Houston We Have A World Series

The city of Houston turned to the Astros for hope in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and the team delivered. The Houston Astros won the World Series on Wednesday November 1st, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in a thrilling seven-game series. The 5-1 win in game seven in L.A. gave the Astros the first-ever World Series title in the franchise’s 56-year history.

For many storm victims, little is normal two months after Harvey. But in each game of the Astros’ championship run, storm survivors found a chance to escape, at least for a few hours, from the chaos around them.

Hurricane Harvey left wounds no baseball game can repair. Thousands lost their homes; dozens lost their lives.

Two months later, this is an emotional end to an emotional fall for us. We’ve watched in fear as a hurricane became a monster and headed straight for us. We watched that monster stall out over us and loop around and pound our coast line again. We watched our family and friends flee for their lives from the flood waters not knowing what they would come back to. We have watched them come back to 2 inches, 6 inches, 2 feet, 6 feet of water destroying everything they own.

We’ve labored tearing out Sheetrock, moving furniture, donating all we can to help those affected. We banded together no matter what race, religion, part of town, we were all Houston. We rolled into a new weird normalcy in our city.

The contents of peoples lives are on their front lawns, still waiting to be picked up in some areas, in Houston. Hurricane Harvey, hit the rich, it hit the poor, it hit the in-between. When you look at the Astros in the World Series, it gives those people whose lives were ruined, destroyed, affected, whatever it was, something to look forward to, something to distract them from the recovery.

After Hurricane Harvey struck Texas and devastated Houston, Astros team players meet with Harvey evacuees. And at every game since they have worn a “Houston Strong” patch on their uniforms — a nod to the slogan the city adopted after the storm. We the fans celebrated with the team using the hashtag #HoustonStrong on social media in a show of support and unity.

Not only did they play great baseball and embrace the city of Houston and playing for them during this horrible time, they started fundraisers for the city through playing baseball. They put patches on their jerseys that say “Houston Strong” and made t-shirts, sweatshirts, and all of the other gear they could. They are selling this merchandise that says “Houston Strong” on it and all of the proceeds are going to relief for Hurricane Harvey.

Our Astros gave us something to root for, something to hope for, something to focus on that was very positive. There was so much negative, and then there was so much positive, a range of extreme emotions.

Hell and High Water came and now we get a taste of History! LA, Dodgers it was never about beating you, it’s about beating Harvey. And we have, over and over again. This is our victory lap.

We are HOUSTON STRONG!