Thoughts from last night: Brandon

Thoughts from last night:

• Brandon Backe pitched a gem of a game. The Astros could not have asked for a better, timelier performance from the hometown boy (he’s from Galveston). He did his part beautifully, outdoing Clemens, Pettitte and Oswalt to pitch the best game of this series…and then he had to deal with the worst hitting of the series. The Astros’ hitting was always bad, but last night it was abysmal. I’m sorry Backe didn’t get a win to show for his masterful outing.
• In reading post-game and post-series coverage today I’ve seen a bunch of photos taken by the photographers I was running cards for. It’s pretty cool to know that I had a hand in those photos going “live”…
• As the game ended I was able to snap some shots of the celebration from my post on the main concourse. I then grabbed eight envelopes (the most of the night) to run downstairs to the editors for the AP, Getty Images, Reuters, USA Today and US Presswire. They were waiting for me anxiously — photos of the celebration were important! After another run up to my 1st base photographers, I was told to head to the field. No complaints there! There weren’t many photographers that actually needed runners on the field, so I was able to wander amidst the celebration and take plenty of photos of my own. My portfolio is going to get a huge boost from this.
• I am upset that the Astros lost, and upset that they couldn’t get at least one win. But having the World Series come to Houston was an amazing thing. I’ve never seen a city — any city — come together en masse to get worked up over something like this. Baseball is all anyone has talked about for the past week and a half. I loved every minute of it.
• Because I was still running cards at the time, I didn’t see most of the Astros players come out and applaud the Astros fans that had gathered behind the dugout. What a classy, classy thing to do. For all their faults, this 2005 group was a great team. This city loves them for it.