The Capitals always have last year, but this time around, the Stanley Cup won’t be theirs

By Thomas Boswell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/capitals/the-capitals-always-have-last-year-but-this-time-around-the-stanley-cup-wont-be-theirs/2019/04/24/c5e8e0ee-66ad-11e9-8985-4cf30147bdca_story.html?utm_term=.f85f32f7192d

April 24, 2019

Carolina Hurricanes left wing Brock McGinn, left, celebrates his game-winning goal during double overtime of Game 7 of an NHL hockey first-round playoff series against Washington Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby (70) and right wing Tom Wilson (43), Wednesday, April 24, 2019, in Washington. The Hurricanes won 4-3 in double overtime.(Nick Wass/AP)

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article229622424.html#storylink=cpy

Washington always will have Alex Ovechkin, loopy with happiness, diving into that fountain in his droopy drawers.

D.C. will always keep its memories of the Save by Braden Holtby in the Stanley Cup finals against Vegas, and T.J. Oshie chugging a brew through his jersey.

Most of all, every Capitals fan, from the newest to the “Suffering Since 1974” crowd, will have those massive, citywide bonding moments, gazing last June at a mall jammed into the distance with rejoicing fans, with the Stanley Cup shining.

What Washington will not have is back-to-back titles. That dream is dead after a crushing — and far too Old Caps — 4-3, double-overtime loss in Game 7 to the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the playoffs Wednesday night at roaring, then utterly despondent Capital One Arena. The season-slaughtering goal was scored by Brock McGinn at 11:05 of the second overtime period.

After the Capitals had squandered a 3-1 lead, after they had allowed a shorthanded goal, after they had put their fans through paroxysms of Game 7 hope and agony, through one overtime and into a second, the bitter end finally came.

Justin Williams, the man known as “Mr. Game 7,” became “Mr. Season Over” as far as the Capitals are concerned. He tossed the puck toward the net, where McGinn redirected it past Holtby.

As the teams shook hands afterward, Williams and Ovechkin stopped for a talk, with the Great Eight pounding Williams on his shoulder pads in respect. In 2015-16 and 2016-17, Williams was a Capital. Back then, the three-time Stanley Cup champ provided no magic for Washington.

In a season that seemed promising but was never quite as energized, focused or desperate-when-needed as the previous glorious one, the patient finally flatlined at just past 11:30 p.m. Rock the Red time.

"It always comes down to the details. It always does. We take pride in it," said Hurricanes rookie coach Rod Brind'Amour, whose team executed better than the more creative, less disciplined Caps."Those players will remember that game forever."

The Caps won’t forget it soon, either, especially because they knew the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning, their nemesis Pittsburgh Penguins and the Calgary Flames, the top seed in the West, had already been knocked out.

“I liked our start. It could have been 3-0 or 4-0,” said Caps rookie coach Todd Reirden, whose team took a 2-0 lead less than seven minutes into the game on a pair of brilliant goals. One was the solo creation of a whirling Andre Burakovsky, and the other a near-layup goal by Tom Wilson on an Ovechkin assist after Alex left two defenders undressed with stickhandling and then faked the goalie out of position, too.

“We didn’t execute [on the add-on-goal chances]. Then we gave up the shorthanded goal,” added Reirden, drawn and drained. “That started to send things in the opposite direction. . . . We had some chances to put this one away early, just like we had a chance to put this series away early. . . . The execution in this series was not as good as I would have hoped. . . . Our guys fought till the end. It took a puck that was hit out of the air to get rid of us.”

The Caps were not supposed to be gotten rid of — at all — by the Hurricanes, a franchise that had not been to the playoffs in a decade, although the Caps only had five more points in the regular season.

Alex Ovechkin #8 of the Washington Capitals looks upward following a first overtime save by Petr Mrazek #34 of the Carolina Hurricanes in Game Seven of the Eastern Conference First Round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Capital One Arena on April 24, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Even though this final game was even statistically, the Hurricanes either matched the Caps or got the better of the play throughout this series, with the exception of a Game 5 blowout. Wednesday’s final goal, in a scrum in front of Holtby where hardly anyone in the stay-till-the-end sellout crowd could actually see what happened, ended the Caps’ year with a groan. That Caps fan’s sign — “Hurricane Season Is Over” — had it backward.

