A Bronx fail
Astros pushed to the brink, but devoted fan has faith
A few days ago, Eugenia Rios was riding high. Her neurologist had called to let her know he hadn’t found any new tumors in her most recent brain scan, and her beloved Astros had jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series.
Rios was still feeling good Wednesday afternoon, even after a pair of Yankees wins had evened the series and made the Astros look vulnerable.
“We’re going to win tonight,” the 68-year-old said, sitting in her Baytown living room, minutes before the first pitch of Game 5. “I believe.”
She’d believed back in 1986, too, before the Astros blew a three-run lead in the ninth inning to lose the decisive game of the National
League Championship Series to the New York Mets. Rios remembers leaving the Astrodome in tears.
“It felt like a funeral walking out of the stadium,” she said.
This year was to be different. Rios was at the ballpark on opening day seven months ago, just as she had been every year since 1998, and had predicted this was the ball club that would finally bring Houston its first World Series championship.
More than three years after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, she’s not sure how many more chances she’ll get.
“That’s OK,” she said, as Astros center fielder George Springer popped out to start the game Wednesday. “We’ll get some runners on base. That’s all we need.”
She has the unwavering optimism required of a woman who’s committed herself to a 55-year-old franchise that has always seemed to come up short when it counts. One room in her house is overflowing with baseballs, signed photographs, player bobbleheads and other memorabilia collected over 40 years of devotion.
“We’re what you call diehards,” said Ardie Rocha, her older sister, who came over to watch the game, along with Rios’ home health care provider, Darlene Lang. “Win or lose, this is our team.”
Just then, Astros second baseman Jose Altuve stroked the ball to the left side of the infield at Yankee Stadium and reached first base on a New York error. More than 1,600 miles away, Rios cheered and waved an orange towel over her head.
“Things are breaking our way,” she said.
Only, they weren’t. The next batter grounded out to end the inning. By the end of the third, the Yankees had taken a 2-0 lead.
“It’s going to be all right, Darlene,” said Rios, consoling Lang, who didn’t pay much attention to baseball until she started caring for Rios three years ago.
“It’s got to be, Miss Rios,” Lang replied. “We’ve done come too far to go down like this.”
The Astros got a runner to second base in the fifth, but failed to get him home.
“Darlene, I don’t like the look of this.”
“Me either, Miss Rios. We’ve just got to keep believing.”
Then the Yankees added two more runs.
“Darlene, this doesn’t even look like the same team from last week.”
“They sure don’t, Miss Rios.”
A familiar sense of dread was returning. Rios felt it, and so did many others in the Houston area who’ve spent decades pulling for the Astros, heartbreak after heartbreak.
“I’m not giving up,” Rios said after another Astros strikeout.
She’d said the same thing back in 2014, after the cancer diagnosis. Her doctor at Memorial Hermann had told her she might have six months to live, maybe fewer. Repeated chemotherapy treatments since then have left her thin and fatigued, but they’ve also kept the cancer from spreading — for now at least.
“I’ve had some setbacks,” Rios said during a commercial break. “But I always bounce back.”
Just like her Astros, she said. She hopes.
The Yankees scored one more run in the seventh and then completed the shutout victory, 5-0, leaving Houston one loss away from falling short of the World Series.
Even after all the disappointment in seasons passed, and even after all she’s been through, Rios is still optimistic. She predicts the Astros will win the next two games at home at Minute Maid Park and take the series in seven games. And if she’s wrong? “I’ve already renewed my season tickets for next year,” she said, steadying herself on her walker.
She plans to be there, once again, on opening day.