How the Sports Illustrated cover launched a memorable era

At the time, it was absurd.

Would the team that was at the time the epitome of MLB misfortune, with three consecutive 100-loss seasons and the butt of national jokes to the point that even a “Jeopardy!” clue a few months earlier had mocked them, win the World Series in three years, according to the coverage of the paragon of sports journalism at the time?

A decade later, the phenomenon is seen from a very different angle.

“In my mind, the cover will always be seen as the beginning of the golden era of Astros baseball,” said Reid Ryan, the team’s president of business operations from 2013-19. “After nearly a decade of sustained success, it’s amazing that the run began with a bold prediction from Sports Illustrated. A publication that, over the years, seemed like it would never succeed. This time, they did!”

The June 30, 2014 issue of Sports Illustrated remains eye-catching. It shows George Springer, two months into his major league career, wearing a rainbow Astros uniform. At the top of the cover it reads “THE GREAT BASEBALL EXPERIENCE”. Next to Springer, we can read “An unprecedented look at how one franchise goes beyond Moneyball to create the NEXT BIG THING in gaming… YOUR 2017 WORLD SERIES CHAMPS.”

According to Ben Reiter, the author of the cover story and the author of the prediction of an Astros title in three years, the struggling Houston team was far from the first option for the cover. The NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals both ended in five games and would be passed for June 30 coverage. Then the United States men’s soccer team blew a lead and drew against Portugal in their World Cup group match, which isn’t really a good choice for cover.

After all that, American golfer Michelle Wie’s victory, her first major title, seemed destined to dominate the headlines, but editor Chris Stone asked Reiter when he thought the Astros’ analytical approach would pay off.

Reiter told him that in 2017, and days later, Springer’s image greeted SI subscribers when they opened their mailbox (snail, not email).

But why 2017? Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager from 2011 to 2020 and an architect of the rebuild, said he expected the team to hit .500 by 2015, chasing a playoff berth the following year, but he didn’t expect a pennant or possible championship until 2019.

“I spent a lot of time with Luhnow and other members of the Astros management team in June 2014 reporting the story, and 2017 kept coming up in conversations — so I figured it was an internal target year, even if they wouldn’t officially admit it,” Reiter said. “Then I looked at the ages of the players who would likely be the centerpieces of a real contender, and 2017 seemed like the right year: Carlos Correa would be 22, for example, and George Springer would be 27. Most importantly, though, I believed in the promise of what they were doing.”

“I went to Houston with an open mind, without intending to write one type of story or another, and certainly not with the intention of making predictions or hoping that a story about this team terrible would end up on the cover. I came away convinced that the innovative strategies they were pursuing would work. »

The Astros were 15 games out of first place when the magazine came out. Former Chronicle columnist Jerome Solomon called it “more of a catchy, perhaps even ironic, projection than a prediction.” Ryan called his reaction to the cover “validation,” as the business side sought to increase ticket sales and generate revenue.

“I was thrilled to have our team on the cover of Sports Illustrated,” Luhnow said. “It’s very rare that a team that has had so many losing seasons in a row gets highlighted in a positive way. So overall, I was happy. I had no idea there was going to be a prediction or that it would be on the cover, but to be honest, even though it was a year or two earlier than I would have liked, it raised the bar for us as a goal.”

A wave of bad publicity engulfed the Astros in the weeks following the coverage, “like the SI jinx went into hyperdrive,” Reiter said. First, the team’s internal database was hacked, with notes of confidential trade discussions with other teams posted online by Deadspin. The Astros’ A-ball stadiums in Davenport, Iowa, and Lancaster, California, flooded and caught fire, respectively. Then, the team failed to sign No. 1 overall draft pick Brady Aiken after contentious negotiations over the left-hander’s elbow injury.

“The darkest hours come just before the dawn…that’s what it felt like in 2014 with everything that happened,” Luhnow said. “Thankfully, we had the support of the owners and we stuck to our plan, made the necessary adjustments and it started to work. In sports, the highs are only high because of the lows and everyone in sports has low moments and bad streaks. That’s the nature of sports, but it makes you appreciate winning even more.”

The victory came earlier than expected, as the Astros made the playoffs in 2015 and pushed the eventual champion Royals to the brink of elimination before losing in the American League Division Series.

“The Astros became big again not because of the SI article but because of Jose Altuve, Dallas Keuchel, Marwin Gonzalez, Colby Rasmus, Evan Gattis, George Springer and Carlos Correa, among others,” Luhnow said. “We had a fun team, a team with personality and a team that won games. We always said internally that nobody was going to really commit until we started winning.”

The following spring, SI picked the Astros to win it all in 2016. They failed, like every predicted SI champion since the 1999 Yankees, missing the playoffs entirely.

But a year later, the Astros were in the World Series and faced the Dodgers in Game 7 in Los Angeles.

“Going into the playoffs in 2017, people in the front office would often say ironically, ‘this is our destiny’ — IF predicted it,” Ryan said. “Still, Sports Illustrated had never gotten a prediction correct, so most people never really thought about it.

“It wasn’t until I was in the locker room before Game 7 that I thought about the Sports Illustrated cover and how we might actually fulfill their prophecy. »

Reiter, who was working on his book “Astroball” that expanded on the magazine’s original cover, was in the Astros suite with Luhnow and company for Game 7.

“It was definitely an incredible moment,” Reiter said. “I remember my immediate experience was how difficult it was to go out onto the field after the final to interview the guys who, unlike me, had actually accomplished something.”

Reiter’s prediction was picked up by media outlets around the world — “I think it was even picked up by a newspaper in Zimbabwe,” he said. While he wasn’t necessarily right — Aiken and 2013 No. 1 overall pick Mark Appel never pitched for Houston, and manager Bo Porter was fired a few weeks after the magazine ran rather than lead a champion — it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Second baseman Jose Altuve, the only player who has remained with the team since SI’s coverage came out, said he doesn’t remember his reaction when it came out.

“It was a long time ago,” Altuve said. “A lot has happened here. »

Of course, the Astros story took a different turn in 2019 with the revelation of the sign-stealing operation during the 2017 season and part of 2018. That prompted Reiter to return in 2020 with the “The Edge” podcast series to “figure out what I was missing.” He followed that with last fall’s PBS Frontline series documentary “The Astros Edge: Triumph and Scandal in Major League Baseball,” serving as correspondent and narrator.

A decade later, Reiter can’t escape the IS’s coverage and predictions. He said he was hanging over the taps at 8th Wonder Brewery when he interviewed fans last year for the PBS film.

“It’s everything a magazine cover should be, and that would be true even if the Astros never got better,” Reiter said. “A beautiful photograph. A strong point of view. An intriguing cover line. And, I hope, linked to a fresh, deeply reported and entertaining story. I could never have predicted the twists and turns the Astros story would take over the next decade, both in terms of triumph and scandal. But that story and that 2014 cover is where it all started, and the cover became an iconic thing.

“It certainly helps that the ‘Great Baseball Experiment’ worked and the Astros became the defining sports organization of that era, for better and for worse. I guess at SI we were just able to see it earlier than most.