The dour present, with the Caps downcast, their elbows on the bench half-wall as the Hurricanes celebrated, does not erase, or even dim, a glorious recent past. But instead of a doubt-free offseason of celebration, the Caps will face months of hard questioning, from within and outside.

“That one’s going to take some time to go through — double overtime in Game 7,” Reirden said. “It’ll take time to figure out different things we could have done.”

For months, on holes No. 1 through 18 everywhere, they will be asked how their franchise record in Game 7s could drop to 5-12 and their mark in Game 7s at home in the Ovechkin era to 2-6. How could a team with the Caps’ pedigree lose to a team with so little experience?

Could Barry Trotz have done better? That’s the big, ugly question, covered with warts. The Caps’ title-winning coach of last season — the veteran leader with presence and universal NHL respect who finally led the Caps past their stunning history of failure a year ago — will lead his Islanders to face the Hurricanes in the second round, not the Caps.

From the moment owner Ted Leonsis made it clear that he wouldn’t open the vault to pay Trotz a market-value contract as a reward for the Caps’ first title in their 44 years, my stomach’s official position was, “Bad karma.”

The Caps didn’t do it. Reirden, a calm, smart pro’s pro but also a rookie in stark juxtaposition to Trotz’s 20 years as a head man behind an NHL bench, will be under a microscope. In particular, how could a team with the Caps’ star talent look befuddled by the Hurricanes’ heavy forechecking pressure for much of the series without Reirden’s staff finding answers?

The Capitals join the 128-point Lightning, swept by Columbus, and the Flames, knocked out in just five games, in this NHL spring of surprises. And on F Street, there’s bitter disappointment after a postseason that few thought would end in just one round.  

In the Caps’ dressing room, Holtby answered questions in his usual low, philosophical voice. When he was finished, it turned out that two 20-something fans had gotten into the press scrum around the goalie.

“Shake it off, champ!” the pair started calling as they applauded.

A stunned Caps executive took about a second to yell, “Security!” And they were thrown out.

Just like the Caps.      

[Hurricanes eliminate Capitals, win Game 7 in double overtime]

[Dan Steinberg: The Capitals’ Stanley Cup party finally ended. It sure was fun.]

Tiger Woods, golf prodigal, returns with a roar. It will be ages before another day like this.

By Thomas Boswell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/tiger-woods-golf-prodigal-returns-with-a-roar-it-will-be-ages-before-another-day-like-this/2019/04/14/fe8992fe-5ed8-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html?utm_term=.2fb58e07de07
April 14, 2019

Tiger Woods wears his green jacket holding the winning trophy after the final round for the Masters golf tournament Sunday, April 14, 2019, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods plays golf with his hat on so we don’t see his balding head, meaning many found it easy Sunday to mistake this year’s 43-year-old Masters champion — the once and current king of golf’s most glowing moment — for the elegant 21-year-old who won his first green jacket here 22 years and one day earlier.

Nothing about Woods — neither his fit, super-athlete appearance, nor his fierce focus perfectly matched to his utter calm, nor his powerhouse play — betrayed the reality of what the world was watching. If we were not told that Woods’s one-shot victory in the 83rd Masters to claim his 15th major championship was taking place at this very moment, we might have believed we were looking at tape from the early 2000s. And, caught in our own time warp of a fantasy, we might even say: “Tiger’s not just back. He still looks like he’s in his prime.”

Of course, that is not only false; it is the absolute opposite of the truth — which is what made this day so superb for sports and so deeply gratifying for Woods. The young Woods, fist-pumping in victory but icy in private, will be remembered with awe. This old Woods, with rings of pain like those circles inside the oak trees here, will be recalled with deep affection and a steadily increasing regard.

