Houston Astros colors blanket merchandise tent at 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open

What a week to be a resident of Houston.

What a week to be a resident of Houston.

Not only is the PGA Tour’s 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open in town, the Astros have their Opening Day game Thursday afternoon against the New York Yankees, and the Houston Cougars men’s basketball team is in the Sweet 16 of March Madness.

Sports are awesome, aren’t they?

But the Houston Astros have their fingerprints all over the Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course, a municipal facility about 5 miles west of downtown. The Astros Golf Foundation runs the tournament, and the logo has the same colors as do the Major League Baseball team.

The merchandise tent also has a heavy Astros flair, with orange, blue and white shirts, hats, pullovers and plenty more.

Here’s a look at the best merchandise at the Texas Children’s Houston Open:

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Two former Vols combine for three hits in Nationals’ win versus Houston

Two former Vols combine for three hits in the Nationals’ win versus Houston.

Houston defeated Washington, 10-8, on Friday in spring training.

The contest took place at CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Two former Vols combined for three hits against the Astros.

Trey Lipscomb started at second base and went 2-for-3, recording one run. Nick Senzel also went 1-for-3 for the Nationals. He started at third base.

Lipscomb was selected by Washington in the third-round of the 2022 Major League Baseball draft (No. 84 overall). He played for the Vols from 2019-22.

Senzel was selected by Cincinnati in the first-round of the 2016 MLB draft (No. 2 overall). He played for Tennessee from 2014-16.

Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images

Corey Seager got back at Alex Bregman with a spicy World Series speech mic drop

The Astros took the AL West division title, but the Rangers got the last laugh.

The Texas Rangers ended one of the longest championship droughts in the history of professional sports, capturing the World Series in five games over the Arizona Diamondbacks and winning the first title in the franchise’s 62-year history.

Despite not winning the AL West Division — that honor went to the rival Houston Astros — Texas went on an incredible run as a wild card squad, going 11-0 on the road in the postseason.

That run included knocking off the Astros in a seven-game ALCS, and at the Rangers’ championship parade, World Series MVP Corey Seager fired a shot across the bow at the Astros, and Alex Bregman specifically.

“I’ve just got one thing to say: Everybody was wondering what would happen if the Rangers didn’t win the World Series,” Seager said. “I guess we’ll never know.”

It’s a clear reference to comments made by Bregman in the clubhouse after the Astros clinched the AL West title via tiebreaker after both squads finished 90-72 in the regular season.

Seager and the Rangers ultimately got the last laugh, it seems.

Rangers reliever Will Smith has astonishingly won 3 straight World Series titles with different teams

Rangers reliever Will Smith is one lucky guy.

Texas Rangers reliever Will Smith might be the luckiest athlete in all of professional sports right now.

After his team topped the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday night, Smith officially became the first MLB player to win three consecutive World Series titles with three different teams.

That startling achievement that Smith can now claim for his own started when he helped the Atlanta Braves win the World Series back in 2021. When Atlanta traded him to the Houston Astros in August 2022, he wound up winning yet another World Series that October.

Well, signing with the Rangers in March as a free agent gave Smith an unexpected advantage to win a third straight World Series this fall.

MLB teams might be lining up to contend for Smith’s services once he reaches free agency since his deal with Texas is about to expire, just for the World Series luck alone.

He seems to have all the good baseball vibes in the world right now, and we wouldn’t be shocked if he found himself celebrating one of these again with a new team next year.

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Sad Astros fans in space suits sum up the Game 7 blowout loss to Rangers

A bummer of a night for these fans and so many other Astros die-hards.

You want one image to sum up the Texas Rangers blowing out the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park in Game 7 of the 2023 ALCS?

Here you go. It’s a pair of fans wearing NASA space suits, looking really bummed as the Rangers were up 8-2, before they won 11-4 on Monday to clinch a spot in the 2023 World Series.

Fox cameras caught them and of course fans on X had a field day with it, but here’s my thing: It’s fun to dress up and root on your team! I have no problem with this, but it stinks when your team is losing and you’re elaborately dressed up:

 

On-field video showed the Astros’ stadium clearing out before Adolis Garcia even completed his HR trot

They booed him one second. Then, they were heading for the exits.

It has been quite the series for Texas Rangers slugger Adolis Garcia, and on Sunday, he got to experience what it was like to send an entire stadium to the parking lots.

Garcia — whose home run in Game 5 led to a benches-clearing incident and ejection — was back in the lineup for Game 6 of the ALCS in Houston. With the Rangers already up three runs in the ninth inning, Garcia shut down any hope the Astros had when he launched a grand slam into the Crawford Boxes.

At that point, every fan at Minute Maid Park knew that the series was heading into a Game 7. And they didn’t feel the need to stick around long enough to see Garcia complete his home run trot.

We could see that in an excellent video from the Rangers:

By the time Garcia got back to home plate, the aisles were full of fans heading to the exits.

Fans also loved that video. It captured the Astros’ defeated mood perfectly at that moment.

The Rangers – Astros brawl after Adolis Garcia was hit by pitch in 6 photos

A look at the brawl from Game 5.

Looking back, Adolis Garcia should have known the pitch that hit him after he slowly celebrated his game-changing home run wasn’t on purpose.

But it’s the pitch that changed Game 5 of the 2023 ALCS.

It sparked a brawl that saw Garcia, pitcher Bryan Abreu and Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker ejected. Then? Jose Altuve hit the game-winning dinger, and Baker ended up celebrating at the Astros’ tunnel. A wild game and series of events.

As we get set to move on to see if the Astros can close out the Texas Rangers, here’s a look back at photos from the brawl.

The ejected Dusty Baker peeked out to celebrate Astros’ Game 5 win and everyone made jokes

Dusty had to come back to see his team win.

Dusty Baker wasn’t around in the dugout to watch the dramatic end of the 2023 ALCS Game 5 that included a hit by pitch on Adolis Garcia (why Baker was ejected, although should he have been?) and then Jose Altuve’s game-winning home run in the ninth.

But as soon as the final out came, there was Baker, peeking in from the tunnel, celebrating the win. It was delightful and of course everyone thought about Bobby Valentine, the former Mets manager who came back to the dugout in disguise after being ejected in 1999.

Here are a few jokes made after the huge playoff victory:

 

 

Hear the epic radio call of Jose Altuve’s Game 5-winning home run: ‘Clear eyes and a full heart!’

What a home run, what a call.

Of course it was Jose Altuve.

One of baseball’s all-time best postseason players stepped up to the plate in the ninth inning with his Houston Astros down three runs after Adolis Garcia’s home run and the bench-clearing fracas that resulted after Garcia was later hit by a pitch.

And with two men on, Altuve smacked a three-run home run that would prove to be the game-winner in Game 5 of the ALCS — the Texas Rangers are now one contest away from elimination.

The radio call from the Astros’ radio booth of Robert Ford and Steve Sparks is epic, with a “HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?” and an additional call of, “Clear eyes and full heart!”

So good: