Houston Astros: Reflecting on the anniversary of Hurricane Harvey

Escape to Victory

Looking at my entry on that August day, I remember putting down video clips of previous sporting occasions of teams that made moments following a tragedy in the community. Each one of these is a great moment to recall from accidents to terrorist attacks on how the sports team delivered hope and solace to a wounded community.

I knew we had the chance to follow in the same footsteps as those teams. What I didn’t want to say was 2017 was the year that we would win the World Series for this reason. I never wanted to say that for two reasons. One, similar situations like the one the Astros dealt with don’t always lead to championships (01 Yankees, 18 Golden Knights). Two, if I had said that, it would lead to the impression that we would want tragedies to happen in our cities so that our sports teams can win the title and that’s not right.

But just because I didn’t say that on the record didn’t mean I didn’t believe we could. I felt for sure, we had a reason to win. With so many people going through a difficult time, what they needed was happiness in the moment. The Astros couldn’t do anything aside from spending a day in the community to help out other than playing baseball. It was possible that something good could come out of the situation and it did.

How It Happened!

How it happened was something I never truly expected. Winning the division was one thing and it was a start. But to get Justin Verlander in a trade when years ago, this was not possible. Then to win 101 games, which is second behind the 1998 team. That’s good progress on the missing element.

All of the sudden, we run into three hurricanes in the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and the Los Angeles Dodgers? That’s a first in baseball history for anybody to play three elite, historic teams, who also had the top three highest payrolls, in the same postseason. Include two of the greatest World Series games ever and a dramatic playoff run and we got ourselves a national sports story here.

The icing on the Cake?

Sports Illustrated had us winning the 2017 World Series in 2014. Guess what? We did! The Cover Jinx was broken. Crazy!

I get goosebumps writing this now. Interestingly enough, I also said in my entry that ideally, our story would end with us winning the World Series. Trust me when I say I’m not a prophet nor can I see into the future like Raven.

It’s crazy to think my gut feeling and the entry made me believe we could win it all. Perhaps I created something legendary like in Greek mythology. Maybe that’s a bit far-fetched. Or is it?