Centuries ago we gave America the gift of cricket but, like our
other gifts of English and democracy, they massacred it. This led to something they call "baseball", which has gained some
popularity over time, and every year they have a "World Series" to
see who's best at tonking a ball as hard as possible and running
in a circle.
Well, the Houston Astros again covered
themselves in glory and got into the final, along with our previous home
team, the Washington Nationals (seriously - the Davieses are a talisman
to local sports teams. Please contact me if you want us to move to your
city). It's a best-of-seven series, and Hannah's work gave her
tickets to go to game six. I went online and found similar tickets
changing hands for over $2,000 each, but when I suggested making a quick
buck Hannah said that was unethical. The oil industry has ethics!
We arrived nice and early to enjoy the pageantry, and the atmosphere was amazing.
Given the distances involved there are never really any traveling fans, so Minute Maid Park was stuffed with 40,000 Astros supporters making
noise. Somewhat unfeasibly, Houston had won the three games up in DC
and so only needed to win one of the remaining two, cheered on by an expectant, feverish crowd.
Well,
(spoiler alert) after two excellent innings the game turned extremely
boring and the Astros lost. The seventh innings was spiced up by the Nationals manager
getting into a physical altercation with the umpires and being ejected
from the park. I missed it as I was watching the cheerleaders. But soon
we were trudging out into the Houston night with tens of thousands of other
disgruntled people. Then (bigger spoiler alert) the Astros lost the next
night too, handing the World Series to the Nationals! No team managed to win at home, which has never happened before so
I suppose is historic, in the sense that no fans ever got to see their team
win. As an England cricket supporter, this is very relatable.
Plenty of people here.
Including mascot Orbit.
Let's play ball!
There was a dress code.
We got loud. It didn't help.
Hannah, a lifelong fan...since a few hours ago.
