It was every cliché that has long categorized this kind of unbelievable sports moment:

Feel-good.

Odds-defying.

Befitting a Hollywood script.

Except this wasn’t some far-off national story used to help fill newspaper pages during the quiet summer months or an impersonal tale that Disney made into a movie. This was a genuinely inspirational narrative whose roots can be traced right down the road.

A mere five minutes before Shawn Dubin was to take the mound for Triple A Sugarland on Saturday night, his manager informed the 27-year-old right-hander that he’d actually been scratched from his scheduled start.

“You’re going to (be in) the bullpen at Minute Maid Park tomorrow,” his coach informed him.

And with that, half of Dubin’s dream had been achieved: Five years after being selected in the 13th round by the Houston Astros, two years after initially making their 40-man roster and establishing himself as one of the organization’s top minor league pitchers and any number of nights on the doorstep, the Allegany native had received the call-up to a Major League Baseball roster.

Dubin was a big-leaguer.

“IT’S TOUGH to put into words,” said Dubin, the normally stoic local kid who on this day was fighting back the widest of smiles as he spoke with reporters in the home clubhouse on Sunday. “It’s been a crazy journey, a lot of stops along the way. (It’s) a good thing I’ve had a lot of people in my corner helping me, pushing me along the way. I’m just so grateful to them and grateful to the Astros for this experience.”

And that crazy journey is what makes Dubin’s such a profoundly fascinating story, not just locally but in the grand scheme of professional sports.

THE Allegany-Limestone graduate, we know, rarely pitched in high school and was more of a soccer standout than a budding baseball star. He then became a journeyman as he tapped this previously unknown talent, throwing at three schools in four years while bouncing, sometimes unwantingly so, from the juco, to Division I to NAIA levels.

Along the way, Dubin had an initial stint as a soccer player at Jamestown Community College. He worked for a spell as a subcontractor at Lowe’s, “running shingles up the roof and making errand runs” before finding a place on the Erie Community College baseball team in 2015. He signed with the Astros for a mere $1,000, hardly the figure associated with someone who’s expected to make The Show.

There was hope in the summer of 2021 that, given how he was pitching in Sugar Land, Dubin might actually get the call in that two-month stretch where the Blue Jays were playing in Buffalo, making for a potential storybook situation in which his MLB debut would double as an otherwise impossible homecoming.

But this was perhaps the next-best outcome: He donned that No. 66 jersey for the first time in a real game in the thick of a playoff race … on Father’s Day.

“I think just the persistence,” he said, when asked what he was proudest of in reaching this point before reiterating, “There’s been a lot of obstacles, a lot of stops along the way, a bunch of different colleges. But like I said, if it wasn’t for the support group I had around me, all the coaches pushing me … I don’t think I’d be here without them.

“I’m just grateful to them, grateful to everyone who stood by me.”

ON HIS first day on a big-league roster, Dubin, up as a reliever, never emerged from the home bullpen. With Houston and the visiting Reds engaged in a tight battle throughout, manager Dusty Baker was inclined to not put too much pressure on someone with no major league experience.

But his opportunity to realize the other half of this years-long dream — making his MLB debut — will almost certainly come (and might even have come on Monday night, when the Astros hosted the Mets in the first of a three-game series). Dubin believes his stay in Houston will be more open-ended than short-lived.

Besides, Sunday was more about the accomplishment.

It was about being able to call his mother, father and older brother to let them know that he was officially a major-leaguer and that they should start making travel arrangements to the ballpark. It was about the 13 friends and family members who came in to see him in that home white uniform. It was about being able to say — much like when he started a spring training game against eventual Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander — that, no matter what else happens, “I did that.”

After suffering a minor elbow injury that caused him to miss a couple of weeks in May, Dubin is healthy again, saying that he’s “feeling better than ever” since making his return. And if he’s been viewed this highly by the organization for this long, it’s certainly possible that he could now contribute to the Astros in a meaningful way.

Wherever his baseball chase takes him from here, however, these words will forever be etched in his story: “HOUSTON ASTROS — Optioned RHP Brandon Bielak to Sugar Land (PCL). Recalled RHP Shawn Dubin from Sugar Land.”

And that’s a truly feel-good sports story.

“It’s gonna be a good day,” said Dubin, still fighting that losing battle with a smile. “It’s a special Father’s Day. I’m just ecstatic to be here.”

(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)