Incredible SI Houston Astros cover almost never happened

One of the most incredible sports magazine covers of all time almost didn’t even end up happening.

Three years ago, Sports Illustrated published a cover featuring an incredibly bold prediction. They declared that the Houston Astros would be the 2017 World Series champions. Though that hardly seems shocking now because the Astros were the class of the AL West this year and made the playoffs two years ago, it really was a shocker at the time.

Houston had not won more than 56 games in a season from 2011-2013, which is nothing short of awful. Consider that the worst team in MLB this season won 64 games, by comparison. And there was SI predicting them in 2014 to be World Series winners. They even put George Springer on the cover, who won World Series MVP, if you can believe that.

On Thursday, a day after SI and the writer of the cover article, Ben Reiter, were basking in the glory of the prediction, another SI writer shared how the cover nearly didn’t happen.

From SI soccer writer, Grant Wahl:

True story: If US doesn't give up last-second World Cup goal to Portugal, this 2014 cover is soccer. (Glad for SI it was Astros.) pic.twitter.com/zhQYHG1wKK

— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) November 2, 2017

The US was playing in the World Cup in 2014. They had beaten Ghana 2-1 in Group G play for a huge win. They were leading 2-1 against Portugal but gave up a goal and ended up with a 2-2 draw. Had they held on for the win, they would have clinched a berth into the knockout stage. The US eventually advanced to the knockout stage before losing to Belgium, but it was less convincing than if they had beaten both Ghana and Portugal, which would have made for a cover story.

In the end it all worked out perfectly because, as Reiter said, the jinx is now over.