Wouldn’t it be sweet if little big man Altuve beat L.A.?
LOS ANGELES» Hey, Randy Newman. You keep loving L.A.
We don’t.
Oh, we think the beaches and movies are cool. But the arrogance of the most over-rated franchise in the history of baseball? What’s up with that? As my pal Carlos Gonzalez has always told me, “Aren’t the Dodgers supposed to win?”
But Angelenos are as stuck in the past like the gridlock on the Harbor Freeway, because the Dodgers haven’t won the World Series since 1988.
“I hope after this week is over, they can talk about 2017 a little more and 1988 a lot less,” pitcher Clayton Kershaw said.
We hope not. Here in Colorado, where there’s a real bad case of Dodger Blue envy, know what would make for the most pleasant viewing at the Fall Classic?
I want to see little Jose Altuve, who is exactly the size of a traffic cone when he pulls on his orange Astros warm-up jersey to take batting practice, run circles around the bases and the Dodgers’ $265 million payroll. In Game 1 on Tuesday night, it would be great if the 5-foot-6 Altuve was too much for Kershaw to handle, turning on fastballs until the L.A. ace turned into his usual snippy self in defeat, and the crowd once against left fashionably early from Dodger Stadium.
Altuve was asked: How many baseball teams envisioned he would ever be standing on baseball’s biggest stage? “Only one,” he said. “The Astros.” As a teenager, Altuve attended a tryout in his native Venezuela for the Astros, who sent him home with a pat on the head, saying he was too little. But a year later, Houston decided to take a risk on him, although it wasn’t exactly a big gamble, as Altuve turned pro for a $15,000 signing bonus.
“As a 16-year-old, I was 5-foot-5 and maybe 145 pounds. It was hard to believe a guy like that was going to make it to the big leagues,” Altuve said.
But if Altuve isn’t named the MVP of the American League after his slash line
of .346/.410/.547, it’s only because the voters adopted another one of those sarcastic lines from a Mr. Newman song and decided short people really don’t have a reason to live.
“When I see players like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Robinson Cano and Miguel Cabrera, I see they have a good season, but they also jump up the next year, and do it over and over again,” Altuve said. “I want to be one of those players that do it every year.”
There’s evidence Altuve already is one of those elite players building a Hall of Fame résumé: He has won the AL batting title in three of the past four seasons.
For all the celebrating Houston has already done this October, here’s a little secret Altuve doesn’t want you to know.
“I don’t like champagne,” he said. “I mean, I like it bubbling, and throwing it on someone’s body. But I don’t like champagne on my body. … When the celebrations started with the champagne, I tried to sneak around and hide.”
Altuve and the Astros are giant killers. Just when the hype machine was being cranked up for a World Series with all the bright lights of New York and Los Angeles combined, Houston rallied to cut down Aaron Judge and the Yankees to win the American League pennant. Maybe that was bad for television ratings. But it was good for anyone with a heart who feels for the good people of Houston, rebuilding from Hurricane Harvey.
“We want to win the World Series to give the championship to our city,” Altuve said.
Altuve slayed the Yankees. So why not the Dodgers?
One evil empire down, one to go.