Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Jinxes Houston Astros With Premature Tweet

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

If the governor of Texas wasn't superstitious before yesterday, well, he is now. Here's what happened - it was Game 4 of the American League Division Series. The Houston Astros were up 6 to 2 over the Kansas City Royals in the eighth inning - just six outs away from advancing to the league championship series.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

And then came this from Governor Greg Abbott's Twitter account.

CORNISH: Congratulations to the Astros on advancing to the ALCS.

MATT YOUNG: As we saw it pop up on Twitter, I think all of us in the sports department were like, oh, no. This is - can't really be happened.

MCEVERS: Matt Young is a sports web producer for the Houston Chronicle. And, oh, yeah, it was happening. The tweet - blamed on a staffer - was quickly deleted, but the damage was already done.

CORNISH: Almost immediately the Royals erupted for seven runs to put the game away.

YOUNG: Everyone who steps into this kind of thing on Twitter realizes people take their sports very seriously. And if people feel like you did something to cause their team to lose, it's not going to be a good day for you.

CORNISH: And it was a bad day for Governor Abbott on Twitter. The hashtag #AbbottCurse started trending after tweets like this...

MCEVERS: We can recall Governor Abbott for this, right? And I blame every single one of you that voted for Greg Abbott.

CORNISH: Royals fans, including Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, rubbed it in. Brownback tweeted (reading) congrats to the #Royals. Not so fast, my friend, @GovAbbott. See you Wednesday. #TaketheCrown.

MCEVERS: See you Wednesday as in that's when the Astros and the Royals play a deciding Game 5.

CORNISH: And we here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED predict there will be no predictions tomorrow from Governor Abbott.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SUPERSTITION")

STEVIE WONDER: (Singing) Very superstitious writings on the wall... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.