October 4, 1998″ “Turn out the lights. – The party’s over.”
The 1998 National League Division Series between the Central Division Champion Houston Astros (102-60) and the West Division Champion San Diego Padres (98-64) was supposed to be the year our southeast Texas guys finally made it to the World Series.Second year manager Larry Dierker had just led the Astros to their second straight trip to the playoffs with their best season record in history. GM Gary Hunsicker had pulled off a great trading deadline deal with Seattle that brought towering right-hander Randy Johnson to town in time to post a 10-1 record that pushed the boys over the top.
The Astros were heavily favored over manager Bruce Bochy and his San Diego Padres in their best three of five game series for the right to play in the NLCS, but again, one more time, it wasn’t meant to be.
Padre starters Kevin Brown and Sterling Hitchcock provided the start and finish “book end” wins over the Astros in Games 1 and 4. Randy Johnson (0-2) took the loss in each. And San Diego catcher Jimmy Leyritz provided the offensive buzz with three home runs that proved critical to San Diego victory.
When all was said and done, the normally high-scoring Astros had scored only 8 runs in their 3-1 NLDS loss to south-most SoCal that is the always cool old San Diego.
To add to the bummer, the Astros were unable to retain Randy Johnson for the 1999 season as he was soon=as=he-got-here-gone to Arizona in 1999 and the chase for championships dreams elsewhere.as another club’s big dreams meal ticket.
Losing in 1998 was different from those near-miss losses that many of us were around to endure in 1980 and 1986. When 1998 was over and done, I felt as Tom Kleinworth expressed it in his comment on an earlier playoff loss column. ” I was depressed after the 1980 and 1986 playoff, ” Kleinworth noted. “After 1998, I was just angry.”
You know what, Tom? I don’t think Mr. Dierker was too happy about it either.”
Here are the four line score summaries. I don’t even want to get into the hyperbole of how they lost:
Game 1, September 29
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| San Diego | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Houston | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WP: Kevin Brown (1–0) LP: Randy Johnson (0–1) Sv: Trevor Hoffman (1) Home runs: SD: Greg Vaughn (1) HOU: None Game 2, October 1
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The Pecan Park Eagle 
May 23, 2014 at 3:24 pm |
Thanks for the reference to my previous comment about the 1998 team. And this brings up another point. As much as we all love and admire Biggio and Bagwell, I think the fact that they did not carry their team to the World Series in 1998 has been a factor in their Hall of Fame votes. I don’t say this as a criticism of those two players. I just say it is a factor, and perhaps a significant one for some voters.
May 24, 2014 at 11:42 am |
Agree with Tom. Clutch hitting never appeared to be Bagwell’s forte. Lots of homers in games already decided by large margins either way but not when the pressure was on. If I’m wrong, someone at SABR will correct me. The loss to SD sent me into a tailspin for weeks. About the same time Sports Illustrated ran a story on fans who took it too seriously and had major life breakdowns. As I recall, a featured example was a Houstonian who’s life cratered after the AFC championship game choke to Buffalo’s back up QB, Frank Reich about the same time. I’m convinced that Oiler loss killed Oiler football in Houston. Good riddance.