The town of Alvin, Texas is situated halfway between two places.
Just 27,576 people live in Alvin, which is around 10 miles southwest of Interstate 45 and situated midway between Houston and the Gulf of Mexico. Although the closest Target is located 20 miles away, there is a Walmart nearby. The city’s lone high school is Alvin High School.
There is a bronze memorial, a statue of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan, Alvin’s most well-known son, located a few streets from the high school. Ryan dazzled the baseball world for 27 years with his signature fire and unwavering persistence. That heritage started and still exists in Alvin. The town’s junior high school was renamed Nolan Ryan Junior High in 2009. Nearly every eatery, corner shop, and BBQ establishment has his portrait hanging there. The four teams that Ryan played for throughout his career had flags flown above the Nolan Ryan Center on the Alvin Community College campus.
Nathan Eovaldi grew up in this setting, this unique baseball town, this living example of the most Texas-born pitcher.
The Rangers star achieved something on Wednesday night that his local hero never did: he helped Texas win a World Series. Eovaldi shut out the Arizona Diamondbacks in six strong innings without allowing a run. While his rival Zac Gallen sliced through the Rangers order, extending a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Eovaldi, who seemed to be a below-average version of himself, matched the zeroes.
“How well he performed. “I believe he was in trouble every inning,” manager Bruce Bochy said after the Rangers’ 5-0 triumph in Game 5 to secure their first championship in team history. “He’s spent his whole career doing this. We were looking at the correct man, then. We were lucky to have Nathan with us today.”
In the series-deciding game, the 33-year-old walked five hitters, which was his most number of free passes in a game since July 30, 2013. All night long, there was intense Diamondbacks traffic. Arizona was repeatedly one hit away from anarchy. In the fifth, with two outs and the bases loaded, Eovaldi was on the verge of being removed. However, the son of Texas remained strong and did not give up, paving the way for the spectacular late-inning offensive play that propelled the Rangers to their first World Series victory.
Eovaldi has seen October grandeur before. He pitched six outstanding innings of relief in the 2018 World Series, during the legendary 18-inning marathon between the Dodgers and Red Sox. His gutsy and brilliant effort that evening came to an abrupt end when Max Muncy of the Dodgers hit a walk-off home run to send everyone home. Although Boston emerged victorious in that World Series, Eovaldi was unable to start a game and never really had his chance to shine. The fact that his best playoff performance prior to this October was in a heartbreaking defeat seemed strangely ironic.
Texas has invested a significant amount of money in free agency on Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, Martín Pérez, and Eovaldi throughout the last two offseasons. When Eovaldi signed a two-year, $34 million contract this past winter, he was questioned whether the Rangers’ interest shocked him considering the team’s most recent pitching acquisitions.
That day, Eovaldi said, “I thought the chance might be over when they signed deGrom and Heaney.” “But we were able to get it done and I’m super excited to be here.”
The fact that Eovaldi was a childhood Houston Astros supporter hardly blurs the story. His first baseball memories are of visiting the Astrodome and seeing the “Killer B” squad, which had Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman, and Craig Biggio.
Above everything else, however, he thinks about Ryan.
He said to FOX Sports, “It would have to be the Nolan Ryan stuff,” when asked what his first Rangers memory was. “His photo was all over the place. the whole town.”
Scouts from all over the nation came to Nolan Ryan Field to see Eovaldi pitch during his last year at Alvin High School because of his intriguing fastball. The Alvin Sun & Advertiser, the local newspaper, made care to include Ryan in their coverage of when Eovaldi made his Major League Baseball debut for the Dodgers in 2011, becoming only the second Alvin High graduate to reach the majors.
Despite his immense influence and supremacy, Ryan only managed to win one World Series throughout his 27-year career, and it was during his third season with the Mets, prior to his rise to stardom. The strikeout king played for Texas teams for 14 seasons, but none of them made it to the Fall Classic. Ryan joined the Rangers’ ownership group after deciding to put up his spikes at the age of 46. In 2008, he was elected club president. Before departing the team in 2014 to become a “executive adviser” with the Astros, he saw Texas’ heartbreaking World Series loss in 2011.
But Eovaldi sealed the deal for Alvin on Wednesday night, adding his name to the annals of Texas baseball history alongside Ryan’s. With Ryan, Kerry Wood, Josh Beckett, and others, the idea of the big, strong, power right-hander from Texas with the unique fastball was established. It materialized once again in Game 5 with Eovaldi, who became the first pitcher in MLB history to win five starts in a single playoffs. And although “Nasty Nate” isn’t your average Texan; unlike Ryan, he doesn’t wear cowboy boots or have an accent, but he still feels a great sense of pride in his home state and the chance to win a World Series.
According to Eovaldi, “it’s the only team that says Texas.” This was said on Wednesday night. “The state is your opponent. You’re not only competing with the city. It also means a lot to me to be able to claim Texas as my home state. With that, I’m very proud.”
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