Remember THIS?

Photo Credit: Sports Illustrated

In June of 2014, Sports Illustrated published an issue of their magazine featuring Houston Astros’ center fielder George Springer on the cover.

The magazine featured an article discussing the Astros and why, despite the fact that they had been one of the worst teams in the MLB in recent years, they could become baseball’s “next big thing” and win the 2017 World Series.

Here is that magazine cover.

On June 30, 2014, the issue date of the magazine, the Astros had an AL West-worst record of 36-48 after three straight seasons of suffering triple-digit losses while failing to secure 60 victories in each of those three seasons. They were searching for their first winning season since 2008.

The Astros ended the 2014 season with a 70-92 record, their best since 2010, and went on to have back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 2005 and 2006 when they went 86-76 in 2015 and 84-78 in 2016. They secured their first playoff berth since 2005 in 2015.

But now here we are in the year 2017, and the Astros are ALCS-bound for the first time since 2005 with their first 100-win season (101-61) since 1998 and just their second in the history of the franchise. No team has a better chance to win this year’s World Series than the Astros do.

And right after the Astros, a team with no World Series championships in their history, suffered their three worst seasons in franchise history, Sports Illustrated predicted this breakthrough.

If you received this magazine, I sure hope you still have it.

 

-Asher Fair