November 2 – “Awakened”

It wasn’t all that long ago, was it?  The year was 1962.  A scrawny little nine-year-old boy somehow discovered a new game.  He became fascinated by all the nuances and statistics and specific skills needed to play.  And by the time he turned ten he was playing Little League and figuring batting averages and thumbtacking to the wall a baseball card of his favorite player (Bob Aspromonte) and weighing in on the argument of the day, whether Mickey Mantle or Roger Maris was truly better (Mantle, of course).  But most of all he followed the rare ups and oft-repeated downs of his favorite team, the Houston Colt .45’s.  He faithfully read even the box scores of games published in the newspaper.  He listened to games on his tiny transistor radio, imagining what it would be like to actually be at a major league baseball game.  And imagine his surprise when that favorite baseball team, in an effort to fill some seats in their massive new wonder of the modern world called the Astrodome, offered four free tickets to every student who came home with a straight A report card.  Never was a more apt motivation presented.  And never did a youngster work harder.  Real tickets to a real major league game.  Unbelievable. 

Through the years that youngster never stopped following “his” team.  Oh, they changed their name to the Houston Astros, but they were still “his” team.  Probably the greatest crisis of belief came when they jumped from the National to the American League many years later, but, hey, they were still “his” team.  He watched the Astros rise and fall oh so many times.  He was there when young Doug Rader made his major league debut in 1967 with a single.  Imagine how special it must have been to look up at the huge scoreboard and see your lifetime batting as 1.000.  Of course by the end of the night it was .333, but he was a major-leaguer.  And speaking of scoreboards, what little kid wouldn’t fall in love with the animated cowboy shooting off his six-shooters and the cows bellowing a raucous cheer as the lights flashed overhead.  Aspromonte and Rader soon gave way to the likes of Craig Reynolds (Of course going on a double date with the guy in college helped a little there) and Craig Biggio and Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott and finally Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa (Although the wacky guys like Springer and Jake Marisnik were always more his style). 

A really big memory was the first ever trip to the World Series versus the White Sox.  The team was swept in four games, but the now-not-so-young youngster at heart was given an amazing gift by his brother: a ticket to the first World Series home game in Astros’ history.  Unforgettable.  He still has that ticket, framed, of course.  Not that it’s worth all that much, but it represents a dream of a lifetime.  It is right up there with a baseball card collection (the entire 1963 Topps set, among others) and hats from the different eras of the team’s history and a Jeff Bagwell bobblehead. 

And then came 2017.  101 regular season victories.  A second World Series trip, perhaps the most exciting in history.  Two extra-inning games.  Unparalleled pitching.  Timely hitting.  It came down to game seven.  On the road.  And the Astros won.  I know.  Sounds kind of anti-climactic after a build-up like that.  But it was finally true.  The team manager probably said it best.  “In November we’re pretty good”  Yep.  And somewhere on a little Island off the coast of Texas, about 50 miles from Houston, that same little nine-year-old was awakened some 55 years later.  Awakened to cavort about in a rather unique home run dance.  Awakened to leap from his chair in a cry of victory, joining voices with about a million or so others in the greater Houston area.  It’s good to be nine years old and an Astros fan today.  World champions, 2017.

1 John 5:12 says, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Father, thank you for all the memories you gave me of baseball.  Thank you for the teams I was on.  And thank you for the friends and family that I had a chance to share those memories with.  Amen.