HOUSTON — Detroit in 2006 was a city beset by staggering unemployment, unrelenting crime and mounting foreclosures. Amid that nightmare urban landscape, baseball provided some relief. It was not a cure-all, but it offered some escape.
Justin Verlander, who won the AL 2006 rookie of the Year Award and then pitched in the World Series for the Tigers, hopes to duplicate that panacea for his new city, which in the wake of Hurricane Harvey sits at the junction of misery and sorrow.
“Hopefully we can bring a championship to a city that could use something like that right now and hopefully I can be a part of that and we can give the city something to rally around,” Verlander said in his introductory press conference before the Astros completed a three-game sweep of the Mets with an 8-6 victory before an announced crowd of 32,065 at Minute Maid Park on Sunday.
The weekend was about Houston rebounding, picking up the pieces and rebuilding from the physical and mental devastation wrought by the storm. Baseball seemed meaningless to so many but to others, it was a flicker of normalcy.
“Harvey came here and kicked our [butt], but we’re still standing,” said one veteran law enforcement officer whose home was ravaged by flood waters and asked his name not be used because “others got it a lot worse than me” in the storm. “But I’m glad we have baseball, the Astros. It’s our city, they’re our team and they had to go play in [St. Petersburg].”
Verlander senses that spirit. It was like that in Detroit in 2006, even if he didn’t fully realize it at the time.
“When I went to the World Series in 2006, it was a very difficult time for the city. Just to see how everybody in the community really rallied around us and just had something to step away from what was going on in their lives at the time and had something to cheer for and look forward to,” said Verlander.
“That means a lot to that city and looking back on it, it was one of the most emotional times that I had there. Just seeing how everybody embraced us. At that time as a 22, 23-year-old kid, you kind of take it for granted but as I get older I realize just how special that it was to that city,” Verlander said. “That was something I had in my mind … how this city really could use something like that right now. Hopefully I can help be a part of that experience for this city.”
If Verlander is typical Verlander, he’ll certainly help. He’s a six-time All-Star. He won both the Cy Young Award and the MVP in 2011.
“You’re talking about one of the top pitchers in the game,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “He makes your rotation pretty good. That was as big a move as was made in the last two months to get him.”
Verlander, who wound up with 45 minutes to decide whether he wanted to leave the only team he ever had known to come to Houston in time to beat the playoff eligibility deadline, arrived here during the first game of Saturday’s day-night doubleheader. That was the first sporting event held in this city after Harvey.
“The emotions of the day were huge,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch who addressed the crowd Saturday following a moment of silence — which was conducted before all three weekend games — for the victims of the hurricane. “The proper perspective was in place for all of us and then we got to bring some smiles to a lot of people’s faces.”
“It’s been an incredible whirlwind in a lot of lives around this city. Combining all that into one day was almost too much to take. We still need to work on rebuilding the city as a whole but it’s hard to describe every single day what these emotions are like.”