Everyone adapts, endures and sometimes even changes for the better in the face of a lifetime’s physical pain, self-inflicted failures or embarrassments. Few great, rich, famous athletes looked less touched by that harsh side of life than Woods did 11 years ago. Since then, few could match him for injury or a self-doubt that became so deep that, at the Masters champions dinner two years ago, he conceded to his peers, “I’m done.”

Luckily for us all, when Woods’s last tap-in bogey putt dropped in the hole Sunday, Tiger’s hat finally came off. And so did the lid that he has kept on his emotions for almost all of his career. The man with the yacht named “Privacy” flipped the switch and, finally, invited the whole world into his heart.

For minutes, he seemed intent on hugging every person on the property. He lifted his son, Charlie, hat on backward, into his arms. He hugged his daughter, Sam, who now comes up to his shoulder, for the longest, warmest eyes-closed time. His mother, Kultida, now silver-haired, got squeezes. For years, when asked what kept him centered during his various troubles, he always said, “My kids.”

When he had run out of caddies and scorers to hand-pump and high-five, when he screamed “Yeah!” with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth as wide as possible, Woods suddenly noticed a line of his fellow pros waiting for him. Once, Woods had few close friends on the tour. Now he had a receiving line of hugs.

“I don’t know if there are words. I’m a little hoarse,” Woods said afterward, a bit sheepishly. “After the last putt went in, I don’t really know what I did.”

Don’t worry; it was all better than good.

“To have my kids here, it’s come full circle. When I won the first time here, I hugged my [late] dad. It’s overwhelming because of everything that’s transpired,” Woods added. “I’m so glad that Charlie and Sam could see me win another major. They were there at the British Open last year when I had the lead on that back nine and made a few mistakes, cost myself a chance. I wasn’t going to let that happen to them twice. . . . They only know that golf caused me a lot of pain. They’d see me swing a club and end up on the ground. Now we’re giving them some different memories.”

Woods’s 14 other major triumphs were surrounded by awe. This one was surrounded by affection.

Some do not find the biblical parable of the prodigal son to be the work of an entirely credible deity; the prodigal son returns to a feast of fatted calf, while the diligent good son gets McNuggets. By similar logic, some who watched Woods win will not grasp why golf’s prodigal has been welcomed back into the fold with such open arms. Perhaps they have little faith that people can change or learn from their humbling experiences. The roars here probably reflect the overall popular vote.

The thousands at the Masters and the millions watching will never feel Woods’s golf swing or have his genius sense of touch or his imagination. But we have little problem imagining his personal, psychological and physical pain.

“I had serious doubts [about playing competitively again]. I could barely walk. I couldn’t sit. Couldn’t lay down,” Woods said. “Luckily I had the procedure [a fusion] on my back, which gave me a chance to have a normal life.”

What happened next has amazed him — and then everybody else — for the past 18 months.

“All of a sudden, I could actually swing a golf club again,” he said. “I felt I could somehow piece this together, that I still had the hands to do it. The body’s not the same, but I still have good hands.”

For seven months, ever since Woods won the Tour Championship in September to end a five-year PGA Tour drought, the sports world has grappled with one question: If Woods could win a major championship after going 11 years and 42 majors without one, would that be the greatest comeback in sports?

Yes, of course it is.

Why? Since last year, this Greatest Comeback debate has arisen everywhere sports media types — a nasty bunch — congregate. We make our cases for something, anything, that would beat a Tiger win in a major. With respect for everybody who gets mentioned, we have all given up. Ben Hogan coming back to win majors after almost dying when his car was crushed by a bus is the only competition. But Woods checks boxes for misery and self-inflicted embarrassment that nobody knew existed.

Now let the accolades roll in. Jack Nicklaus sent a text: “A big well-done for Tiger. I am so happy for him and for the game of golf. This is just fantastic.”

Instead of “greatest comeback ever,” we now have a different and almost ridiculous question: Will Woods enter a 40-something renaissance and challenge Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors?

