I’ve long been deviating from business to talk politics, so I’m very happy to switch to a much lighter passion of mine, Houston Astros baseball. November 5th, 2022 Dusty Baker has become the first African American skipper to lead a club to a World Series victory!
I first started watching the Astros in 1986, division championship against the New York Mets and I’ve been hooked on Astros Baseball ever since. It was a long bleak road at times, but even in last place I’ve always been a super fan of the young talented players that scraped their way to 100 losses. Needless to say the past 6 years have been a much smoother ride with 6 consecutive league titles, one of the most exciting World Series victories of all times against the Dodgers in 2017, and a few frustrating losses in the championship against inferior teams- but after 5 long years, the Astros have finally won their second pennant in franchise history!
It was a nail biting journey, we’ve lost some extremely talented players, to trades and injuries, but the amazing performances of rookie Jeremy Peña provided a seamless transition from Allstar shortstop Carlos Correa, Verlander had a couple rough starts after a Cy Young performance season, but recovered in time to give us a much needed win in game 5 – and Framber Valdez, wow! Garret Cole is tough for any team to replace but this amazing rookie set the world record for quality starts outshining Kershaw in his first complete season in a starting lineup – and delivered four more quality starts in the playoffs including a World Series win in game 6 tonight – extend this rookies contract now!
Altuve, Bregman and Tucker have all struggled offensively this season, but the best pitching in baseball more than made up for it to make for one incredible season. Congratulations world champion Houston Astros, and give credit where credit is due – Dusty Baker maintained his trademark cool & calm demeanor all the way to the very end, but if you watched closely you could see a smile hiding behind his gnarled tooth pick following the Alvarez home run in the bottom of the sixth all the way to the finish line.
Jordan Alvarez has to be an MVP finalist virtually single handedly making up for any short coming in the Astros offense all season and hitting the game winning home run tonight.
Lance McCullers, the entire Astros bullpen, and possibly the pitcher with the worst run support this year – Garcia who managed to throw all year with an ERA under 3.00 on a 100+ win club and still barely beat a .500 win percentage all made important contributions.
Even Martin Maldonado, definitely not known for his batting prowess, hit a game winning home run – that’s what I love about the Astros, from top to bottom no team in baseball has a better collection of talent where amazing offense and defense can come from any player on any given game day.
Congratulations Houston – celebrate safely and have a great weekend, we earned it!
– Joseph Smith
Htxjoe@me.com
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