Astros’ maiden championship a triumph for all of Houston

Say it once, softly and slowly. Say it again, a little bit louder. Now shout it for all to hear. The Houston Astros are 2017 World Series champions.

In the 56th season of Major League Baseball in Houston, there’s no need for the Astros or their fans to shrug their shoulders, drop their heads and mutter “Wait ‘til next year.”

On Wednesday night, with Houston’s 5-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in a historic Game 7 of the World Series, next year has arrived.

George Springer, the World Series Most Valuable Player, drove in three runs with a double and his fifth home run of the series, and five Astros pitchers, climaxed by four clutch innings from Charlie Morton, held the Dodgers to six hits to take the series, four games to three.

After the long-awaited 27th out of Game 7, Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager’s groundout. Houston’s team swarmed the field to celebrate the first World Series championship in franchise history.

Minutes later, in the storied hollow of Chavez Ravine, on a stage in front of the Astros’ first-base dugout, it was the Houston Astros, for the first time in franchise history, accepting the Commissioner’s Trophy as champions of Major League Baseball.

“You know what, Houston, we’re a championship city,” manager A.J. Hinch said from the awards podium. “This team loves playing in Houston, and we’re going to love bringing this World Series trophy back to Houston.”

The Astros’ orange jersey tops bore the logo the team has worn since Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston in late August – the team’s star H logo and the word “Strong.”

Houston Strong has been a beacon of resilience and now, it’s a symbol of triumph.

The Astros’ journey toward a championship began in failure – three consecutive 100-loss seasons from 2011, the final year the club was owned by Drayton McLane, through 2013 as the Astros under new owner Jim Crane and general manager Jeff Luhnow disassembled and rebuilt the franchise.

They used new school metrics to develop old school talent – Jose Altuve’s tenacity, Carlos Correa’s grace, Springer’s power, Alex Bregman’s channeled ferocity, Marwin Gonzalez’s versatility and the arms of pitchers Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers, to mention a few.

The new ideas had skeptics, but there were believers, too. Sports Illustrated in the spring of 2014 heralded the Astros as “Your 2017 World Series Champs” for their innovative approach.

Even with that, an awful lot had to go right for the Astros to emerge from 111-game losers in 2013 to 101-game winners in 2017.

What if Justin Verlander had pondered another minute or two whether to accept a deadline-hour trade to Houston, when indecision would have rendered him ineligible for playoff triumphs that followed against the Red Sox and Yankees that helped carry the Astros to the World Series?

What if three 100-loss seasons in 2011-13 had soured Altuve, Keuchel and Gonzalez rather than tempered them into resilient, productive veterans? What if the Astros had passed in the draft on Correa as they did years? And, yes, what of Hurricane Harvey? As others recall this season, much will be said of how much the Astros meant to Houston, and Houston to the Astros.

“Man, we wore that patch and we wore it proudly,” said Lance McCullers’ who started Game 7. “The people of Houston were never far from our minds.”

The 2017 team now has fulfilled the promise of the 1997-2005 teams led by Hall of Famers Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt that won four division titles, two wild cards and the 2005 National League pennant, and the 1980s teams of Mike Scott, Jose Cruz, J.R. Richard and Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.

From fans to players, all now can take pride in the 2017 Astros, whether they wore the smoking pistol uniform of the original Colt .45s, the shooting star of the early Astrodome era, the wildly popular rainbows of the 1980s and the blueand-gold and brick red uniforms that preceded the return of orange and blue as the team’s primary colors in 2012.

Appropriately, it was Altuve, who was there for the bad times, who fielded the grounder that led to the final out.

Four years ago, the Astros were laughingstocks. Now they have beaten baseball’s royalty: the Boston Red Sox in five games, the New York Yankees in seven and the Dodgers in seven.

They have, in the words of the team’s marketing slogan, earned it.

Only one thing remains to be said, and it can be spoken in any of the 145 languages spoken daily across America’s most diverse region.

The Houston Astros are the 2017 World Series champions.

(Houston Chronicle/TNS)