'Astroball' book released after World Series win

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - In a sea of blue and orange, there walks Ben Reiter with a copy of his new book in his hand. In 2014, the senior writer for Sports Illustrated predicted the Astros would win the World Series in 2017 and they did! For the first time in franchise history, too.

“We got a lot of heat for that article and especially in Houston. I want to say not so many people were believing that this terrible team would turn it around but we did see a glimmer of hope back then and the plan that they put together and not everything went perfectly for the next 3.5 years but it clearly went well enough,” says Reiter.

“I think that’s crazy. I actually kind of can’t believe that it happened, you know, you see it as a player and you were like 'oh cool that would be awesome' and then all the sudden it happened and we were kind of like 'whoa', you know what I mean. It’s a surreal moment, so I’m glad that it did happen and hopefully it can happen again,” says George Springer.

After the big win, Reiter was approached by multiple publishers and decided to write a book about how he came to this conclusion. So the writer put pen to paper and made "Astroball" happen.

“I’ll tell you what I did to celebrate, I sat down at my desk and started writing this book "Astroball". I think the people that read this book will learn all sorts of new things about the Astros that they didn’t know. Certainly about the strategies that went on to pursue this win, but they will learn the back stories of Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, Dallas Keuchel to a level I don’t think everybody knows in particular. They will learn something about Carlos Beltran who didn’t have a hit in the World Series but what he did with out which, they might not have won a ring,” says Reiter.

“I want to know if he has got us doing it again. I mean he’s one for one I guess on our team so I’m interested, but it’s cool. He’s a cool guy. He knows a lot about the game so I’m happy he’s here,” says Springer.

Reiter will be promoting his book that goes on sale Tuesday at the Brazos Book Store at 7 p.m., then after at Little Woodrow's in Midtown.