Houston, You Have Liftoff

By Tim Brown

Oct. 20, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

ST. LOUIS —

The Houston Astros of Bagwell and Biggio, a grind-it-out era for a franchise that had never grinded so long or so far, closed Busch Stadium for good Wednesday night, on its way to its first World Series.

In the moments after the Astros had methodically eliminated the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-1, in Game 6 of the National League championship series, they found themselves together, shoulder to shoulder, champagne drizzling from the brims of their caps.

Hoisted by right-hander Roy Oswalt, the series’ most valuable player, a lineup of rookies and other comers, and a staff bound by hometown guys Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio found each other in a sopping clubhouse and hugged.

Bagwell is not yet recovered from shoulder surgery, and helped when he could. Biggio is slowed to the point where he needs late-inning defensive help, and yet remained a top-of-the-lineup pest. Together, they are the face of an organization that dates to 1962, yet was reborn on a muggy Midwestern night.

The wild-card Astros will play the Chicago White Sox in the World Series, after first returning to Houston to gather friends and family members. Game 1 is Saturday night at U.S. Cellular Field.

“Oh, it’s indescribable right now,” said Biggio, who was promoted to the Astros in 1988, three years before Bagwell. “It’s just, I’ve waited so long for this to happen. There’s been a lot of great players to play the game of baseball that never got an opportunity to go to the World Series, and I was hoping that I wasn’t going ... to be another one of them.”

As red-clad Cardinal fans stubbornly refused to leave their 40-year-old stadium, unable to say goodbye to the place or another fruitless 100-win season or even Larry Walker, who is believed to be retiring, Bagwell stood in the decaying visitors’ clubhouse. Already, he has begun lobbying Manager Phil Garner for designated-hitter at-bats in the World Series, his shot to contribute with a shoulder too unstable for defensive innings. Already, he has begun playing down the view that this breakthrough team is merely a reflection of the most resilient two B’s, two ballplayers who have never played a game or taken an at-bat for another organization. Not that he doesn’t appreciate it.

“Him and I, we’ve worked very hard for this,” Bagwell said. “That being said, it’s not so much about Craig and I. It’s about all these guys. As much of a team effort it was last year, it’s even more of one this year.”

That said, Bagwell continued, “My career is coming to an end. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get back.... And it’s been a long time coming.”

Forty-four years after the berth of an organization, nearly 18,000 combined games into the careers of Bagwell and Biggio, they got the ball to Oswalt, who won his second start of the series, both at Busch Stadium. Forty-eight hours after Albert Pujols had homered to drag the series out of Houston and into a sixth game, Oswalt gave up three hits in seven innings, none before Yadier Molina’s single in the fifth. A 20-game winner in the regular season, Oswalt gave up a single run, and the Astros built a 3-0 lead through four innings against Cardinal starter Mark Mulder.

Biggio had a run-scoring single in the third, when a second run scored because of a Mulder wild pitch. Jason Lane homered in the fourth. Adam Everett squeezed home a run in the sixth and Morgan Ensberg singled home another in the seventh.

A strike from advancing to the World Series two nights before, Garner put the final two innings into the hands of relievers Chad Qualls and Dan Wheeler. Brad Lidge, who gave up Pujols’ three-run home run in Game 5, was warming in the bullpen when Molina flied to right field to put the Astros into the World Series.

The Astros had played five games to advance to the World Series -- two against the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980, two against the Cardinals here last season, and Monday’s in Houston -- and lost them all.

So, on the occasion of softening more than four decades of hard misses, General Manager Tim Purpura uttered the names that came to him. Nolan Ryan. Mike Scott. Bill Doran. Danny Darwin. Jose Cruz.

“There’s so many people you think about,” he said. “This is their championship as well as our championship here.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Pitching matchups

The probable pitchers have been announced for the first two games of the World Series at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago:

GAME 1, SATURDAY, 5 P.M.

Houston’s Roger Clemens (13-8, 2-1 in postseason)

vs. Chicago’s Jose Contreras (15-7, 2-1)

GAME 2, SUNDAY, 5 P.M.

Houston’s Andy Pettitte (17-9, 1-1)

vs. Chicago’s Mark Buehrle (16-8, 2-0)

The series

NLCS