After the way Woods won his fifth Masters, that’s not impossible. His command of himself and his ball’s flight, his sense of what the leader board was telling him and, most important, his ability to avoid even a single dangerous, win-killing mistake — one fatal splash — spoke to a champion who was not simply summoning one magical, lucky week. Rather, this was a player whose polished but merely normal game could churn out a score of 13 under par at Augusta National.

“There were so many guys who had a chance to win. You couldn’t have had more drama. Now I know why I’m balding. This stuff is hard,” Woods said. Then, for the only time, he allowed himself to brag. “I hit some of the best shots on that back nine today,” he said. “I felt like I just flushed it coming home.”

Despite his mere one-shot margin, Woods had this Masters by the throat when he reached the par-5 15th in two and made a birdie, then hit a trademark show-it-forever iron shot that sucked back toward the hole at the par-3 16th, almost kissed the stick and ended up two feet away for a birdie and a two-shot lead.

As that Masters-icing shot trickled back toward gimme-birdie range, Tiger begged, eight times, “Come on . . . come on . . . come on.”

That is what many in golf have been imploring for years: “Come on, Tiger. Come back.” But how often does the prodigal return? Now Woods and his game are well and truly found. And the golf world will tingle with new energy for years.

Beyond that, the imagination strains. We will wait many a year — or perhaps even measure it in generations — before sports sees another lightning bolt that shocks us from head to toe like this electrifying day at the Masters.

[Tiger Woods gives golf another unforgettable moment — and begins a new chapter]

The Frank Robinson I knew: The proudest, orneriest, most competitive man in baseball

By Thomas Boswell
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/the-frank-robinson-i-knew-the-proudest-orneriest-most-competitive-man-in-baseball/2019/02/07/83d6c464-2305-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?utm_term=.b7e700d4b5ea
February 7, 2019

(Tony Triolo)

For several days, the death of Frank Robinson had been expected. Editors called reporters to prepare appreciations. But Frank, no respecter of deadlines or demise, didn’t depart on schedule. Some of us who covered him for years enjoyed the thought of Death trying to cope with Frank.

Robinson was the proudest, orneriest, most competitive man in baseball from his arrival in 1956 — as a rookie who hit 38 homers at age 20 — until 2006, when, in his 16th year as a manager, his old fierce eyes still made his Nats players seem tame.

“You know you can’t beat me,” the Grim Reaper says. Frank, silent, just glares and digs in. Robinson didn’t just crowd the plate; he crowded life.

On Thursday, Robinson died at 83. Many will recall his Triple Crown season leading the Baltimore Orioles to a World Series title in 1966. Others will find the most lasting value in his dignified barrier-breaking work as the first African American manager in 1975 with Cleveland and then as manager of the year back with the Orioles in 1989.

Washington fans will remember Robinson’s fiery leadership of the 2005 Nationals, D.C.’s first team after a 33-year wait. They were supposed to be awful. Robinson refused to allow it. They were in first place at the all-star break and in contention in September and weren’t losers — they finished 81-81. Once, Robinson, almost 70, pushed through a melee trying to punch tough-guy Angels manager Mike Scioscia. With big fists and an upper body that recalled a ­541-foot homer he hit out of Memorial Stadium, Robinson truly wanted a piece of Scioscia.

But Robinson had other sides beyond the need to intimidate opponents or drive teammates to their competitive limits or respond to any challenge with flashing eyes; a smart, quick tongue; and, if necessary, his fists.

In 1988, after the Orioles started the season 0-6, Robinson replaced Cal Ripken Sr. as manager. When their record reached 0-20, the whole sports nation watched, aghast and empathetic. Long before the 21st game, Frank sat alone in his office. I handed him a lapel button that read, “It’s Been Lovely, but I Have to Scream Now.”

He burst out laughing. And put the button in his top drawer.

A few years earlier, Frank and I had broken the ice when he was a coach on Earl Weaver’s staff. One day, I wrote that the Nos. 1-3 hitters in the Orioles’ order should all be benched.

“Firemen go into burning buildings for $10,000 a year,” I said. “For $1 million, Fred Lynn won’t pinch-hit with the bases loaded in Yankee Stadium if he has a cold.”

