Black socks to dog ears, Astros fans bask in thrills

Steve Navarette, 30, wore black socks. It’s the only color of sock he wears.

It’s important to him that people know that.

Twelve years after the Chicago White Sox vanquished his beloved Astros from what was then their closest to a World Series win, the Houston native has held strong to his promise to never wear anything other than black socks.

“I just love my Stros too much, man,” he said outside Lucky’s Pub near Minute Maid Park on Tuesday night. “Baseball is my life.”

Things have changed since that 2005 heartbreak, though: he’s graduated high school. His baseball career has ended. And the Astros again have risen after a tear-down of their roster that broke Navarette’s heart.

They’re young and hungry, in a way that reminds Navarette of a younger version of himself.

He’s hopeful, too, despite the loss in Game 6.

“Do you think we’re going to stay down?” he shouted when the Astros trailed early. “We’ve been playing too long to stay down.”

“I’ve been waiting 30 years for this, man. They let me down in ’05,” he said. “They’re not letting me down again.”

Over at Minute Maid, the

World Series meant a little more to Jasmine Hernandez and Dustin Avila than perhaps it did to the ordinary couple.

An hour before first pitch, before the live video started rolling for a sold-out watch party, fans in orange and blue trickled in, and the couple were already comfortably seated in the front row, Hernandez, 24, in a blue Astros shirt and Avila, 21, sporting a team ball cap.

The couple drove down from College Station just as they had for every home game this year since they had their first date at the park in March. They met working at H-E-B. Their relationship grew as they watched Houston’s young, energetic club march to the cusp of a championship.

“We watched all of them,” Hernandez said.

So far nothing had compared to that spring game when George Springer hit a walk off home run against the Seattle Mariners.

“Today probably will be better,” Avila said.

Then, as if ordained, Springer struck first for the Astros with a solo homer in the third.

Hernandez and Avila roared to their feet, jumping, pumping their fists and cheering with thousands of others, the crowd filling the lower deck.

They’d have to put off celebrating one more night.

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” said Avila.

While the crowd at Minute Maid Park was only a fraction of that of the other playoff games, and the team was nearly 1,400 miles away, at times the ballpark rocked like it did over the weekend.

The train horn sounded after Springer’s home run, and thousands leapt to their feet, waving towels, clapping and cheering as flashes of orange and blue danced across the seats.

The park had the makings of other ball games: T-shirts launching into the crowd, vendors hawking beer, hot dogs and peanuts.

Joe Carreon, 70, watched the Colt 45s play decades ago and has been a fan ever since. But Tuesday the energy at Minute Maid was something to behold.

“I like just being here, support in the Astros, being a part of Houston,” he said.

Surreal feelings

Other fans avoided the big crowd and instead chose the intimacy of their neighborhood bar.

In the corner of a back room at Christian’s Tailgate in the Heights sat Alex Moreno, a 29-year-old native of hurricane-ravaged Kingwood. His alma mater, Kingwood High, filled with feet of water, and his parents lost power for nearly a week.

He said watching this World Series has felt surreal.

“The celebration parade route will go down some of the same streets that flooded,” he said. “People went through so much. If this could be a little ray of sunshine, that’s what sports are all about.”

At Griff’s in Montrose, the smoke of steak night wafted across long tables filled with longnecks and a sea of Astros orange. Norma and Darius Shareza took the seats their friends had saved for them at the head of a long table facing a big screen just as the game got started.

“We met here, we had our first date here, he proposed here and we signed our marriage certificate here,” Norma said proudly. “We come here for all Astros games that we can, and we weren’t going to miss this one.”

In a black T-shirt with a Texas flag, but with Astros colors, Norma said the superstitious couple were wearing the same clothes that they had worn to every game during playoff, except for Saturday’s loss, which they had to miss. No word on whether they had washed them.

“Same earrings, hairstyle, flip flops,” she said.

Norma, a first-grade teacher from Spring Branch, said the couple would hold their post until the bitter end.

“The only time we didn’t come, we lost,” she said with a laugh.

‘This is perfect’

Halloween added a whimsical dimension to the festivities.

In the sixth inning, the Dodgers up 2-1, Areli Dozal, 27, was sweating it out at Minute Maid in a full-body poop emoji costume.

“Holy (expletive), we’re here!” she yelped. “We’re making history . ... After Harvey, this is perfect.”

Her companion, Erwin Natareno, 32, wiggled a pair of dog ears on his head.

He reveled in an excitement he hadn’t experienced since the Astros played in the Astrodome, he said.

He’d been having heart palpitations watching Sunday’s roller coaster Game 5.

“It’s what brings the game to life,” he said. “It’s been missing since the Biggio days.”