Congratulations to the Houston Astros...

...on the best season in team history.

Although it ended in a loss in the World Series, it was still a magnificient season, and everyone in the organization - and all Houston fans - should be proud of this hard-working, never-say-die team.

Getting swept was a bit of an unfair result, in my opinion. Each of the games were extremely close, and were only decided by a total of six runs. Sure, I'm a homer, but I think the teams were quite evenly matched, and the White Sox simply took advantage of their opportunities much better than the Astros.

I was fortunate enough to be able to be at both Games 3 and 4 - and had an absolute blast, even in defeat. It was actually quite surreal to be at a World Series game - something that's been a dream since elementary school days - in the same ballpark that you've been to 50 other games at. It's all normal and ordinary and yet completely new and hard-to-believe.

Great season, and it's hard to be upset, even if the result was not ideal.

A pennant, at last...

2005 National League Champion Houston Astros

That just sounds so right.

I don't think I've ever been so thrilled to be so wrong. I just didn't think that the Astros could come back from such a devastating loss, but those guys showed such amazing character to come back and jump out and control that game last night the whole way.

It's been a long time coming. This team has been very good for a while now, and it's nice to see that they get over the hump while some of the veterans (Bagwell and Biggio) are still with the team. It's been 44 years since the Colt .45s started playing baseball in Houston, and Saturday we will revel in the first ever World Series appearance - and Tuesday, we'll actually host our first World Series game. Craig Biggio had played over 2500 games (18 years) in Houston, Bagwell over 2100 - and now they get a shot at winning it all. It couldn't happen to two more gritty, class teammates.

When I was in seventh grade - about 13 years old - I played Rotisserie baseball for the first time. And back all those many years ago, Craig Biggio was my starting catcher. (Yeah, remember, he used to catch.) Then I moved to Houston back in 1999 and got Astros season tickets, and spent many, many summer nights at the Dome. Of course, I still remember my most heartbreaking sports moment (before Monday night) there in the Dome too - 1999 playoffs against the Braves; bases loaded; no outs; and Walt Weiss makes one of the most unbelieveable defensive plays I've ever seen and the Astros get no runs that inning and lose the game. That's kind of what it had been like to be an Astros fan - the big one always seemed to slip through your fingers.

But not anymore. What a storybook season. Look at this from this ESPN article:

OK, let's try to make this compute: A mere 21 weeks ago, the only team in the National League with a worse record than the Houston Astros was the Colorado Rockies. The only teams in the entire sport with a worse record were the Rockies and Royals. That means the Devil Rays had a better record back then. And the Pirates had a better record back then. And so did the Reds, the Tigers, and the Mariners. You won't be finding any of those other teams playing in the World Series this October, though. Only the Astros get to do that. And any team that can climb out of the crypt to do that should have Bela Lugosi hitting cleanup -- not Morgan Ensberg.
Asked what he thought the odds were of a team that once was 15 games under .500 winding up in the World Series, Lance Berkman gave it some thought.
"Well, how many times has it happened -- ever?" Berkman replied. "Once in history, right? (Right.) And that was in 1914, right? (Right -- by the old 'Miracle' Braves.) So what does that tell you? That it's virtually impossible. But somehow, we did it. It's hard to believe, really."

It really is hard to believe. Really. The best part is it's not over...

On to Chicago. Go Astros!!!


White Sox up next for the new NL champions
Behind NLCS MVP Oswalt, Astros earn first World Series berth
The joy of Game 6 erases a painful past
Oswalt hurls masterpiece at Cardinals
Dominant starting pitching for both sides
Houston, hello
Oswalt launches clinch

When you get punched in the stomach by a sporting event...

Houston, we have a problem

Bill Simmons (aka the Sports Guy) article on the Astros loss the other night. As he so often opines - I feel like I just thew up in my mouth...

Weird things happen when you haven't won in a long time; the poor Astros have never even appeared in a World Series. After a while, in that situation, you start expecting to lose. Then one of those seasons rolls around when good things keep happening, and they keep happening, and you wait for the other shoe to drop ... only it never does. Eventually, you reach a point that Houston fans reached Monday night -- you drop your guard, assume everything is different this season, give in to the moment -- and that's when sports can truly crush you. It's happened to me. I didn't want it to happen to them.

So I was fearing the worst, and I'm not even an Astros fan. Two pitches later, Pujols crushed a hanging slider about 900 feet to give St. Louis the lead, followed by the worst sound in sports -- a sellout crowd shrieking in horror, followed by a prolonged, wailing-like noise, followed by a creepy silence where you only hear the visitors celebrating.

And I hate to say it, but teams rarely rally back from that moment. In my "Levels of Losing" column from three years ago, Monday night's nightmare qualifies as a full-fledged Stomach Punch (Level 2, one from the top) for Astros fans -- it only would have been worse if they were one strike from winning the World Series.

Sadly, the rest of the Astros-Cards series seems predictably depressing (unless you're a St. Louis fan). Not only are the Cardinals back at home, not only have they been handed a second life, but out of every sport, baseball hinges on emotion and momentum more than anything else. ... Once you have the momentum, the other team has to take it back. And they can't do that when they're reeling on the road and wondering what the hell just happened. That's why I believe the Astros are finished, just like that '86 Angels team was.

And yes, I hope I'm wrong. Actually, I would love to be wrong. As the e-mails started pouring into my mailbox from Astros fans last night -- some venting incoherently, some wondering what they did to deserve the Pujols homer, others wondering if they were stupid for still thinking the Astros had a chance -- I could feel the despair seeping through my laptop screen. A local named Amar summed it up best: "I was there [at Minute Maid], and the electricity in the air when there were 2 outs until just after [Pujols] unloaded the big guns was just something I can't describe. In fact, I can't type any more. I feel too sick."

Amar, I know the feeling. You could even call me an expert. And according to my research, your team is cooked unless they can create a new Level of Losing for the Cardinals -- the "Reverse Dead Man Walking" Game on either Wednesday or Thursday. ...

Hang in there, Houston. You never know.

Read this too.

Levels of Losing

I don't believe in superstitions...or jinxes. But I do believe in being safe. I hadn't posted about the Astros - not for fear of stalling the momentum by doing anything different - just to be safe... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

An absolutely improbable, exciting, stomach churning run came to an end tonight. From compltely written off on Aug. 15 to the 7th game of the NLCS. Mind boggling. My fear is that with this run ending - so ends the hope of the Hall of Fame for Biggio and Bagwell, but I may just be getting ahead of myself.

I read the Sports Guy (Bill Simmons) alot. Back on May 28, 2002 he wrote an article on the "Levels of Losing".

I think tonight qualifies as a Level III: The Guillotine - Definition: This one combines the devastation of the Broken Axle game with sweeping bitterness and hostility ... your team's hanging tough (..., they might even be winning), but you can feel the inevitable breakdown coming, and you keep waiting for the guillotine to drop, and you just know it's coming -- you know it -- and when it finally comes, you're angry that it happened and you're angry at yourself for contributing to the debilitating karma ... these are the games when people end up whipping their remote controls against a wall or breaking their hands while pounding a coffee table ... too many of these and you'll end up in prison.
Best Example: Game 7 of the '97 World Series (Indians-Marlins), when Cleveland's Jose Mesa gave up the game-tying run in the ninth inning. Every Indians fan knew it was coming. Of course, the '97 World Series never happened, so it's probably a moot point. We need to get that one wiped out of the record books.

Just excruciating. (In case you're wondering - yes, I looked that article up before the game, because I knew this post was coming. Talking about contributing to the debilitating karma...) Excuse me while I go cry myself to sleep.