New HOFer Kent defined Astros tenure with 1 big swing

This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

HOUSTON – For a second consecutive season, a member of the 2003 Astros will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame when second baseman Jeff Kent gets enshrined next July. Kent will join former Astros teammates Billy Wagner – who went in last summer – Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio in Cooperstown.

Kent will be inducted alongside any Baseball Writers’ Association of America selections on July 26 in Cooperstown, N.Y. The BBWAA’s voting results will be announced at 5 p.m. CT on Jan. 20.

Kent only spent two of his 17 years in the big leagues in Houston, where he’s mostly remembered for his walk-off homer to beat the Cardinals in Game 5 of the 2004 National League Championship Series. His arrival also meant Biggio moved to the outfield for two seasons, only to return to second base after Kent left following the ’04 season.

The Astros’ second-base lineage now includes four Hall of Famers – Nellie Fox, Joe Morgan, Biggio and Kent, with Jose Altuve likely to join them in Cooperstown shortly after his career ends.

Morgan was a two-time All-Star in his first stint in Houston (1963-71) but became a superstar in his eight years in Cincinnati and carved out a Hall of Fame career as an integral member of the Big Red Machine that won the World Series in 1975-76 (Morgan won the NL MVP in both of those seasons). He returned to Houston for the 1980 season. Fox finished his Hall of Fame career in Houston in ‘64-65.

Kent, the 2000 NL Most Valuable Player with the Giants, signed a two-year, $17.5 million deal prior to the '03 season to join the Astros. He batted .293 with 49 homers and 200 RBIs in two years in Houston. Kent’s walk-off homer against the Cardinals on Oct. 18, 2004, at then-Minute Maid Park put the Astros within one win of reaching the World Series for the first time.

"There were pictures of me coming from third base to home plate, and I don't know if I've ever been so excited in my whole baseball career, even in the World Series [with the Giants in 2002]," Kent said. "I guess I got ahead of myself, because I thought we were going to win and go to the World Series. We didn't, and it was humbling knowing we lost against St. Louis a few days later."

The game was scoreless in the bottom of the ninth when Carlos Beltrán led off with a single for the Astros. After Bagwell flied out to center, Beltrán stole second base, which opened up first base for the Cardinals to walk Lance Berkman intentionally and set up a double play.

"For me, I was thinking, 'Drive the ball deep,'" Kent said. "I knew I was going to get something good early in the count. They had walked Berkman in front of me, and I had been used to that because they would walk Barry Bonds a lot of times in front of me, too, [with the Giants]."

Kent hit the first pitch high over the wall in left field, a no-doubt shot that appeared to disappear into the night. With a sellout crowd at Minute Maid Park going crazy, Kent threw aside his helmet as he approached the plate and was mobbed by teammates.

"I loved to compete against [Cardinals manager Tony] La Russa," Kent said. "I wanted to compete against the best I could, and that was the Cardinals and La Russa. I was prepared for that opportunity and made good on it."

The homer was Kent's final at-bat in a Houston uniform at Minute Maid Park. He wound up signing with his hometown Dodgers the following season and admitted it was difficult watching the Astros reach the World Series in 2005 by beating the Cardinals in an NLCS rematch.

"I had a great time playing [in Houston]," Kent said. "I thought I was going to end up finishing my career there, which didn't happen. I live in Austin, and we were going to build a home and have the kids settle in, and that was going to be it. I was [there] a couple of years and I wanted to play some more, and it just didn't happen that way.”