ALCS Game 7: New York isn’t a regular evil empire, it’s a cool evil empire

The Houston Astros tied the ALCS Friday night to force Game 7 of the World Series, charging seven runs to Yankees’ Luis Severino and David Robertson. For those of you who respond with a forlorn shrug, maybe because your favorite team broke you in Game 5 again (or Game 3 or Game 1 in the Wildcard), read on. What’s up to Giants fans, whose team rolled down a hill this season instead of playing baseball and who can’t relate to a definition of watching the Dodgers succeed that’s not simply “death.” Maybe you just have been busy (with worrying about whether Yeonis Cespedes will decide to like water this offseason). This Say Hey, Baseball is for you, because there’s a Game 7, and this one is going to be particularly fun because your team isn’t in it to stress you out. Let’s do this.

The Astros will play this game in the midst of hurricane recovery. It’s a tale as old as sports, the city rallying around their favorite boys in hardship, but it’s uniquely remade in each instance with the guts of its hometown. (Grant Brisbee wrote much better words about this than I.) Charlie Morton gets the start in their version of the story. He, his sinker and clanky Astros defense gave up 5 runs in 3 ⅔ in Game 3; the question is if bad luck will follow him to the mound Saturday. Houston has Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer, the clubhouse DJ who only takes prisoners in the form of baseballs that could potentially change a game, leading the offense to erase any Morton missteps.

It seems pretty easy to accept that the Astros are Good and Fun. It might take a little longer to get there with the Yankees. The Yankees are fun, even if they’re still the villain. Based on the tvtropes.org page for likeable villains, they’d either be “Evil is Cool” or “Magnificent Bastard.” I’m asserting that this far down because I did not want to scare you away if you really are crawling out of a postseason baseball hole. (If you need to feel better, Siri will tell you they were crushed Friday night.) The fun piles up with Didi Gregorius, Gary Sanchez, and always Aaron Judge.

Judge hits the kind of home runs that make you forget it’s only a dumb ball of yarn arching through the stadium. In the ALDS, he had one hit and 16 strikeouts in 20 at-bats, so lol kind of. But it’s a small sample size! Those numbers can tell us a lot about what happened, but they aren’t very predictive: In 20 at-bats in the ALCS, his slash line is .300/.417/.850 with three homers and two doubles.

The team’s Game 7 starter is a stabilizer, though. CC Sabathia is coming off of six shutout innings in Game 3, 9 strikeouts in 4 ⅓ in ALDS Game 5 and in the midst of a renaissance season in which the balls are laced against him. Let’s not forget either that he’s also living a story of courage and accountability, checking himself into rehab in 2015 before the AL Wild Card game. CC lives for these games, too.

All the fun in the world isn’t always enough. The Yankees are still an evil empire with the money to sustain six. Not caring about the Astros fun is fine, too. In either case, it’s advisable to do everything you can to reverse Vin Scully’s prayer of “no goats.”