HOUSTON — Last Thursday morning, a Category 5 hurricane with 175 mph winds was churning toward Brandon Backe’s hometown of Galveston.
But Backe had a job to do, and that was first and foremost in his mind.
Backe started against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh that day. When he took the mound around noon in Pittsburgh, he cleared his mind of everything but baseball.
“I was thinking about winning a ballgame,” the Ball High graduate said. “I wasn’t thinking about the storm or anything like that. There was nothing I could do. I was a thousand miles away and really couldn’t do anything. So, I’m not going to worry about something I can’t control. My family was out. I had talked to them, and that was it.”
Backe (10-8) allowed a run on two hits in seven innings in a 2-1 victory over the Pirates, keeping the Astros two games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL wild-card standings.
Not that the former Galveston College player wasn’t worried about his friends and hometown.
“After the game, I tried to get in touch with everybody,” he said. “That was about the time everything was going to start hitting. I was definitely a little worried, but it really wasn’t that bad at all.”
Fortunately, Hurricane Rita lost some of her punch and turned to the north with the eye hitting along the Texas-Louisiana border just after midnight Saturday morning. The storm did some damage in Galveston County, but for the most part, the county was spared any major damage.
While Backe was anxiously watching the storm Friday night, Chicago Cubs’ reliever Scott Williamson was in Milwaukee worrying about his hometown of Friendswood.
“I was a little nervous,” the Friendswood grad said. “I have a lot of friends in this area. You worry about their safety and well being. It’s your hometown. Even though you don’t live there anymore, you still feel like that’s your place of residency and you never want to see something bad happen to it.”
“I was fortunate enough that my family was up in Dallas and away from it, and I talked to some of my buddies. They all got their families out of here. And obviously it didn’t hit as hard as everybody expected.”
Unlike Backe, who lives in League City, Williamson now calls Ohio home. He lives just outside of Cincinnati. His parents also have moved from Friendswood to the Dallas area.
The recent storms have taken on a toll on friends and family, though. Williamson was born in Fort Polk, La., and lived in Sulphur, La., until he was 13. Sulphur is just north of Lake Charles, La., which took a hard hit from Rita.
“I still know a lot of people from that area,” he said. “Hopefully, they’re OK. I haven’t been in touch with them.”
Hurricane Katrina also touched Williamson’s life. He has an aunt who lives in La Place, just outside of New Orleans, and he has more family near the Mississippi coast.
“They got hit really hard,” Williamson said. “My mom and dad have been in Mississippi trying to repair my grandma’s house, and my uncles’ and aunts’ and other family members’ houses. It’s been kind of crazy, and then you have one hit your hometown. Fortunately, (Rita) didn’t hit as hard as Katrina.”
