{"id":13758,"date":"2017-11-02T19:11:50","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T00:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=13758"},"modified":"2017-11-03T20:36:46","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T01:36:46","slug":"after-a-long-wait-the-houston-astros-have-a-great-2017-world-series-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=13758","title":{"rendered":"After A Long Wait, The Houston Astros Have A Great 2017 World Series Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Houston Astros won their first World Championship last night, their first after fifty-six years\u2019 trying and taking down the Dodgers, 5\u20131, in L.A., in the seventh and final game of the World Series: a glorious but un-tense finale in which the Astros did all their scoring in the first two innings. Astro fans everywhere, including the jam-packed hordes at their home, Minute Maid Park, who were watching on giant television screens, loved every moment of this three-hour-and-thirty-seven-minute trial, but, dutifully sitting by my home set, I longed for the thrilling back-and-forth of the previous six, including even that 13\u201312, twenty-eight-hit, ten-inning monster of Game Five.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Astros championship began with fresh ownership and management after 2013 and 2014, when the team suffered more-than-a-hundred-loss seasons. Brilliant draft picks and front-office algorithm strategizing brought us this cast of thrilling newcomers now fixed in our baseball consciousness\u2014the stubby and exuberant Jos\u00e9 Altuve, with his three successive two-hundred-hit seasons, Series M.V.P. center fielder George Springer, whose five Series home runs tie a record previously shared by Reggie Jackson and Chase Utley, and the tall and athletically eloquent Carlos Correa, among others.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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By now it should be clear the tear-down-and-rebuild model works in baseball. The Astros\u2019 championship<\/a> proves you can gut the roster, play several dreadful seasons while slowly building a winner for the future. To get to Wednesday night\u2019s celebration at Dodger Stadium, Houston had to be bad, really bad. Their 104 regular season wins in 2017 were born from losing 106, 107 and 111 times in each 162 game season between 2011 and 2013.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"They endured being the worst team in baseball so that they could collect high draft picks. They then selected well in those drafts, choosing the nucleus of a club that came to dominate the American League this past season. It\u2019s a formula loosely used by last season\u2019s World Champions the Chicago Cubs and 2015\u2019s winners the Kansas City Royals. Even the team that nearly won this year\u2019s World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers \u2013 who have baseball\u2019s highest payroll<\/a> \u2013 constructed a winner on homegrown players and bargain acquisitions they turned into stars.<\/strong><\/p>\n