Yankees' return to Houston brings back unpleasant memories, at least for fans
Yankees centerfielder Aaron Judge walks back to the dugout after striking out in the eighth inning in Game 1 of the ALCS at Minute Maid Park in Houston on Oct. 19, 2022. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
HOUSTON — While talking about Yogi Berra late Sunday afternoon, Aaron Judge, who had just tied the legendary Yankees catcher for fifth place on the franchise home run list with 358, was asked to name his favorite “Yogi-ism.”
“It ain’t over 'til it’s over,” Judge said with a smile. “That’s always a pretty good one.”
Then he turned serious.
“But he was more than that,” Judge said. “He was a fantastic baseball player. Ten World Series [won] . . . That’s pretty impressive. That’s what we’re all chasing.”
The Yankees have been chasing their first championship since 2009. Judge has overlapped a significant part of that, making his full-season debut in 2017.
That year, as no fan of the team needs reminding, marked the first of three ALCS losses to the Astros in six seasons (after falling in seven games in 2017, the Yankees lost in six games in 2019 and were swept in 2022).
That history is not particularly relevant to this week when, on Tuesday night, the Yankees start a big late-season series at Daikin Park, formerly known as Minute Maid Park.
Only two position players remain on the active roster from that 2022 club — Judge and Giancarlo Stanton (injured pitchers Gerrit Cole, Clarke Schmidt and Jonathan Loaisiga also are holdovers).
Still, Minute Maid was the site of so much Yankees heartbreak and caused so much anguish inside the organization the last decade that any time the Yankees play a series of consequence in Houston, their grotesque postseason history in that ballpark inevitably comes to mind.
The Astros, after all, are the single biggest reason for the Yankees’ title drought since 2009. Starting with the 2015 American League wild-card game, Houston eliminated them four times in eight Octobers. The 2017 and 2019 ALCS eliminations occurred in Houston; the eliminations in 2015 and 2022 came at Yankee Stadium.
None of that, Judge said, comes to mind for him.
“Houston Astros. Good place to hit. That’s about it,” a stone-faced Judge, a part of the three ALCS setbacks, said Sunday of his thoughts upon hearing the name Minute Maid Park.
Do any of the past team failures that have occurred there — especially Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS and Jose Altuve’s series-clinching walk-off homer in Game 6 in 2019 — enter his mind at all?
“No. That’s in the past,” Judge said. “What could I do about it?”
As for Aaron Boone, who took over for Joe Girardi as manager after the 2017 season, he said he won’t think about it either.
“Who we’re facing that day, what’s the lineup we’re going up against, how do we get that out? That’s how you look at it,” Boone said. “We’ve won a lot over the last few years there. Obviously, we’ve had playoff heartbreak there. It’s 2025. It’s a whole new year, whole new challenges, and we’ve got to go play well.”
In 2023, the Yankees swept three games at Minute Maid after making two of their heralded prospects — Jasson Dominguez and Austin Wells — Sept. 1 call-ups in a playoff-less season. The Yankees followed that by sweeping four games there to open the 2024 season.
The Astros, who reacquired longtime Yankees tormentor Carlos Correa before the July 31 trade deadline, took two of three from the Yankees in the Bronx from Aug. 8-10. Correa and Altuve, forever public enemy No. 1 among the Yankees’ fan base, delivered big home runs in that series.
Like the Yankees (76-61) — who are in a virtual tie for the top wild-card spot with the Red Sox and 2 1⁄2 games behind the AL East-leading Blue Jays — the Astros (76-62) are in a dogfight for their division title. The Astros, coming off an August in which they were 13-15, are three games ahead of the second-place Mariners.
For the Yankees, Tuesday is the beginning of a run of four straight series against teams that would make the AL playoffs if they started today, teams they haven’t done well against this season — the AL West-leading Astros (1-2), the AL East-leading Blue Jays (3-7), the AL Central-leading Tigers (1-2) and the Red Sox (2-8). That adds up to 7-19.
“We’ve got something to prove, I think more to ourselves than anybody else,” Judge said of his club’s struggles against winning teams. “We’ve got a special team here, and the guys know the opportunity we’ve got ahead of us.”
All of it — appropriately, some might say — starts at the former Minute Maid Park, where, depending on how the next month plays out, the Yankees may well return in October.
A place where, at least for the fan base, an ugly past is never completely out of mind.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
More Yankees headlines
