Loving my Astros
By Kathleen María Ortiz
Walking into Minute Maid Park for Game 3 of the World Series felt just like going home. I could’ve gotten there with my eyes closed because in many ways the Astros’ home has been my home.
My sisters and I have been making that journey since we were babies. The first song our grandmother Donna sang to us as newborns was Take Me Out To The Ballgame. I was in second grade before I realized that not everyone said “Astros” in the “Root, root, root for the Astros” part.
Clearly, Astros baseball runs in the family.
There was no way we would miss the Astros’ second trip to the World Series. My first trip to Minute Maid had been as a 6-month-old on April 7, 2004, when the great Roger Clemens made his first start as an Astro. My sister Maya, now 11, attended her first Astros game at 7 months in Kissimmee, Fla., during spring training. Our youngest sister Sydney, now 8, was only 2 months old when she attended her first Astros spring training games at Osceola County Stadium.
I was only 2 years old when the Astros played in the franchise’s first World Series. I was left at home with a babysitter, though, because my parents, José de Jesús and Megan Ortiz, were covering that 2005 World Series for the Houston Chronicle. But our parents had promised that we would return to Minute Maid Park when the Astros reached the Fall Classic again.
Houston Homecoming
The drive to Minute Maid Park for Game 3 against the Dodgers was very special to our family. None of us had been downtown since Hurricane Harvey ripped through Houston and Southeast Texas.
We all marveled at how good downtown looked. When we arrived at Minute Maid Park, the environment was buzzing. Everyone was beaming, laughing or cheering.
Maya, Sydney and I were pumped. We were finally home. Since moving to St. Louis in June 2016, we had been away from our beloved Astros for far too long. We missed Minute Maid Park and all the memories our family had made there. Leaving the Astros behind was one of the most difficult parts of the move.
Maya actually cried for many innings of the last Astros game we attended before we moved to St. Louis. When my mom asked her why she was crying, Maya told her she was remembering all the great memories we had made as a family there with the Astros. My entire family could relate.
The Astros have always been a big part of our lives. Astro legend José Cruz held us all as babies. Hall of Famers Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell also held me as a baby. In a funny twist on tradition, former Astros manager Phil Garner even gave my dad a cigar hours after my sister Maya Shea was born on August 29, 2006.
Yes, my dad, a longtime Astros beat writer, went to Minute Maid Park two hours after Maya was born because ace Roy Oswalt called him in the delivery room earlier that day to tip him off about a contract he was signing that day. You can say we have all been following the Astros since birth.
Over the years we have met countless Astros. We’ve been to many spring training camps. The best family vacation we ever took was in July 2015 to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., to attend Biggio’s induction. We were blessed to take a picture in front of Biggio’s plaque with Biggio and then take another picture a few feet away at the Hall with Jeff Bagwell. How many other Houston kids can say they took pictures with Biggio and Bagwell at the Hall of Fame? We also rode in an elevator with Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, Maya’s favorite ballplayer, at The Otesaga Resort Hotel during that memorable induction weekend when my dad was president of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Live from Minute Maid
Walking around Minute Maid before Game 3 my sisters and I had never seen such excitement at a game before. Outside the park, we took pictures with Orbit, the Astros’ mascot. We took silly pictures sitting on the large concrete baseballs in front of the stadium.
Walking outside of Minute Maid Park was awesome, but it was nothing compared to being inside. There were so many people packed inside. Everyone was yelling at the top of their lungs. I was so happy. I held my sister Sydney’s hand during part of the walk up to our upper-deck seats. We laughed and laughed as we pointed out places inside the stadium where we had eaten at or shopped at before. The game seemed to begin in no time and the stadium was electric. The nice Astros fan I was sitting next to leaned over to me early in the first inning and said, “Sorry, hon, I’m a screamer.” I smiled back at her, gave her a high five and said, “I’ll be just fine, I promise.”
My sisters and I excitedly anticipated José Altuve and Carlos Correa’s at-bats the most. They were our favorites. Maya and Sydney had met Altuve and Correa multiple times since 2015 on the field during visits to watch batting practice. They were on cloud nine with their autographs raving about how nice the two players had been to them. It was wonderful to watch them win that night.
We all wore Astros jerseys, but Maya was the most extreme. She actually wore her lucky Nolan Ryan jersey four times in a span of six days, beginning with the Thursday between Game 2 at Dodger Stadium and Game 3 at Minute Maid Park. It was Decade Day at our middle school that Thursday, so Maya decided to honor Nolan Ryan.
She wore it the next day for Game 3, and the Astros won. She also wore it on Sunday for the crazy Game 5. She put that jersey on for Halloween while dressing as “an Astros superfan.”
Our trip to Game 3 was made even more special when the Houston Chronicle ran a picture of us celebrating in the stands in the next day’s edition.
“When I saw my picture in the paper the next morning, I was really excited because I had never seen my picture in the paper,” Maya says. “It was awesome because it was right there with my name under it. I thought it was crazy for that to happen.”
Maya and Sydney attended Game 5 with our grandparents, sitting through all five hours, 17 minutes of that game until Alex Bregman’s walk-off single in the 10th inning.
“When the game lasted so long, I was actually more alive in that game than I was in the Friday Game 3 because it was just so suspenseful,” Maya said. “It made it more exciting. I didn’t want to leave because it was a great World Series game. I would have stayed until five in the morning if necessary.”
Astros Did it
We returned home to St. Louis and watched Games 6 and 7 from our living room.
It was amazing to watch the Astros win Game 7. I couldn’t stop smiling at school the next day because my team had finally done it and I had seen them in the Fall Classic at Minute Maid Park. After they won it all, I felt like running down the street with one of those crazy foam fists to fist bump everyone in my path.
My Astros did it, and I’m proud to say that I was there.
Kathleen María Ortiz, 14, is a Houston native and lifelong Astros fan. She is an eighth-grader in St. Charles, Mo, and the daughter of José de Jesús and Megan Ortiz.
Featured and Inset Images: Ortiz family