The Pecan Park Eagle

THAT “4” SPOT IN THE 9TH SURE FELT GOOD!

BUT YOU HAD TO BE AN ASTROS FAN TO FEEL THE JOY OF THE COFFIN NAIL THAT WAS GURRIEL’S 9TH INNING 3-RUN HOMER. ~ THE RED SOX FANS UNDERSTANDABLY WERE STRUCK BY A POLAR SIDE SADNESS TO HOUSTON’S LATE 7-2 ROMP IN GAME 1 OF THE ALCS AT FENWAY PARK IN BOSTON.

MANY OF THE RED SOX FANS SIMPLY DID WHAT FANS DO ANYWHERE WHEN HOPE ABANDONS LATE. ~ THEY DIDN’T STAY TO WATCH THE BOTTOM OF THE 9TH.

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Whatever you do, Astro fans, don’t leave early. ~ Inhale the joy of Game One’s outcome, but take nothing for granted. We’re now up 1-0 in games won, but it’s still a pennant that goes to whichever of these teams wins four games first.  Let’s try to remember too ~ the Astros players cannot leave early when the going gets tough, so neither should we abandon them at any rough time they may face the rest of the way.

To win it all in consecutive years, a club has to have great talent, a hunger for the opportunity, possibly some history of redeemable credit at the downtown Destiny Savings and Investment Bank Group, mostly venial and few major debts to the Fate & Company Immediate Fix Outcome Loan Association, a whole lot of good rolls on the timing, spacing, speed, and inches factors that go into making up the “bounce of the ball” outcomes that occur with every play, decision, and human factor moment in the game, ~ and a sometimes impossible thing to describe that we all know as momentum ~or “Old Man Mo.”

Baseball Momentum is mental ~ and it isn’t restricted to what happens on the field of players. It includes the reaction of the fans, maybe most often begins with fans (hence, the “home field advantage”) as the invisible electricity factor that sets in motion the interaction between players, teams, umpires, and fans to what is happening ~ and not happening ~ on the field during the game ~ at any moment during those precious 27-outs-per-each-team crisis that we call the “game.”

Break or kill that momentum ebb and flow current at any point that appears to be the last straw for the home team and you just may have witnessed the end of the mental support game before the home team club even takes their final at bats. The top of the 9th inning in Game One of 2018 ALCS gave us our most recent example of how this works.

Going into the top of the 9th, the great Red Sox fans were already down from the tough game and the 3-2 lead that the Astros held over all things Boston in the final scheduled inning. Then Josh Reddick bashed a prodigious homer to deep center field to make it 4-2 Astros.

And things grew even more quiet.

A couple of walks later, Yuli Gurriel dunked that opposite field home run down the right field line to make it 7-2, Astros, and Fenway suddenly found itself swept in a tomb-like silence.

The Red Sox fans not only grew quiet. They started leaving in droves. The game for early departing Red Sox fan souls was over without their club even getting their final three outs. Their game was over. It was time to leave early and beat the crowd. ~ (Know that one?)

And maybe, problematically, they were right. The odds were against the Red Sox coming back from 7-2, and that turned out to be the final score.

Nevertheless, I am reminded of my favorite day in the history of baseball rallies to support why we, as fans, should never give up. The date was October 3, 1951. The New York Giants were coming to bat in the bottom of the 9th in a playoff game that found them trailing the Brooklyn Dodgers by 4-1. The winner of this game at the Polo Grounds was going to the World Series to face the New York Yankees. And, given the odds against a Giants comeback, why should the home team fans even stick around to watch the 3 last outs?

Stick around, Astros fans. We need three more wins against Boston ~ and they only come one game at a time, one inning at a time, one pitch at a time, one hit, walk, HBP, catcher’s interference or error at a time, one run at a time, and one out in the field at a time.

Til the last out of each game actually is registered, let’s try to keep the momentum current going ~ and the positive energy thoughts about our Astros freely overflowing.

The closer we all stay to “see the ball / hit the ball” in our baseball meditations too, so much the better.

Go Astros in Game Two at Fenway tonight!

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags: ALCS Game One and Old Man Mo

This entry was posted on October 14, 2018 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Baseball, culture, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.