37 years ago an 11 year old boy got off the school bus and hurried to the TV to watch baseball. He didn't have a favorite team because he lived in the backwoods of North Alabama and only got to watch baseball on Saturday afternoon and Monday night. That day he turned to the baseball game, it was a one game playoff against the Dodgers, and there was this team dressed in bright orange running the bases like, as we say in Alabama, jackrabbits. This team hustled and played hard and the young man seemed to be enamored with these orange uniforms.
Then came the Phillies. Every game was a fight to the finish and the young man was hooked. He could have chosen the Phillies, they actually played on NBC and ABC on Saturdays and Mondays, but there was something about this orange clad team he couldn't shake. He loved watching them play. Especially the player named Cruz that stuck his bat up in the air but could still hit every pitch thrown. The young man would pick 25 as his baseball uniform number all the way through high school beacuse of Jose Cruz. They came up short against the Phillies and it broke his heart. But that started a 37 year "love affair" with a bright orange clad team of men, NTTAWWT, that has the knack for building up this young man's hopes and then squashing them in heart breaking fashion.
The young man finally had a team to talk about with his friends. One was and still is a die hard Cincinnati Reds and Johnny Bench fan. The other a Cubs fan who lived 20 miles away and had cable. Yet another was a Braves fan but he lived in the city and could watch them on cable TV every day on TBS. The young man and his Reds fan buddy was relegated to listening to WLW 700. It was the Reds but it was baseball. But since the Astros and Reds were both in the NL West we could listen to many Astro/Red games during the summer. The two young men listened and cheered the night the Reds were giving Johnny Bench his own night to be appreciated by Reds fans. Johnny Bench night they called it. And I remember how proud I was as Jose Cruz hit 2 homers and spoiled Johnny Bench night as the Astros won. I still remember how cool it was when Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall signed off by saying Johnny Bench night turns into Jose Cruz night as the Astros beat the Reds. Ahh, the memories. Every day he would wait till 4 oclock when the paper lady brought the Huntsville Times so he could check the boxscores. He couldn't watch the orange guys but he knew their lineup by heart. He would take the ax handle his dad bought him at Trade Day called 1st Monday on the city square, to the end of the driveway and play rock baseball every day. If he hit it over all power lines it was a homer. Between the second and third was a triple. Over the bottom power line was a double and if he just cleared the barbed wire fence across the county road it was a single. Everything else was an out. Nolan Ryan would strike 24 batters per game and Jose Cruz finished the year with close to 300 home runs. He was MVP in case you were wondering. And every year they beat the Yankees in the World Series in the driveway rock league. But in the not fantasy life...........
But the young man still remembers how much he despised Lenny Dykstra and The Mets. The Braves pitching staff that he declared got strike calls a foot off the plate. Anything pertaining to the St Louis Cardinals, especially Jim Edmonds and Albert Pujols. Kevin Brown. The Chicago White Sox. The Texas Rangers. He loved Carlos Beltran, then hated him, then loved him again. He was so excited when he heard on the radio one day that the Astros had signed Doug Drabek and Greg Swindell. World Series for sure he thought. But alas, another broken heart. He loved anybody that wore an Astros jersey. They were all great he thought but every time they got close..............
He scored some tickets from a guy from Atlanta named Jared he knew from an Astros forum called the Mud N Blood and got to sit and watch Andy Pettitte and Morgan Ensberg destroy the Braves in Atlanta in game 1 of the NLDS in 05. This is the year he thought. And sure enough they made it to the World Series. They surely can beat the White Sox he thought. They have Bagwell and Biggio and Berkman. They have Clemens and Pettitte and Oswalt. And again close but.......
Then came the league switch and the young man developed a bitterness for a man named Bud Selig. All the friends in Alabama agreed but not much can be done from Alabama. But he couldn't stay away from the Astros.
Then came 3 straight 100 loss seasons. But the young man would buy the baseball package from DirecTV, times had gotten better in the backwoods of North Alabama since his childhood, and watch every game he could. Then they made the playoffs again and the Kansas City Royals were going down. Again close but.....
Then came 2017 and this team of orange clad men were winning.....alot. And he watched. He would often think of going to the GameZone on the previously mentioned Mud N Blood forum but then he would remember that the last time he frequented there the Astros had bad stretches of losses. So he stayed away and watched. They would beat the hated Rangers repeatedly and he watched. They were a team full of youngsters that he loved watching play ball. Just as much as the team lead by the guy named Cruz that stuck his bat up in the air. This team took him from being in his late forties for a couple of hours per day back to the teenaged kid that loved watching the guys in orange run like jackrabbits. Finally the guys in orange clinched their division. But some other team was over there winning 20 something games in a row and took the home field advantage. So he added them to the don't like list. Then came the playoffs. Boston was no match for these orange clad players. He was preparing for another broken heart in the Yankees series but these guys in orange kept fighting and next thing you know they are going to the World Series.
Then came the Dodgers. The young man, who now has some gray hair, watched and cheered. He wanted so bad to go to the GameZone. But if he did and the Astros lost he would never forgive himself. He watched Game 1 and couldn't help but wonder if the year would end with another broken heart. Then he watched Game 2 and wondered if they might just pull it off this time. Then came Game 3 and he begin to think it was gonna happen. And it was even more sweet because they had beaten Yu Darvish (see Texas Rangers above). Then came Game 4 and he doubted they could win 2 in LA. Then came Game 5 and he was on record as saying there was no way these orange clad players could score 4 on Kershaw. But they did. Then thought they could not score 7 but they did. They scored 13 in what will live as the greatest emotional roller coaster ride of a game the young man had ever watched. The greatest because the guys in orange won it. Now they only had to win 1 in LA and Verlander was pitching. He began to believe but then Game 6 ended with a loss. The young man didn't know what to think about Game 7 but he knew this heart break could be the worst one yet. Because they had never been this close. And again it was Yu Darvish they had to beat but then it happened. Yu was drilled and pulled down 5-0. His stomach churned. His head spun. He sweated. He paced. He wrung his hands. And before he knew it there were 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and again it happened. The ground ball to Altuve that ended an Astros win in the World Series. I smiled. I laughed. I nodded. It was over. Not the "love affair" but the 37 year journey to see them do what nobody thought they could. The guys in orange are World Champs. I may not be a world champ but they are and that's good enough for me.
They talked about the GM Jeff Lunhow, who to the young gray haired man is the greatest GM ever. They talked about AJ Hinch, who to the young gray haired man is the greatest manager ever. And they talked about the players that were clad in orange, who to the young gray haired man is the greatest team ever. They are all the greatest because they did something the young man had never seen. They ended a 37 year anticipation of seeing the Houston Astros as the World Champions.
Now the anticipation begins anew.......
PS. Sorry for the long post. This was the only place I knew where I could put it in words.
