Congratulations, Astros

It’s a little bit complicated, but I’m not unhappy to see that the Houston Astros won the World Series tonight.

My first choice, of course, would be that my beloved Angels would win their second World Series championship. With that not happening, my second choice would be my beloved Cubbies, but they didn’t make it very far into the playoffs this year.

It’s tough for me to root for the Dodgers since I’m a huge fan of their crosstown rivals, but I don’t hate the Dodgers. I’m just not a big fan of theirs.

It’s tough for me to root for the Astros since I’m a huge fan of a rival team in the same division. I’m just not a big fan of theirs.

But it was a very entertaining Series, which I enjoyed a lot.

My Twitter feed was oddly schizophrenic – many of the folks I follow are from JPL and folks I’ve met at local NASA Socials (huge Dodger fans) and many of the folks I follow are astronauts and NASA Social folks from Houston (huge Astros fans). One way or the other, a third or so of my Twitter feed was going to be overjoyed and a third was going to be devastated.

But the Astros hadn’t ever won a World Series before, while the Dodgers had won a handful over the years (although nothing since 1988).

The city of Houston had a huge tribulation with Hurricane Harvey this year, where the Astros were a source of pride and encouragement for the citizens of the area.

And there are a couple of Astros players that I really like. In particular, Jose Altuve would be one of my personal favorite players if he wasn’t on a rival team and consistently playing a huge part in keeping us in the losing column and out of the playoffs.

So I would have been fine if the Dodgers won, but I’m just a hair more fine with the Astros winning. It’s sort of a 51 vs 49 thing.

Now that that’s all settled – when do pitchers and catchers report to Tempe Diablo?

Next year!