitch his way to the headlines in another uniform was one of the harder experiences of my sports fan life.
Roy Oswalt is still a great pitcher, is still my favorite, and I hope to God that he wins the World Series this year, because he deserves it for being the most consistently great pitcher of the last decade. But he is no longer our great pitcher. He is the guy who got away. He was supposed to be an Astro for life. The Astros team that was one of the best in the NL from 2001-2006 was his team, built around him and pitching first. He was the frontman of the team, the image of the team. He was everything that we Astros' fans loved about the 2005 NL Pennant winning Astros. Tough, gritty, talented and most of all, resilient. That Astros team was our team. Every fan probably has that one year with their team that it all came together, that it all was perfect. As a Colts fan, that was the 2005 regular season, and the 2006 postseason. If they happened in the same year, that would have been great, but they happened 13 months apart, so it was fine. As an Astros fan, that was 2005. By then, I was a huge Astros fan, and more importantly a larger fan of Roy Oswalt, our young, talented, brilliant 20-game winner from 2004. The team was gutted at the start of 2005, starting the season 15-30 with Lance Berkman hobbling and Carlos Beltran weaseling his way to disappointing the Mets fans. That is when Roy became the guy.
The Astros finished the 2005 regular season on a 74-43 run, with Oswalt winning 20 games for the second straight year, and this time doing it with an ERA under 3.00. Oswalt was now a star, and he was headed for the great stage. In the 2005 NLCS, against the best team in the majors that year (the Cardinals, who went 101-61, and had the NL MVP and Cy Young Award Winner), Oswalt had two starts. Both came in a game following an Astros loss. Both were in St. Louis. Both were 7 inning, one run affairs. Game 2 was important to change the tone of the series, Game 6 was legendary.
Mitch Williams said at the top of FOX's broadcast that this game 2 of the 2010 NLCS was the biggest game of Roy Oswalt's career. This enraged me. Sure, the Astros are now a down-trodden, midget of a franchise, barely hanging on to any shred of dignity they may still have, but that doesn't mean that what Roy Oswalt did in Game 6 of the 2005 NLCS was any less impressive. That was my team, my pitcher, my game, and my greatest baseball memory. One game after Pujols' epic home run to steal Game 5 when the Astros were one out away from winning the NLCS, Oswalt toed the rubber in St. Louis. Bill Simmons called the series over, saying the Astros would never be able to recover from losing game 5. Roy Oswalt probably doesn't know who Bill Simmons is, and that is not the only reason I love him.
In the first inning, Oswalt faced Pujols, and quickly got to an 0-2 count. The next pitch effectively ended the series. Oswalt threw a 95 mph fastball up and in. Pujols swung, missed and fell over to his knees and struck out. Oswalt had won, beating the man that haunted the Astros, and breaking the spirit of the Cardinals. Oswalt threw 7 innings of 3 hit 8 strikeout ball to win the series for the Astros. He won the NLCS MVP in that series, with 14 innings, 8 hits, 15 strikeouts, and two wins in St. Louis against the NL's best offense. Yeah, Mitch Williams, I think he's pitched bigger games.
This is why I don't feel the same watching Oswalt pitch brilliantly in the spotlight again, because he's not on my team. We loved him. We appreciated the beauty of watching that man pitch even if the team was 45-57. The Phillies' fans see him as a rented hand, a mercenary brought on to win a ring. We saw him as a brother, a friend, a hero. Roy Oswalt was the best Astros pitcher maybe in team history (Nolan Ryan can probably dispute that). Roy Oswalt was our favorite pitcher. The Astros from 2006-2009 were not any good (the 2008 team was a smoke and mirrors 86-76), but we always felt that at least every fifth day, we had the best team, because we had Roy.
The only Roy getting credit is Halladay. Halladay is a great pitcher, and his no-hitter was great. But the sign of a truly great one is what Oswalt did in Game 2. After Halladay lost, leaving the Phillies in an unenviable position heading into game 2, Oswalt did what a true ace does. He stopped the bleeding. He came out and retired the first 14 batters of the game. He gave up three hits all night, and struck out nine. He had the whole crowd behind him. But it was the wrong crowd. It is the crowd that still loves Halladay more, and still loves Hamels more. Loving Hamels more is fine, since he's their Oswalt.
Oswalt was the homegrown guy, the prospect and then the rookie we saw grow up, mature and dominate. The 2005 Astros had two other aces, in Clemens and Pettitte, but Oswalt was the "ace", and the hometown favorite because he was with us from the start. He wasn't brought in here when the going was good, and he was going to stay when the going was bad, unlike Pettitte who fled back to his mommy in the Bronx. When Oswalt finally, quietly asked for a trade, we all defended him, and agreed with him, because all of us wanted a trade from the Astros too. Roy got his wish, and we got our wish, to watch him pitch great in the biggest of games again. We got to see him pitch in front of a crowd and raise the energy of a ballpark again, we just all wish it was our ballpark.