The next day, Lynn stopped talking to the media but also immediately got red-hot and won the American League player of the week award. A few days later, Robinson said, “Could you rip Freddie again next week?”

These days, the notion that a manager can lead a team, and add to its win total, through the force of a scary-intense personality, through anger as well as inspiration, through stop-being-a-dog criticism, is treated as a silly, irrational anachronism. Do they do that in middle-management at Apple?

That’s wrong. I covered two Robinson teams that finished 20 to 30 games better than MLB experts thought they should. There were many reasons, but none bigger than Frank’s back-of-the-plane to top-step-of-the-dugout leadership.

The 1988 Orioles started 0-21 and ended 54-107. But they improved the next season by 32 ½ games and missed the postseason only on the last weekend of the season. They were a six-month national story. At that time, just two teams had ever improved by more games: the 1903 Giants and the 1946 Red Sox (who warrant an asterisk because they got Ted Williams and other stars back from World War II).

Baltimore kept Robinson in charge while subtracting unhappy talent, such as Eddie Murray, and adding kids or nobodies who were happy to be in the show. The Orioles added no top players. I predicted they might lose 121 games. They won 87.

Robinson’s leadership — nobody can define it or measure it, which is why few currently value it — was essential. He believed in players who, objectively, did not merit it. So they believed in themselves. Some, such as Steve Finley, panned out as stars. Others, such as Curt Schilling — who tried out purple hair, looked like Billy Idol and when called in from the bullpen once said, “So, who’s up?” — weren’t Frank’s guys.

They crashed into walls, stole bases and threw strikes. But most of all, they loved the endless details of the game, studied them, revered them as Robinson did and believed that demanding unfailing fundamentals from one another would win.

Another link between those 1989 Orioles and the 2005 Nats was that most were either young-and-eager or old-and-holdin’-on — so they listened. Which Frank loved.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with young people, reaching them and talking baseball. It’s a pleasure to watch someone get better and better until he’s a bona fide big leaguer,” he said. “All a teacher wants is for them to listen and try.”

Frank always loved teaching, especially hitting. He kept his hands off Cal Ripken Jr.’s mechanics for years — Gene Mauch once said, “Someday Cal will have the worst swing in the Hall of Fame” — out of deference to Cal’s lifelong batting teacher, his dad. In 1991, Ripken went to Robinson for help. He had the best offensive year of his life and won his second MVP award.

The flip side is that Robinson had teams that underperformed because, when it came to modern thinking, he was a defiant, “gut instinct” dinosaur. When his teams were out of the hunt, he lost some interest and held court in his office.

Perhaps the lesson should be: Analytics are great, but leadership is real, too. Ask the military academies whether they believe it’s all just numbers.

Sometimes, when he managed the Nats, we had rambling talks. He despised the PED cheaters who broke the records of him and his friends, especially Hank Aaron, who had faced death threats while chasing Babe Ruth’s homer mark.

Because he could be so cantankerous and didn’t care what you thought, Robinson was exciting to cover. He grasped the concept of an “adversarial relationship” with the press. That didn’t mean he liked it. Once, after I criticized his managing, he made a sweeping gesture of stabbing himself in the back as he passed me. And he wasn’t smiling.

Put all those qualities together, and it may be easier to understand why teammates loved him, foes feared him, umpires and writers respected him but his colleagues in the sometimes-devious world of front-office politics did not.

Robinson and the Nats, for example, ended with a bitter split. The Nats weren’t generous; Frank — shock — didn’t leave quietly. “He’s not a guy who endears himself,” a Nats exec said, missing his own half-compliment.

Frank always evoked strong feelings. As a teen, I detested him. When I watched my Senators play the Orioles in D.C., he hit a three-run homer in the first inning to end the game before it began — every time, it seemed. He was the ferocious five-tool superstar my team never had.

Then, as I grew up, all that flipped. Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics became the first African American coach in any major U.S. pro sport. Eight years later, Robinson, who was Russell’s basketball teammate at McClymonds High in Oakland, broke the managerial color barrier in Major League Baseball. That two close friends could face challenges so similar with such dignity and honesty was impressive. But that they did it so uncompromisingly, never turning away from the firsthand hard truths they had learned about race in America, made them two of my heroes.

