Signs of affection: Fans welcoming in Hinch’s first post-scandal return

The cheers kept ringing and echoing.

The standing ovation didn’t stop.

Ten white letters against a black screen on Minute Maid Park’s Jumbotron said it all: THANK YOU AJ.

So did an incredibly familiar No. 14 emerging from the Detroit Tigers’ dugout, raising his cap, touching his heart and slowly waving at the Astros’ crowd.

The cheers grew louder. Again.

A.J. Hinch was back in downtown Houston on Monday night.

It was what once was, what suddenly all fell apart, and what could have been.

It was the best manager in Astros history watching Zack Greinke take the mound for the other team, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman run the bases for the opposing squad.

It was somewhat socially distanced Astros fans proudly saluting the local memories of Hinch and all the great, historic things that happened within Minute Maid Park and baseball stadiums across America from 2015-19.

I didn’t hear a single boo — until home plate umpire Angel Hernandez was introduced.

I drove to a buzzing ballpark wondering over and over what Hinch’s first time back would sound and feel like.

Thirty seconds stretched to a minute, then approached an echoing and ringing 90 seconds as fans thanked the ex-Astro whose last game in local orange and blue was Game 7 of the 2019 World Series — with Greinke starting on the mound, then leaving too early — and who finished his Houston career with the best winning percentage in franchise history (.594), two American League pennants and a forever-controversial 2017 World Series title.

“I do have to focus on the good things that happened here,” said Hinch, before his below-.500 Tigers got six runs and 10 hits off Greinke in a 6-2 victory. “I have a lot of fond memories. A lot of incredible interactions with fans and throughout the organization. Some really, really good times and then ultimately a really low time. And so I kind of embrace all parts of that in my journey through this.

“It was emotional (Sunday) night getting into the city and getting to the hotel and not being able to go home because of the (COVID-19) protocols. … It will be emotional for me. I wish I had a great quote or the words or the right thing to say about what I’m feeling.”

The Astros’ 2017-18 sign-stealing scandal will be debated and analyzed for years to come, then decades. There will be documentaries, books and more podcasts. And at some point, Hollywood will surely have its glossy say.

But Hinch was the Astros’ manager. The Astros belong to Houston and Texas and Astros fans across the country, not social-media haters and fans still booing the remaining names from 2017-18.

More than anyone else currently or formerly attached to the Astros, Hinch has owned a sport- and team-changing scandal and everything that comes with it.

“I do believe that we did some good things in Houston. And I do believe we were wrong in the behavior and the decisions that we made in 2017,” Hinch said. “It’s hard to have that cloud over the sport and be responsible for that and be the man that was the manager, that it happened on my watch. My relationship with that time is complicated. It’s very personal. It’s something that I take very seriously. I will continue to apologize, not only to the Houston fans but all the fans around baseball, and continue to repeat how wrong it was.”

Monday’s proud and warm ovation was 15 months in the making. And there was so much more to Hinch’s Astros than the stunning, damning ending.

Cheers kept ringing for the man with the microphone and Houston Strong jersey patch who helped unite a fractured city after the destruction of Hurricane Harvey.

Cheers kept echoing because of the storybook, super fun 2015 Astros and a stacked 2019 team that won a franchise-record 107 games, then came just three innings away from lifting another World Series trophy.

Hinch was the heart and dugout acumen that made all of former general manager Jeff Luhnow’s assets click between the lines and inside the clubhouse.

The ending was a say-it-ain’tso shame. But the best things about the golden-era Astros wouldn’t have happened without Hinch in the middle of it all.

“My interaction with fans before the sign stealing and after the sign stealing, while I was the manager and after I was dismissed, has been universally positive,” said Hinch, who tipped his cap toward the Astros’ dugout and second-year manager Dusty Baker before the national anthem. “It’s incredible to have people approach me. (Monday) morning I went for a walk to get a coffee and get a little exercise in this Houston heat, and people stopped me. Recognizing me in a mask, I didn’t expect. But I got it, and the fans have just been tremendously supportive to me.”

Kids wearing Altuve and Bregman shirts walked toward Minute Maid Park’s gates on the night the Tigers came to town.

There was a gray Justin Verlander jersey. A young girl standing in front of the stadium, holding up a sign that proclaimed it was her first Astros game.

In a hallway, a fan in an Altuve jersey stared at a framed photo of the 2017 Astros.

On the left-field light pole: a gold pennant for the ’17 club and an orange pennant for the ’19 team.

Fans sat alone and grouped together to watch the 2021 Astros.

Then they stood to cheer and still support Hinch.