Nationals’ Rendon caps storybook season with family at his side in World Series victory over hometown team
HOUSTON – It all started with a little branch not much bigger than a twig and some pine cones, hundreds of pine cones if not thousands. That’s when Anthony Rendon first nurtured his love of baseball and developed his swing.
Rendon was only four years old, yet his routine was set. Day after day, he would go to the front yard of his modest southwest Houston home. He’d go near the basketball rim and take his swings, sending pine cones all over the yard while showing the devotion that prompted his father Rene to buy him a bat.
Rene was tough on Rendon, the youngest of two boys. He was actually too tough at times, Rendon’s mother Bridget thought. Rene didn’t just sign up his boys, David and Anthony, to play at the Post Oak YMCA. He first sat them down in the kitchen, drew a diamond and taught them the positions, beginning a journey that led the entire family to the Minute Maid Park diamond Wednesday night as Rendon celebrated the World Series title over his hometown Astros.
“It was so unbelievable,” Bridget Rendon said after her youngest son helped the Nationals beat the Astros 6-2 in Game 7 of the World Series to win the franchise’s first title. “I started crying. That was the first thing that happened to me.
“There’s nothing that goes through your mind other than sheer happiness. You want to run out there and give him a big hug. You cannot run out there fast enough.”
A night after collecting five RBI to help the Nationals win Game 6, Rendon added a home run in the seventh inning to cut the Astros’ lead to 2-1 and get the comeback started in Game 7.
He became the first third baseman to homer in a World Series Game 7 since Bobby Bonilla in 1997. He also set a franchise career postseason record with his 13th.
He hit .279 (8-for-29) with two home runs and eight RBI in the World Series after hitting .319 with 34 home runs and 126 RBI during the regular season.
Rendon, 29, is a frontrunner for the National League MVP Award this season. More importantly, he’s a World Series champion as the veteran face of an organization that was reeling after superstar Bryce Harper bolted via free agency last winter.
When the Nationals needed him most, Rendon sprinted out of Harper’s old shadow and took the reins. With a quiet, introverted personality, the former Rice University star led the Nationals to a place he didn’t even dream about as a child.
“I mean, growing up you think about playing in the big league stage, but to this scale and winning a World Series in your hometown. I don’t think you can plan that,” Rendon said.
You definitely cannot plan to have a storybook march to a World Series crown in your hometown for a team that wasn’t even in Washington when you started following baseball as a four-year-old Astros fan.
Rendon grew up an Astros fan. He loved the old Killer Bs – Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio and Derek Bell. He drew inspiration from them. Even with a star-studded team full of superstars on the Astros’ roster, Rendon is now one of the superstars kids in his hometown of Houston follow.
“I’m so proud of him,” Rendon’s older brother David said. “I knew he could do it. I’m just so extremely proud of him. I’m ecstatic.”
As a bi-cultural Mexican American, he embodies Houston’s rich diversity and growing Latino community. He’s more than just an example as a baseball superstar.
He’s a hometown kid who charted a path to one of the most exclusive universities in America before starting his professional career.
“I think it means a lot because not too many people get to make it to this level, to the major-league level,” Rene Rendon said. “In Anthony’s situation he was so young and he was small, so we kinda talked him into going to Rice because we knew he needed to mature a little bit both physically and mentally.
“It kind of worked out real well.”
It worked out more than real well.
As a sophomore at Rice, Rendon won the Dick Howser Trophy as the best college baseball player that season. A few weeks after his 20th birthday, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker declared Anthony Rendon Day on June 29, 2010, in honor of his winning the Dick Howser Trophy.
Now at 29, he’s a World Series champion. He celebrated the title in his hometown, on the diamond where he played tournaments for Lamar High School and then Rice University long before he reached the majors.
It all started with those pine cones and those small branches in his front yard a short drive from Minute Maid Park.
He arrived in Houston before Game 1 of the World Series eager to visit some of the hole-in-the-wall taquerias that dot his hometown. He wanted some tacos and a title. He picked up both in the city where he still lives in the offseason.
With his parents, his wife, his older brother David and about 10 first cousins on his pass list, Rendon felt at home before, during and after Game 7 of the World Series.
“The support that my wife and I have here is nothing short of awesome,” he said, “so the fact that we could do it here in our hometown in front of our friends and our city that we were born and raised in and we still live here, it’s been awesome.”
Featured Image: Jean Fruth / La Vida Baseball
Inset Images: Jean Fruth / La Vida Baseball