Three Up, Three Down: Evan Gattis finds a championship home in Houston

It took seven games and most of them were wild, but in the end the Astros were the ones who showed the poise to go on the road and defeat the Dodgers in front of a rowdy crowd at Chavez Ravine. World Series MVP George Springer's early home run helped push Houston to an quick 5-0 lead that the team would not relinquish. It eventually ended 5-1, and while it was closer than the score indicates, close doesn't count for much when it comes to the result. The Astros are champions, and they'll get to fly the flag for 2017 forever.

What makes 2017 so amazing is the fact that just a few years ago, the Astros were a horrifically bad baseball team. Much like the Cubs, they voluntarily tore their house down in an effort to rebuild from the ground up, and just like Chicago, their rebuilding efforts paid off with a World Series championship. The moral of this story is a simple one: If your team stinks right now, just be patient. If management is actually competent like Houston's, then better days are on the way. It won't be like this forever!

Down: The Dodgers' title drought continues

It might be hard to play a sad song on a violin for the Dodgers — a franchise that's been a playoff fixture for the past five seasons and has only missed the playoffs five times since 2004. It's even harder when you think about the vast financial resources that they have and the fact that they somehow still have a talented farm system and should be good for years and years to come. Still, you have to feel for the Dodgers as they came agonizingly close to finally putting it all together in order to break a drought that's going on three decades now.

If there was going to be a year for the Dodgers to take home the title, it was going to be this year. They got off to a historically great start, and while they stumbled a bit in September, they made it clear in the NL's side of the bracket that they were obviously the cream of the crop. Plus, considering that Clayton Kershaw pitched pretty well throughout October, you had to figure that they needed to take advantage of this and bring the trophy home. Instead, they came up just short, and now they'll have to spend the hot stove season trying to figure out a way to get back to the Fall Classic in 2018.

Up: Evan Gattis goes from janitor to champion

I'd imagine that if you've followed baseball for a long time now you've eventually come across the Hollywood-esque story of Evan Gattis. If you haven't, then here's a primer for you. Gattis was a high-profile prospect in high school, but a combination of personal demons and a battle with drug abuse and homelessness basically led to him getting burnt out on baseball in 2006 and eventually working as a janitor shortly afterward.

He got back into baseball in 2010, played well enough to get drafted by the Braves and eventually made it to the bigs in 2013. He became a starter for the Braves and then got traded to Houston in 2015 when the Braves decided to tear things down, and he latched on with the Astros as a designated hitter. Two years later, the Legend of El Oso Blanco resulted in Gattis being part of the World Series champions in 2017. I don't know if there's going to be a movie made about the story of Evan Gattis, but please let me know if/when it happens so I can be the first one to buy a ticket to see it.

Down: Yu Darvish had an extremely rough World Series

I'm not going to use this space to blame Yu Darvish for the Dodgers losing the World Series. After all, his arrival to Los Angeles helped bolster the rotation, and that rotation depth played a huge role in making sure the Dodgers were able to get within one game of winning the World Series. With that said, hoo boy, it was a rough week and a half for Darvish.

He only made it through 1.2 innings in Game 3 and was also the victim of an incredibly dumb and racist gesture from Yuli Gurriel. Gurriel somehow managed to avoid suspension in this series (but I'm sure that the five-game suspension in 2018 will show him!), and Darvish was given the opportunity to make up for the rough outing in Game 3 by starting Game 7. He got shelled for all five runs that Houston scored, and that was the capper on a series that Darvish would probably prefer to forget.

Up: It wasn't the best World Series, but it was still a classic

We sure are spoiled as baseball fans, aren't we? Last season we got a historic World Series involving two teams looking to break unfathomably long title droughts, and it went to extra innings in a dramatic Game 7. This year we got a World Series that delivered a couple of all-time great games that will be remembered for a long, long time. Games 2 and 5 in particular were the type of contests that they'll do special features on MLB Network in the future about.

While the other games were exciting but not epic and Game 7 turned out to be just a typical baseball game (other than the fact that they gave out a trophy at the end, no big deal there), this will still be looked back upon very fondly as one of the most exciting World Series in recent memory. It's difficult to argue that this was better than the 1991 World Series that's widely considered as the most exciting of all time, but this series proved that baseball is still an amazing sport that can grab the imagination of sports fans across the spectrum — and things could only get better for the future as well.

Down: Baseball season has come and gone

For all of the excitement and happiness that this World Series brought us baseball fans, it came with the caveat that Game 7 was guaranteed to be the last baseball game of major importance that we'll see until next spring. It's been a fun season filled with a cavalcade of exciting moments and crazy scenarios that ended with a memorable World Series.

Now it's time for the part of the sports calendar that doesn't involve baseball, and that's going to leave a hole in your sports heart. Even fans of terrible teams can admit that they've already missed seeing their teams play night in and night out, and now that feeling extends to all of the teams in the league. The hot stove season is always interesting, but it's better to see your team in action and we won't see it until spring. Until then, we'll just have to be patient. Maybe next year will be the year for your team?