Storm puts Texas series in jeopardy
Flooding in Houston could force move
• The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers won’t travel to Houston as planned after their games Sunday in California because of torrential flood waters that have engulfed the city in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
The Rangers had been scheduled to head to Houston after playing Oakland to await the start of a threegame series with the Astros beginning Tuesday. Instead, they’ ll return to Dallas to await word on the status of the series. The Astros are in Anaheim and also will fly to Dallas while a decision is made on when and where the series will be played.
“We have been in continuous contact with the Astros and Major League Baseball regarding travel tonight and the status of this week’s series,” Rangers president and general manager Jon Daniels said. “We will continue to talk throughout the day to get updates on the situation.”
Astros manager A. J. Hinch said the team was in a holding pattern. “We’re going to fly to Dallas and really just sit there and wait to see what happens,” he said before Houston’s game against the Angels. “Really, I think everything is up in the air. We might get to Houston sometime in the next couple of days and play. We might not, so I don’t know what’s possible.”
Hinch was quick to point out that they’re far more worried about what the storm has done to Houston than anything related to baseball. “The most important thing is ( that) baseball is secondary right now,” he said. “Our schedule, our flight times, like all that stuff is meaningless compared to what everybody is suffering through.”
Some have suggested that this week’s series with the Rangers could be moved to Arlington, Tex. If it is, it wouldn’t be the first time home games i n Houston have been moved to another park because of a hurricane.
In the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008, MLB moved two games with the Chicago Cubs to Milwaukee, about 95 miles from Chicago, effectively making the contests home games for the Cubs. Chicago won both of those games, with Carlos Zambrano throwing a no-hitter in the first one, leaving the Astros furious about the move.
The Rangers and Astros were just the latest teams to change their travel plans because of the storm, which has sent devastating floods pouring into the nation’s fourth-largest city.
The NFL’s Texans flew to Dallas after their pre-season game Saturday in New Orleans instead of returning home and have said they’ll stay there until conditions improve enough for them to come back to Houston. The Texans are scheduled to host the Cowboys at NRG Stadium on Thursday, but that game could be in jeopardy.