Shared joy
Swept 4-0 in their World Series, the 2005 Astros are thrilled about the franchise’s 2017 championship
As the Astros admired, cradled, kissed and hoisted their first World Series trophy at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night, they also lifted a burden placed on the franchise’s only prior team to get so far but come up short. • The 2005 Astros had been the sole World Series contender in 55 previous seasons of baseball in Houston. That team had represented an apex yet symbolized a snakebitten feeling. It included Hall of Famers Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, AllStar Lance Berkman, and all-time greats Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. • Still, Houston’s most successful team did not win a game in its World Series matchup with the White Sox. • The 2017 title changes the reputation.
“I feel very happy for the organization to put an end to not having ever won one,” former setup man Dan Wheeler said. “That’s always looming over an organization.”
The recent World Series run captivated several former Astros from the 2005 club. They experienced mixed emotions. Berkman could not fall asleep, Chad Qualls sacrificed sleep, and Wheeler tried hard but fell asleep in efforts to stay glued throughout the seven-game series between the Astros and Dodgers.
Bagwell cried. Phil Garner, the manager in 2005, still is hoarse days after shouting at the television during the seesaw slugfest of Game 5.
Garner had to attend his grandson’s junior high semifinal football game at the same time as Game 7. He dragged around a wagon with a computer inside that broadcast the World Series finale.
“We had a bunch of moms and dads around us watching,” Garner said.
Garner usually dislikes watching games. They remind him that he no longer manages them. But he would not miss this World Series.
After the wagon watch, he made it home to see the final three innings, in which Charlie Morton completed the game in relief and embraced Brian McCann as the catcher leapt into his arms.
“I feel a part of it even though I don’t have anything to do with this team anymore,” said Garner, who felt enchanted by Jose Altuve’s youthful enthusiasm. “From a fan standpoint, I enjoy that.”
Bagwell, inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, frequently is asked about a career that ended without a championship ring. He has softened in retirement. He cried after the Astros defeated the Yankees in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. He traveled to Los Angeles for the victorious Game 7 of the World Series.
“Everybody always keeps on talking about the other big teams,” he said in a postgame interview with KRIV (Channel 26) . “All I know is we beat the Yankees, Red Sox and the Dodgers. … I don’t know if the kids really understand it. But for me, growing up on the East Coast, taking care of the Red Sox and the Yankees, then coming out here to the West Coast, beating the Dodgers, that stuff doesn’t happen. For us to do that and finally get Houston on the map — everybody wanted every other team to win, but the best team won.”
Unlike Garner and Bagwell, who used “we” and “us” in discussing the current champions, other former Astros said they do not feel as if they won this title. But like the fans in
“Heck, when I got there, the Astros had never advanced in the postseason. This Astros team could win three or four championships.” Former Astros star Lance Berkman, who won a ring with the 2011 Cardinals
Houston, they identified with the dramatic month of near-losses and momentous wins they watched unfold.
“In terms of feeling like I’m part of it or that I have some ownership of it,” Berkman said, “I don’t feel that way at all.”
He related more to the elite competition and deafening buzz inside Minute Maid Park in October.
“I’m thrilled for the city and I’m thrilled for the players on the team,” he said, “because I know how hard it is to win a World Series.”
Said Wheeler: “Watching some of those games at Minute Maid Park brought back some great memories of our ’04 and our ’05 runs.”
The Astros had not won a postseason series until 2004, when they vanquished the Braves in the NL Division Series and lost to the Cardinals in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series.
“Heck, when I got there, the Astros had never advanced in the postseason,” Berkman said.
Now, Berkman expects the Astros will contend for a decade.
“This Astros team could win three or four championships,” he said.
Former Astros laud the unwavering teardown-turned-championship plan that owner Jim Crane and general manager Jeff Luhnow pulled off in six seasons. They fawned over the young talent and deep roster that overcame a Dodgers team that had been picked to win it all before the start of the season.
