Club has a chance to put sign stealing well in past.
As season plays out, 2020 doesn’t have to be remembered for haters’ rage over sign stealing
This was supposed to be simple.
All the Astros had to do was get over blowing a 2-0 seventhinning lead in Game 7 of the World Series inside their roaring ballpark, in which Zack Greinke had seemingly perfected the art of October pitching on the mound, Gerrit Cole was waiting in the bullpen and a second world championship in three years was just nine outs away.
Overcome Cole signing with the loathed New York Yankees — last seen getting walked off in the American League Championship Series in downtown Houston — for an absurd $324 million.
Improve on a franchise-record 107-win season, with the loaded, deep and supremely talented Astros in the middle — or the beginning? — of a glowing golden era that already had all the makings of a modern dynasty.
Then MLB commissioner Rob Manfred forever linked the 201718 Astros with the 1919 Chicago Black Sox.
Then Astros owner Jim Crane fired general manager/organizational architect Jeff Luhnow and manager/dugout psychologist A.J. Hinch.
Then the national fury really began.
The Asterisks*. Cheaters. Trash-can promotions, conspiracy theories and the beautiful redemption that was 2017 — Hurricane Harvey … World Series champions, finally — becoming a bitter and nasty socialmedia shouting match that set the stage for everything that has followed during the insanity that is 2020.
Haters wanted to cancel the Astros.
True believers swore everything was a hoax. Or if it was real, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the biased media wanted you to believe.
You could immediately form a lasting opinion about a stranger by asking the person what they thought about the Astros.
At this point in the column, I normally would type something like “And now we’re here.”
Transitioning time from the shocking end of the Astros’ golden era to the start of the 2020 season, with new manager Dusty Baker trying to make us forget about Hinch, new GM James Click working to earn fans’ trust and Houston’s MLB team fighting for its name and future in the national spotlight.
But this is 2020.
Here keeps changing. Here is elusive and wildly unpredictable. Here no longer means what it used to.
Baker is still a 71-year-old manager on his fifth team, trying to win his first world championship as the loudest voice in the dugout and clubhouse. But Baker’s immediate job requirements have completely changed. He has to try to win games while keeping his team healthy and on the field during the time of the coronavirus pandemic. In July of 2020, the end of the previous sentence is much more important than the start.
Click is still a first-year GM taking over for a loved/loathed GM who deconstructed and reconstructed the Astros in historic fashion. But beat writers will likely go the entire 2020 season without speaking with the new GM in person pregame behind the batting cage, casually chatting about minor league prospects and potential trades.
When Click now speaks, a mask covers his face and his words are streamed via a video conference. The 2020 Astros?
There is no better symbol in our sporting world of before and after.
They were supposed to be screamed at, vilified and constantly persecuted, with fans — of baseball, not the Astros — traveling from stadium to stadium across America, just for the chance to yell nasty and bitter things at the team that illegally stole signs in 2017-18.
Now they will be almost like all of MLB’s 29 other clubs. Dayto-day. Playing a kid’s game for a well-paid life distraction. Trying to slowly move forward while the country heals in multiple ways at once and figures out how to make it through another month.
Modern idiots (no offense to the idiots) will still hate, hate, hate the Astros. But it will be
Twitter/Facebook hate — the weak, distant, uncourageous kind that takes place behind the safety of a keyboard and glossy screen.
To those living in the real world, the 2020 Astros will just be a baseball team. There are millions of other things more important than the Astros right now. With MLB settling on a ridiculously abbreviated 60game season after spending months devoted to a selfish labor war, this year’s Astros will, at best, spend three months in our lives before reality officially returns.
The 2017 season will never look the same. The golden banner permanently attached in left field. The commemorative Tshirts, hats, photos, printouts, books, DVDs and creased game tickets.
The franchise must prove itself again, locally and nationally. Just like in the 1980s and ’90s. The start and middle of this millennium’s first decade. The 2015 season, when Luhnow’s unprecedented rebuild was still a controversial experiment and simply making the playoffs qualified as success.
Nothing is simple now.
Normal is abnormal.
To some, this will still be the team that was supposed to answer for a world championship that ended with an asterisk.
In Houston, this will be a baseball team that helps get you through the end of July, August, September and hopefully October.
January and February are a long, long time ago and a world away.
The Astros are going to try and complete a 60-game season. If they’re still playing baseball in October of 2020, there will again be more joy than hate surrounding this city’s team.