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Despite loss, Astros fans still giddy that their team is in World Series
Carlos Rivera is ready for the memories.
As he headed through downtown Tuesday night to watch the Astros in the opening game of the World Series, he recalled going to his first baseball game at the Astrodome. He ticked off names of famed players with a grin.
He’s ready for another win from his beloved team.
“This is really bringing the city together,” Rivera said. “The city could really use this right now. I think it’ll do a lot of good.”
Earlier in the day, Jesus Quiroga and his friends dressed up like cowboys at the University of Houston to rope in free tickets to what could be a decisive game Saturday at Minute Maid Park, courtesy of comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
They paid $50 each at the last minute for costumes that would prove to be the winners at a contest DeGeneres announced cryptically Monday over Twitter.
“It’s indescribable. I can’t believe it,” said Quiroga, a 19-yearold UH student. “As a kid watching baseball and seeing all of this on live TV — to actually get tickets to Game 4? It’s absolutely unbelievable.”
Giddy fans poured into Minute Maid Park on Tuesday night
in a sea of orange and blue jerseys in anticipation of the Astros’ first trip to the World Series since 2005, lining up to watch on a big screen as the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers unfolded unhappily more than 1,000 miles away in California. The Dodgers won Game 1 3-1 behind Clayton Kershaw.
The Sandhop sisters had held hands as they jumped and screamed inside Minute Maid Park on Saturday as the Astros clinched a victory that sent them to the World Series. They’ll be back again on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, if the series lasts that long.
Katherine, 27, and her sister Madeline, 24, are lifelong fans who remember tagging along to games with their father at the Astrodome.
“I had already lost my voice, so I don’t know if anything was coming out at that point,” Katherine said about the Astros’ victory Saturday.
As they walked downtown toward Minute Maid Park to watch the game Tuesday, they had high hopes for the coming days.
Katherine has already purchased tickets for all three home games and says she even rewatched Game 7 just to make sure she heard all the commentary.
“It’s a big deal, and I’m trying to take advantage of the experience of our team being this good and not taking it for granted,” Katherine said.
Olga Rodriguez, 54, who was wearing an orange Astros shirt with Jose Altuve’s name on the back, sat outside on the patio of an Italian restaurant across from Minute Maid Park.
Rodriguez, who grew up in Houston, was eager to watch the game from a restaurant patio with relatives. She understands how important the series is for Houston, especially after the devastation from Hurricane Harvey.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Rodriguez said. “Houstonians are resilient, and so are the Astros. I think Houstonians have been able to pause and think about something else.”
At the University of Houston, hundreds of students began to gather after DeGeneres tweeted a cryptic note urging crowds to come together on campus for a World Series giveaway. Many skipped classes as they prepared for DeGeneres to appear on live stream from her Los Angeles studio.
By midafternoon — and with only a few hours until the start of the series’ first game — a costume contest was announced.
“Everything’s bigger in Texas. Today, at 3:30 p.m. wear the biggest outfit for a chance to tickets to one of the big games,” DeGeneres tweeted.
About 5 p.m., she tweeted again.
“Who’s ready to win #WorldSeries tickets at @ UHouston? #EarnHistory,” she tweeted, referring to the slogan that has followed the Astros to the series.
By then, DeGeneres’ assistants were sorting through dozens of hopeful Astros fans, crushing dreams of watching playoff baseball with the same bright-eyed positivity that is their boss’s trademark.
“We love your costume — love it,” a college student dressed as Jesus was told. “But it’s not big enough.”
“We think you’re all just wonderful — amazing,” dozens more were informed. “But Ellen only wants the best of the best.”
A few feet away, UH senior Megan Gonzalez, 24, watched forlornly in normal clothes as her best shot at watching her favorite team play live was dashed. She’d arrived there around 10 a.m., sitting for hours in the crowd of hundreds only to be informed that the contest required a costume.
“As far as they know, I’m dressed up like Ziggy Stardust,” she wondered, halfkiddingly. “I just want the tickets. I’ll do anything.”
Not far away, a 1998 UH graduate — draped from head to toe in an assortment of orange and blue — squeezed into the crowd.
David Arriasola, 45, said he left his son, a current student, in his dorm room before heading to the quad.
“Seeing this team is a second-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said. “And I can’t afford the tickets otherwise. All my money goes here.”
Ultimately, Quiroga and his friends nabbed the tickets in a final round of the competition, beating out two astronauts, a pair of sumo wrestlers and three UH students who burrowed themselves into a single dorm room mattress with a warning complacent Dodgers fans: “Don’t sleep on the Astros.”
Quiroga and his friends, Tahj Bell, 18, and Damian Feldman, 18, screamed at learning they’d won.
Others were just happy to share in the highs with fellow fans.
“(The Astros) know that we need this,” Gonzalez said. “Harvey brought us a really great sense of unity. But this is much, much better.”