For me, Russell and Frank Robinson were the next step after Jackie Robinson. Because he had laid the groundwork, they didn’t have to turn the other cheek. They could be their entire selves — or close to it. Remembering what social progress looked like then is a reminder of why it’s worth battling to keep and extend now.

Frank Robinson always had the severe comportment, the hard eye for enemies, the basic sense of right and wrong of a pioneer. He walked into a room, and others stood up straighter, heads higher. Now, we bow our heads in respect.

[Barry Svrluga: For those first two seasons of baseball’s return, Robinson was D.C.’s treasure]

On team full of great stories, George Springer, World Series MVP, might be the best

By Thomas Boswell

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/

November 2, 2017

George Springer hits a double off Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Yu Darvish during the first inning of Game 7. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) (AP)

LOS ANGELES — When the final out of Game 7 of the World Series was in the books, when Dodger Stadium fell silent, except for a few thousand Astros fans screaming to the skies, Houston center fielder George Springer started sprinting toward the infield. Was he looking for teammates to hug or a mosh pit to join with a giant leap?

He had one target in mind — the pitcher’s mound. The main Astros mass-hug-and-jump was erupting 10 yards away, but before he joined it, Springer ran to the pitcher’s rubber.

The highest point of the field. The center of everything. No other place would be fitting for Springer, who stood the tallest of any player in this first Houston World Series title and, for the past six games of this seven-game battle was, quite literally, at the very center of everything that was best about the Astros.

Let Springer, who won the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player Award with five home runs, 29 total bases, a .379 batting average and ludicrous 1.471 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, stand for all the Astros who beat the Dodgers convincingly, 5-1, on Wednesday night.

Not bad for a guy who hit .115 in the American League Championship Series before striking out in all four of his Game 1 at-bats against the Dodgers.

Granted, Houston will have to rebound far more than any Astro. But the point remains the same: a team set out to exemplify a virtue for the sake of its traumatized city. Because that’s what they had to offer, what they could do. Hang tough, keep going, even if it takes 11 innings and a dazzling comeback against super-closer Kenley Jansen to win Game 2 and 5 hours 17 minutes to break the heart of Clayton Kershaw and the will of a 104-win Dodgers team in a 13-12 classic in Game 5.

“This is a dream come true. That ‘Houston’ on our chests means a lot. They have endured a lot,” said Springer, talking about his city and everything it has battled because of Hurricane Harvey. “We’re coming home a champion, Houston!”

The 27-year-old Springer personifies this team in so many ways. From his status as a gifted first-round draft pick who will be a core Houston star for years to come, to his resilience in the past month while he battled a horrid hitting slump to his decision long ago to use his baseball notoriety to stand for a larger cause than himself, Springer exemplifies the best in all of them.

The Astros center fielder and leadoff man not only began Game 7 with a double off Yu Darvish, but, one inning later, knocked the Dodgers starter out of the game with a booming home run to center field for a 5-0 Houston lead.

“Oh, we weren’t calm,” said Astros Manager A.J. Hinch with a laugh. “But George Springer leads off with a double and off we went.”

How could Springer go from one of the Astros biggest worries after Game 1 to its Series MVP? Springer has explained it many times; he’s had to learn to overcome frustrations that others can’t imagine. Just to open his mouth and give a postgame interview constitutes a triumph for a man who still fights a stutter, although if you didn’t know it, you could hardly tell.

As a spokesman for Camp SAY (Stuttering Association for the Young), Springer always takes the opportunity to speak up. He even got miked up in the outfield during the All-Star Game to give running commentary on the game in progress.

Just as Springer dedicated himself to that cause for years, he and all his Astros teammates have taken the Houston community to heart after Hurricane Harvey and attempted to exemplify “Houston Strong” on the largest stage they could find. Oh, and how they did it, with two of the most amazing, exhausting indomitable victories in World Series history. With Springer at the center of both.

