(no subject)

The Houston Chronicle today has a wonderful article about the Astros' 2005 season. About how the players and the team never gave up, about how they pulled it out to put up a magnificent showing last year, about how that will impact their season this year and give them more reason than ever to believe in themselves no matter what.

It reminded me that I never really revisited that season here. I do it in my head often, but I never wrote that overview I meant to do. So I'll do it now.

The Astros 2005 season was pure magic. Normally, of course, I'd be bothered by how it ended, how they tripped over themselves and stranded a thousand men on base and wasted Brandon Backe's amazing Game Four outing, and I do think about that from time to time, and I have flashes of resentment when I see the occasional White Sox hat or shirt, but you know what? I don't dwell. I can't.

Because they started the season fifteen and thirty. Because at one point they had won something like three out of twenty-six road games, and I'd gone from frustration to just laughing at them, crowing mockingly about "World Series, here we come!" I'll make no bones about it. I won't fake anything about believing all along. From my original userinfo write-up in June:

This year, thanks to the magic of MLBTV, I am able to watch the Astros. And this year, they suck liek whoa. Of course. But that's okay, I love them anyway. It's the redheaded stepchild kind of love, but it's there.

But unbeknownst to me, even as I was writing that, they were turning their season around. Andy Pettitte was back. Morgan Ensberg was getting key hit after key hit. The Astros put together such a string of wins that fans lamented the coming of All-Star Break, worrying that it would knock them off their stride and they would return to their April-May lackluster selves. Luckily, it looks like no one told them that could happen, because they picked up where they left off, winning and winning and eradicating the meaning of 15-30.

They had no chance of catching up to the Cardinals in their division, of course. The Cards clinched at some ridiculously early time like July or August, so the 'Stros shrugged and set their sights on the Wild Card.

And that was some Wild Card race. I practically needed a flow chart and Powerpoint presentation to keep up with it. Who should I root for today, the Marlins or Mets or Phillies? Who do we need to get the loss more? Who's breathing down our necks? Will a loss to the Cubs today hurt our lead, which was never greater than maybe five games? C'mon Braves, just because you clinched your division doesn't mean you can't kick a litle Marlins ass for us.

That race came down to the very last day. The Mets fell out of it pretty quickly. The Marlins disappeared. But the Phillies kept on us, until the final game was a must must must win for us. If we lost it, we would have to have a playoff game against the Phillies, winner take all and loser go home and watch it on TV. The Cubs, those bastards, didn't understand our predicament, and scored four runs off Roy Oswalt. As it turned out, the three runs we got in the sixth to make it 4-6 were plenty, but I mostly remember trembling in agony and waiting for something to go wrong (RSN conditioning, doncha know). We got that win and took the Wild Card, and went on to a crazy-ass postseason to remember.

Oh, the Braves. We lead the series 2-1 when we went into that Sunday game on October ninth. And in the eighth inning we were down 6-1, and it looked like a tie and a Game Five and a trip to Atlanta were right around the corner.

And then Kyle Farnsworth took the mound, and the rest is jawdropping postseason history, as we went on to score five runs on two homers (a grand slam from Lance Berkman to make the first postseason game with two grand slams, and a solo shot from Brad Ausmus that made it by a matter of inches) off the poor bastard and tied it in the bottom of the ninth. And then we played another full game, nine more innings, with countless scares and pitching stepping it up and the surreal sight of Roger Clemens throwing relief with only Andy Pettitte, the next day's potential starter, left in the bullpen, until finally, six recordbreaking hours after the first pitch, Chris "Who?" Burke hit the winning homer to send us to the Championship Series. I will never forget this game. I wrote two entries about it. I needed three days to recover from the hours of stress and adrenalin and the mindblowing joy at the end. For me this is the highlight of the season, the epitome of that amazing, stubborn, never-say-die 2005 team. Clemens would have thrown twenty innings if he'd had to. Our offense would have taken the plate over and over until midnight and never flagged, never let exhaustion cloud their nerves, and our defense would have stayed sharp, because this team didn't know how to fall over and quit.

And that's a good thing, too, because guess what else I'll never forget. Game Five of the NLCS, top of the ninth, Astros ahead 4-2, the crowd screaming as we get ready for three more outs to take us to the World Series. Shutting down my register at work, huddling next to the radio to hear it happen. Brad Lidge on the mound, looking for all the world like the 2005 Keith Foulke, putting two men on base but getting two outs. Albert Pujols at the plate. One strike away. One strike away. One strike away. And Lidge floats him a meatball, and Pujols hits a three-run shot that silenced the crowd and nearly blacked out my vision.

And then an off day to dwell on it all, a grim column from Bill Simmons, and me angry at Lidge, at Pujols, at everyone who says the season is over, because by then I've learned a thing or two from the Astros about not giving up.

No one told them they'd blown it, either. Everyone knows the story of Ausmus's joke by now - sneaking into the cockpit, a few quiet words with the pilot, followed by an announcement on the intercom: "If you look to your left, in a couple minutes, you'll see Pujols's homerun ball."

And so we won it in St Louis instead.

I don't know what happened in the World Series. We tired ourselves out, maybe, fighting every step of the way, and the White Sox arrived energized by their relatively easy postseason and a little help from the umpires. I also don't really care, when you get down to it, because like I said: This was a magical season. The Astros made their first World Series, and they did it because they forgot to think they couldn't. The 2005 Houston Astros are immortalized in my mind with the 2004 Boston Red Sox, because sometimes, even in pro ball, the old cliche is true: it isn't whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.