I took a novel approach to watching Game 7 of the ALCS. Instead of burrowing into a hole and watching some movie too nervous or afraid to watch (you know, standard operating procedure for the last few Manning/Brady contests), I watched it. All of it. I watched it in a sports bar in Nashville, where I was with my cousin from Houston, the one who more or less made me an Astros fan about 20 years ago. We were there, in a large sports bar on the border of Vanderbilt University's campus. We were one out of five or so tables watching baseball, while the other 45 were loudly watching college football. Maybe not the ideal setting. My cousin and two other guys we met from Houston all longingly said how much they wished they were there. But the setting worked. I couldn't escape, and instead got to enjoy a clincher in all its glory.
I don't know when I felt truly comfortable. Definitely not when the game started and the Astros stranded runners against Sabathia early. Definitely not when Gattis hit a home run to take the 1-0 lead. It probably wasn't until McCann's two-run double to make it 4-0. Of course, then I remembered just four days ago the Astros led 4-0 in a game with the same pitcher, Lance McCullers, on the mound, and it didn't work that time. But that time was in New York. This time was in Houston.
This game, this win, was more about Houston the city than the team. Even if we can lay plaudits on Altuve, and Morton and McCullers, and Alex Bregman's ridiculous play to gun Greg Bird down at home. Behind all that action was a crowd that never sat down. A bandbox that dusted off 12 years of nothing to become the riotous banjo-party that it was back in 2004 and 2005. More than anything, that will stay with me. Since 2005, I've grown 12 years. The best players on the team are younger than me now. They changed their uniforms, and their 'old clubhouse leader' is a man who spurned that 2005 team and who back then most of Houston hated. But that noise, that sound, that pulsating energy that imbibes that band-box of a stadium? That was the same, and it took me back.
I've never been as nervous watching a sporting event in my life as I was during that 2005 NLCS. Holed up in the basement of my parent's house, watching in a small color TV, without the luxury of DVR to fast-forward through ads, and HD to actually see where the ball was going. It was a dark time, but a tremendous one. That Astros team was all pitching and defense. My favorite pitcher took the mound in Game 6 to clinch it. However, what I didn't get was to see them win in Houston. Albert Pujols stole that from me. 12 years later, I finally got it - just in a different league.
The biggest difference between 2005 and 2017 probably is the fact that the Astros won the NLCS that time, and the ALCS this time. The Astros were the red-headed step-child of baseball when Jim Crane bought the team in 2011 - one of his conditions in the sale was that the Astros would move to the AL West. It would even the league's with 15 teams each. It would even the divisions, moving the Astros from the 6-team NL Central to 4-team AL West. Of course, it ended two nice rivalries, Astros-Cubs and Astros-Cardinals, and they passed over moving the Brewers, who literally used to be in the AL.
Anyway, I'm still an NL Purist at heart. My biggest rivals remain the Cubs and Cardinals - no matter how much MLB tries to sell this battle of Texas. I was heavily rooting against the Cubs all of last postseason. I will always do so. But I've started now to appreciate life in the Junior Circuit. There was no better way to indoctrinate Astros fans to that than having their first pennant winning playoff journey go through Boston and New York.
With the Yankees. I don't hate them. Actually, I like them. I like their old dominance. I like them in an 'enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend' kind of way as I'll always go for teams that do well against Boston sports teams. I have many friends that are Yankees fans. But through six games, I started to get it all. Not hate the Yankees, but respect them out of fear. Out of fear of that stadium, the mystique and aura they represent. How else to explain the Astros hitting for a .480 OPS through five games, and looking like their 2011-2013 tank-a-riffic versions in the Bronx. There is something special about the Bronx, to be sure. Luckily, the Astros had two more games in Houston, and there's starting to be something special about that place too.
Game 7 was a celebration for Houston baseball, for a fanbase that had to live through one of the most tiring decades in MLB history. First, was the 5-year stretch from 2006-2010 that the management couldn't see the writing on the wall and decided to 'compete' with aging rosters by gutting the farm-system even further. Then came the three year stretch where they openly tanked. They weren't alone. The Cubs did as well - but people felt bad for the Cubs, people got angry at the Astros. Finally came 2014, where 'progress' meant a 70-92 record and people actually watching on TV.
They escaped from the Wilderness in 2015, a year that should be cemented in Astros history with the call-up of Carlos Correa and the Cy Young season of Dallas Keuchel, one of the great Astros re-births that have helped a team that didn't always make the most out of the draft picks they were given in their tanking days (remember, they picked Mark Appel - who? - #1 in 2013, right before the Cubs picked Kris Bryant). That season ended with them blowing a 4-1 lead in the 8th inning of Game 4 against the Royals. It was a learning experience. Things wouldn't be that easy.
It still may not be. The Astros went up against a juggernaut the last time they went to the World Series, and get summarily swept away in the closest sweep of all time (The Astros had legitimate chances to win Games 2-4). This time, it could happen again. The Dodgers are incredible. They whipped the Cubs without their best position player who should be back for the World Series. The Dodgers may well win it this time, but the Astros had their moment, in their ballpark, and brought baseball full circle back to Houston in the process.
Tip of the hat to Brian McCann and Evan Gattis, the two similar-looking catcher/DHs the Astros employ for coming up big. Tip of the hat to Yuli Gurriel, who's swing at everything approach worked way better than expected all year. To Alex Bregman for becoming a defensive monster at 3B. To Marwin Gonzalez, for the throw in Game 2. To Charlie Morton, for the best outing of his life. To Lance McCullers, for redeeming a half-season of terrible play with two great performances against the Yankees. To Jose Altuve, for never losing the faith after going through the three-straight 100+ loss seasons. To each man on that team. Looking back, 2005 was the beginning of the end, with a roster with only two true in-their-prime players in Berkman and Oswalt. 2017 is different. And the first step was getting to the big show. Mission accomplished.
