A Life of Words

In all my years attending pro baseball games, I can’t remember ever going to one alone.

That streak ended Tuesday night at 62 years and six months.

Oh sure, there were people around me, mostly Texas Rangers fans, and all MUCH younger than me. But no Houston Astros fan friends sitting with me to join in the reveling as our team put a second straight walloping on the home team.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a rousing great time watching and cheering as my favorite of all teams scored three runs in each of the first three innings on the way to a 14-1 rout. And that doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of others like me spread throughout Globe Life Field in Arlington, wearing Astros colors and cheering on Jose Altuve and Co.

It always amazes me how many Houston fans fill the stadium with orange and get loud when the Astros come to Arlington. I always wonder if most are migrants who grew up in the Houston area like me, are from elsewhere in Texas where the Astros are popular (like the San Antonio area or Rio Grande Valley) … or just became Astros fans along the way. Or they’re like my college friend Gerald, who grew up in tiny Crane in West Texas but still managed to become a lifelong Astros devotee. My friend Roger Pinckney, who went to Monday’s game with me, grew up an Astros fan in Austin.

Although they’ll never outnumber the Rangers’ fans at these games in Arlington, Astros backers do their best trying to out-yell the home faithful and drown out the boos – especially those reserved for players like Altuve and Alex Bregman. Those two are the hated holdovers from Houston’s unfortunate sign-stealing scandal of 2017 that fans across the country seemingly will never let the franchise live down, even after all the players involved are long gone. Both had four hits in Monday’s game, showing their innate ability to block out the noise and just do their jobs.

It makes me smile when everyone’s singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch and all the Astros’ fans yell out “ASTROS!” during the “Root, root, root for the Rangers” line. So epic.

After attending Monday’s Labor Day game with Roger and his young son Michael – a game the Astros won 13-6, giving them a 27-7 edge in the first two games of the series – I thought about going Tuesday. I’d been looking at incredibly cheap tickets on a site another friend at work had been telling me about called TickPick and had already purchased seats for Roger, a couple other friends and me to attend Wednesday night’s matchup between the Astros’ Justin Verlander and the Rangers’ Max Scherzer.

But while I considered whether to go to the game after work Tuesday, I checked with several friends, none of whom could join me – and I really didn’t want to go by myself. That’s no fun, I thought. Hanging out at a ballgame with no one else to talk to, high-five, and – hopefully – enjoy an Astros win with?

So I didn’t decide until about 5 p.m. that I was even going to the game. I walked in the living room and looked at Kay, more for approval because I felt guilty going to games two straight days. “How can I pass up such cheap tickets to see my team?” I reasoned. Of course, she said something along the lines of GET YOUR TICKET NOW AND GO TO THE GAME!!

So I bought an upper-deck seat behind home plate for $6.50 on TickPick, tax included with no fees. After the game was over, my childhood friend David said in our group text with fellow Astros fans, “Best $6.50 you ever spent”? Although I can’t think of a lot for comparison besides food and drinks, I’d have to say it definitely was.

Altuve, who turned 33 in May and should be endeared throughout baseball for the remarkable talent packed into his 5-foot-6 frame – not to mention what an incredibly good guy he is – put on a show I won’t forget. He hit solo home runs in his first three at-bats in the first three innings, giving him homers in four consecutive plate appearances – a feat never accomplished by an Astro. He grounded out in the fifth in his bid to become the first player in history to homer in five straight ABs.

Funny story: There were some young guys sitting behind me – Rangers fans. When Altuve came up in the second inning, they started talking about him. One of them knew something about him, the other didn’t. The guy who didn’t was talking about how small he is and clearly knew zip about him.  

“Is he good?” that fellow said.

Really, dude? I snickered and incredulously said, loud enough for someone to hear, but no one was sitting in the two seats on either side of me, “Is he good?!” Moments later, Jose launched his second bomb of the game off starter Nathan Eovaldi, 398 feet into the left-center field bleachers. When he hit home run No. 3 on the night the following inning off reliever Dane Dunning, 426 feet to dead center, that gave Altuve five blasts in his previous six at-bats after hitting two in Monday’s game.

After Tuesday’s win, the Astros – hard as it is to believe – are alone in first place in the American League West for the first time all season. The Rangers have spent most of the year atop the standings. Because of their recent struggles and the Seattle Mariners’ success, it’s become a three-team race. There’s lots of September baseball left, and I’m certain it’s going to come down to the end. And Houston plays Seattle in the final week.

I’m looking forward to going to Wednesday night’s game, which I’ll head to straight after leaving work – it’s one of our office days at UT Southwestern Medical Center. This will be a much tighter game because of the awesome pitching matchup – and Scherzer is always tough on the Astros. And I expect the Rangers to come out swinging against Verlander.

I’m pretty sure this will be the first time I’ve ever attended every game in a three-game series. I’m excited about the possibility of a sweep, which would be huge for the Astros. Fingers crossed … GO ASTROS!!!!