First, the Astros rallied to win Game 2, a huge victory that allowed them to return to Houston tied at a game apiece. Springer’s two-run homer in the 11th inning was the decisive blow, this after he already had a walk, a single and a double in that marathon. Then they captured Game 5 by the insane score of 13-12, in 10 innings with enormous help from, yes, Springer, who walked twice and scored both times, then hit a titanic homer to tie the game at 8 after his own misplay of a line drive in center field had put Los Angeles ahead. Can’t let stuff hold you down.

After that homer, Springer wasn’t finished in Game 5, getting another hit, then pushing the eventual winning run into scoring position in the 10th inning with a walk off Kenley Jansen.

Other motors have driven the Astro machine in various games. But Springer, who hit 34 homers, scored 112 runs and batted .283, was a constant force.

The fulcrum of this Series, and of Springer’s play, was Game 2. After his seven disastrous games against the Yankees, then his four-strikeout start to this Series, a player can hardly fall harder and lower on a bigger baseball stage.

But Hinch refused to move him down in the lineup and gave him a public vote of confidence. “No, he’s not [moving down in the lineup]. He’ll be leading off,” said Hinch. “He had a tough night at work, and a lot of our guys did. George has struggled. But if he hits the first pitch tomorrow into the gap . . . you’d be amazed how good he feels.”

Instead, Springer just started hitting balls over walls, joining Reggie Jackson and Chase Utley as the only men ever to hit five homers in a World Series.

After his four-strikeout start, Springer said, “You know it. And you press. And you want to do things that you can’t do. For [Hinch] to have my back — hey, you’re still going to hit first, and you’re still going to set the tone for us — it slowed me down. . . . For him to have my back, it means the world to me. And I’ll always have his back.”

Springer’s speech difficulties, which were severe and made him feel solitary and mocked as a boy, were often caused because he simply couldn’t slow down once he started trying to talk. Now, his voice is central to the Astros.

The Astros were so awful for so long that they were able to land a series of high draft picks that panned out. But Springer, who went to the University of Connecticut, was the first prominent talent — the 11th overall pick in ’11.

After him came the Astros’ magnificent shortstop, Carlos Correa, still only 23, who will probably be a perennial MVP candidate for years. Lance McCullers Jr., who started Game 7 but only lasted 2⅓ scoreless innings, was also a first-round pick. Finally, the Astros landed brilliant third baseman Alex Bregman with the second overall pick in the 2015 draft. Now, a little more than two years later, Bregman has emerged as an all-around star and got the game-winning hit in Game 5.

Perhaps nothing distinguishes the Astros more than their combination of youth, talent and poise. Get used to these names, you’ll be hearing them for years. In 2014, Sports Illustrated did one of the most prescient cover stories in its history, proclaiming the Astros as MLB’s champions of 2017.

The cover boy? Springer.

“I just think when the lights turn on even brighter you tend to subconsciously press, and you want to succeed so bad that you start to do things that you wouldn’t do, or you start to come out of an approach that has worked the whole year,” Springer said during the Series. “This is my first experience at playing this far, playing this long and in [games] of this magnitude. So, for me to understand, ‘Hey, slow yourself down.’ I understand now why some guys struggle in the postseason and some don’t.”

For more than a half-century the Astros were always the team that was told what it couldn’t do, how often it came up short and then, in its only previous World Series appearance in 2005, got swept. Ignoring the negative and believing in yourself despite odds has served Springer and the Astros well. Now they hope it aides their damaged but recovering city in some vague yet valuable way.

“When that last out is made, you finally breathe,” said Springer after one of the Astros probability defying wins.

In truth, when that final out was made Wednesday night, the least of the Astros concerns was breathing. Their joy demanded far more than that. They screamed. They went crazy. The moment many said would never come for the Astros, arrived at exactly the moment when their city needed it most.

In that final celebration, everyone congregated, bouncing and back-pounding on the Dodger Stadium mound. None leapt higher than Springer. He was right where he wanted to be — the center of everything. Exactly the place he’d been throughout one of the most thrilling World Series ever played.

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