Rebuilding of fan support on track but taking time
More orange than red and blue.
That image would have been impossible just a few years ago.
But there we were Friday night in charged downtown Houston. And, lo and behold, there were clearly more supporters of the local nine — aka still the best team in baseball — at Minute Maid Park than there were admirers of the historic athletic institution from Massachusetts.
That statement would have been laughable way back in the long ago forgotten days of 2011-14.
If a national-caliber ballclub visited town, there was one guarantee and one very good bet. Worshipers of the Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, etc., would take over the Astros’ mostly empty park. And the home team would probably lose again as the stands increasingly turned red or blue.
“Most of that has to do
with the fact that Astros fans from a couple years ago couldn’t really root for the Astros, just because we were that bad. … We’ve got a lot to cheer about now, which is a far cry from a few years ago,” said starter Dallas Keuchel, before Boston’s visit began with the Red Sox pulling out a 2-1 victory.
The Astros’ renewed relevancy is now old news. But the team’s electric start to 2017 has served as a reminder that there’s still a steady climb between the best record in the game and the return of expected nightly sellouts.
Minute Maid has only seen two sellouts this season and one was opening night. But average home attendance (29,338) is its highest since 2010, and it should only increase as the summer kicks in and the wins keep piling up.
High point in 2004
It’s going to be a while before the Astros are again drawing at least 3 million home fans a season — it happened four times from 2000-07, peaking in 2004 with 3,087,872 total and an average of 38,121 per night toward the end of the Craig Biggio-Jeff Bagwell era. But the dark years of only drawing an average of 19,848 fans (2012) and Rangers supporters taking over Minute Maid also are buried in the past.
When Brian McCann lifted a 402-foot solo bomb into the right-field stands, finally putting the Astros on the board in the seventh, the crowd of 36,189 sounded like a sellout. Woos shrieked. Orange covered bodies stood and screamed. It was big-city, big-game baseball loaded with meaning in mid-June.
“We feel great about where the attendance is going,” Astros president Reid Ryan said. “I tell everybody, ‘We’re baking a cake here. And the way you bake a cake is that you put it in the oven and you let it take its time.’ That’s what’s happening here.
“Our fanbase suffered through three 100-loss seasons, and we didn’t have very many players that they could relate to. We weren’t on television. And there were just a lot of things that drove fans away, and we’re slowly building back their trust game by game.”
The team’s president — who’s regularly seen roaming the stands, personally building back what was broken — also made a fair point about the line that still separates the Astros from baseball’s annual elite when it comes to home attendance.
The Dodgers, Cardinals, Giants, Cubs and Yankees are the top five this season — and almost every season. And there are clear reasons behind that.
“One of the things that they all have in common: They have World Series titles. They have a history of winning,” Ryan said. “And so we are right now playing in that sort of 7-10, us, Rangers, Mets, Nationals. … We want to really pack this place in July and August. And then we think September, if we’re in the playoff hunt, that it will take care of itself.”
George Springer has already seen a turning point.
Arlington invasion
During the Astros’ last road trip, orange-wrapped fans were evident in Minnesota and Kansas City. When the Astros swept the Rangers in Arlington from June 2-4 and the woos took over, it was the reversal of Red Sox fans claiming Minute Maid as their own.
“It felt like were playing a home game and that’s special,” Springer said. “There’s been fans that have been here forever that have been extremely loyal to us. It’s awesome. And obviously we’ve been playing well and the city’s excited about it.”
Is the baseball town back? Not yet. The Astros entered the evening ranked 14th in MLB in average attendance and some seating sections were wide open, despite the best team in baseball hosting the third-best in the American League as the weekend began. But the standing areas were packed, A.J. Hinch’s club took the field with three All-Stars if voting ended Friday and there was no question which team the ballpark belonged to.
“The orange is pretty bright,” Hinch said.
The red and blue blended in, like it was supposed to.