Qualls is the only player who was on the Astros in 2005 and 2015, when the Astros made the Division Series after a nine-year playoff drought but collapsed against the Royals. The Astros did not re-sign Qualls, a reliever, the following offseason. He wishes they had. He witnessed the debuts of George Springer and Dallas Keuchel, the building blocks of a roster that won a championship two seasons later.
“I wish I could’ve been on the team,” said Qualls, who pitched for the Rockies this year. “Look at Springer. He’s the World Series MVP.”
Qualls, who lives in Texas, visited manager A.J. Hinch, who had managed Qualls with the Diamondbacks and Astros, before Game 4, which the Astros lost.
“I definitely gave him a big hug and told him I was rooting for him,” Qualls said. “I asked him if he wanted to throw up every single game, and he said yes.”
Then the Astros and Dodgers exchanged a war of home runs for more than five hours in Game 5. The Astros chased ace lefty Clayton Kershaw early, overcame three deficits and won 13-12 after midnight.
“If you told me that Clayton Kershaw’s starting, the Dodgers are going to score 12 runs, and the Astros would win that game,” Berkman said, “I’d say you’re smoking crack.
“Collectively, this team is so deep and so focused that with the talent that they have, they put themselves in a position to pull off miracles like that.”
“I stayed up for that entire game,” said Qualls, who had to wake his kids at 6:30 a.m.
Unlike Qualls, Wheeler fell asleep during the fifth inning and found out from one of his kids the next day that Alex Bregman ended the epic with a walkoff single.
Qualls pitched in the game that previously was considered the greatest at Minute Maid Park: the 18-inning marathon against the Braves in the 2005 Division Series, which Chris Burke ended with a walkoff home run. Qualls said Game 5 topped it. “The stage it was on, the World Series, and all those comebacks — it was by far the best baseball game I’ve ever watched,” he said.
Fans may view the 2017 team as finishing the business that the 2005 Astros left undone. But the men who had fought for years to deliver the city its first championship appreciated the difficulty of trying to win it.
Garner was in his first full major league season in 1975 when the Athletics won their fifth consecutive AL West title. It also was the first playoff trip for his teammate, longtime Chicago Cubs great Billy Williams, who was in his 15th season and became emotional.
“He was sitting in the corner crying,” Garner said. “I was sitting in the corner and cried with him. It just doesn’t happen. So many people have played that don’t get the chance.”
Berkman and the Astros had to part ways for him to win a World Series with the Cardinals in 2011. When he watched the Astros celebrate their final out, he identified with the moment. It fired him up. He could not sleep.
“The feeling of elation and the incomprehensibility of what you’re experiencing, it’s surreal,” Berkman said of winning the World Series. “It’s one of the most powerful emotions I’ve ever felt in my life.”
He focused on Morton’s speechlessness in a postgame interview and 20-year veteran Carlos Beltran crying over his first ring. “I know that feeling,” Berkman said. Now the Astros and their fans do, too. The connection between Hurricane Harvey and the World Series run was emphasized throughout the postseason. The current players did not need any more motivation to win, but the former Astros agree that baseball offered relief to a city in recovery.
“It gives everybody who’s going through a hardship right now the chance to escape their reality and embrace the team and cheer,” Qualls said.
The final win also changed the identity of the franchise and its fan base. Garner said strangers still tell him the 2005 season brought their families together.
The same is true now, in the wake of Harvey, except there is a bit more gratification.
“You wake up, and thousands of people have their homes flooded, and they’ve lost maybe everything they owned,” Garner said. “And now you wake up to the elation of the World Series.
“It also makes you walk a little taller, puff out your chest a little bit, and say you’re world champions.”
Garner already started calling himself one Thursday when he played golf with a friend.
“I hit a couple of crummy shots into the water,” he said. “We both walked away saying, ‘But boy, we’re world champions.’ ”