Fans’ return brings a sense of normalcy
They couldn’t wait to get in, lining up a few hours before the first pitch, knowing the gates would open two hours before game time.
While it wasn’t a typical home opener — with stadium seating capped at 50 percent capacity, traffic around Minute Maid Park manageable and the crowd outside the stadium smaller — there was excitement in the air.
It had been a long time. A “Play Ball” video featured an eclectic H-Town grouping of hip-hop artists Bun B, Trae tha Truth and Paul Wall, along with Mayor Sylvester Turner, Jim
“Mattress Mack” McIngvale and Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.
Just a few minutes after DeSz’s strong rendition of the national anthem — amazingly, no state mandate was required — a fan seated in the club level just to the left of home plate caught a foul ball off the bat of Oakland’s Matt Olson.
The resulting cheer was loud, exaggerated for such an ordinary play.
It had been 527 days since fans were able to watch another fan grab a foul ball at Minute Maid.
My, how we have missed the ordinary.
The roof was open on a comfortable night, and 21,765 people got to see the Astros play baseball.
So they cheered. Everything.
They even tried to do “the wave,” which failed miserably. Turns out social distancing is not good for such an activity.
Remember when fans were last shoulder-toshoulder at an Astros home game?
“Leave Grienke in!” Sorry about that. My laptop just had a flashback to Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.
A.J. Hinch’s seventhinning decision cost the city of Houston a parade.
Anyway, only about half the 2021 roster was around back then.
A measly five current Astros were on the 2017 championship squad. Yet they are the ones charged with enduring fan mistreatment, as we saw in the first six road games of the year, because of the sign-stealing controversy.
There wasn’t a trash can incident at Minute Maid on Thursday night, as was the case Monday at Angel Stadium, where wacko fans twice interrupted the game, throwing an inflatable trash can and a real one onto the field.
See, the Astros were found to have used a trash can to help relay information to some hitters during the 2017 season, and baseball fans around the country aren’t going to let them forget it.
Houston is Astros country. This welcome home for the team, and welcome back for fans, was like a family reunion of sorts. Long time no see, cuz. Baseball rarely changes. This was like so many other games in so many other years, except last year, which changed everything.
Masks were required unless a person was “actively eating or drinking,” or singing “Livin’ On A Prayer” before the start of the fifth inning.
Note: There must have been a lotta eating and drinking, because there weren’t many masks being worn in the stands. (At least the Astros didn’t pad their bank account by squeezing in a full house like the Rangers did for their home opener.)
Baseball fans, Astros fans, were back.
“I’m just grateful to have 50 percent,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “Last year we had no percent.”
Oh yeah, there was a game too.
In the second inning, Carlos Correa ripped a solo homer to right for the Astros’ first run, and he plated their second with a fourth-inning double.
Yordan Alvarez, who played in just two crowdless games a year ago because of a knee injury, launched Cole Irvin’s 82 mph mistake into the upper deck in right field for a 3-0 lead in the sixth.
Jose Altuve joined in on the long-ball fun by ripping a shot off the facade in left field as the Astros ran away from Oakland with a 6-2 victory.
While the Astros improved to 6-1 with the win, the A’s, who won the American League West in the truncated 2020 COVID-19 campaign, fell to 1-7 on the season.
The Astros have now beaten them five times already, including a fourgame sweep in Oakland, which helped push the A’s to the franchise’s worst start in 105 years.
Last year, Oakland won the season series 7-3, but the Astros beat them in the playoffs.
And they are beating them this year. To loud boos in Oakland, Calif., and loud cheers at Minute Maid.
Last year seems so long ago.
Quiet baseball isn’t the best baseball. It’s not even baseball at all.
Altuve said the crowd on hand brought an energy to the ballpark that the players could feel.
“They’re the reason we play the game the way we play,” Altuve said. “It was a beautiful night. Like a dream come true.”
On an otherwise ordinary April evening, the cheers were back. Fans were back.
Thus, baseball is back.