It’s a BEAUTIFUL day for baseball – updated
by Primo Encarnación
The Astros are one win away from being four wins away from losing to my beloved Cubs in the World Series. So our peerless leader, Juanita Jean, is at the ballgame. As she tossed me the keys, she said “Primo, honey, tell them folks I have not one flip left to give about them OR their hair. But they’re welcome to come in and jaw and have free coffee and donuts.” However, the keys she left did NOT include that of the cashbox. So all the free coffee and donuts are whatever y’all bring in with you.
Fun fact: the Houston Astros debuted as the Colt .45s in 1962, the same year that both The Jetsons and I debuted, as well. Three years later: “Is that a decimal point? Are they spelling their name with a decimal point? There’s no decimal points in baseball!” (Said by an owner, not a statistician.) And so they changed the name to that of the Jetson’s dog.
And here they are, a mere 29 years old, about to eliminate the Royals and move on to the NLCS. Ruh-roh!
Update: Rastros are in the doghouse, Rorge, blowing a 4-run lead LATE in the game. Has Steve Bartman become an Astros fan?
With gratitude to Bill T. commenting on the C&L site, there’s a winning description of candidate/doctor Carson: Mental Ben.
Mental Ben. How suitable! It describes the candidate, as well as those who would vote for him.
1Hee hee hee! I used to watch Gentle Ben ride around on the swamp boat! I like it, I like it!!
2How, oh how did the Rethugs come up with yet another African American primary wannabe two years in a row who turns off most of the American public! This guy has said some really nasty things about African Americans. Some bedside manner he has!
3maggie, I can understand members of any group being fiscal conservatives. What I cannot understand is a fiscal conservative who thinks that GOPigs conserve anything.
“Tax and spend” liberal is a pejorative Democrats need to shove up the keisters of the GOPigs. Or, hang around their necks the fiscal facts, like that inconvenient fact that we are still paying for Bush2’s two off budget wars. Then there were his massive tax cuts for the 1%. Who goes to war and reduces taxes at the same time: No Tax and Spend It Anyway Republicons.
4I had a major league crush on Jane Jetson back in 62. I was 9 and in love (with little league,too).
5A few years back Colt .45 was the malt liquor of choice among African Americans.
6Love “Mental Ben.” After he said that Obamacare was the worst thing to hit America since slavery, I realized that anyone who considered him a presidential candidate, or thought he could be trusted to walk down the block and buy a quart of milk, had apparently undergone some bad brain surgery.
7And here I was, gonna talk about baseball, not just the screwball, and, damnit, I will, and save Carson for later.
While it will be the Mets facing the Astros, in a series marked by unpredictability and all sorts of crazy stuff and going seven games — with those two teams, what else, and while I have to root for a Mets team I’ve been following long enough I remember the ‘63 Mets — people not alive then remember the legendary ’62 team, I won’t be that heartbroken at an Astros win.
(Unlike the famous ’86 game, which ranks in the Top Ten of all time baseball memories. We HAD to win that, and it was one of the great games ever.)
But I’ll be rooting for the Astros today, and if you’d told me at the beginning of the season I’d ever be rooting against Hosmer, the Moose, Cain, Sally, and that bullpen, I would looked at you like you’d been wearing a Carson button.
We get Extra Innings and MLB.TV and I started watching the Astros while I was listening to Mets games. I saw the debut of Correia, of McCullers, and I think of Tucker — either that or his first start. Gaddis and his eleven triples. Batters hitting about .200 but with two dozen home runs. Harris, who’s great except when I am watching the game. Altuve, Springer, wow. They are crazy screwballs, totally unpredictable, capable of looking awful for a week then winning ten in a row. No wonder I love a group that weird, as someone who proudly wears his weirdness — though I wish my beard were as well kept as Keuchel’s.
I hope my Mets win, but how can I hope they lose. Hmm, with rainouts hurricanes, and blizzards, maybe the season could run into next year, and then be called a draw?
8Oh, I have one drawback as an Astros and Keuchel fan. I live in a very Jewish neighborhood, mostly Orthodox. Can’t yell “Go, Kike!” too loud and be misunderstood.
9I’m hoping for a TEX v HOU ALCS. TEX just needs to hold up their end.
10Well, well, well. In other sports news, my Congress-moron Bill Flores decided he WOULD run for the Speakership. *snort* oily little rascal!
11Go Astros!
12I’ve paid so little attention to baseball in the last few years that I missed the story about the Astros moving to the AL.
13As strictly a side note … my oldest son was also born in 1962. LOL I don’t watch any type of ball game, so I have no input other then the fact my oldest … well, you get it.
LOL
14I’m not big on baseball but I love doughnuts and coffee, so here, help yourself to a coupla free e-doughnuts and a big mug of e-coffee. On the house!
15Royals fan for life … Ewing & Marion Kaufman were old-fashioned baseball enthusiasts. their enthusiasm reigns.
Royals win the big ones … right now 9 out of 10 times faced with elimination they have won. Whether or not they go 10 for 11 or stay 9 of 11, I’m a Royals fan.
On balance today’s game MUST be received as a high point in baseball lore. Both are very good teams. Unfortunately both the ‘Stros & ‘Angers are from Texas.
16Woo-hoo! Did you SEEEEEE that game? With Ole Scout, I am a Royals fan since 1977. George Brett, home runs, chew in the cheek, pine tar. Today’s was a hell of a game. Great rallies, crazy bounces, heart and soul. Fun, fun, fun!
GO ROYALS!!!
17Great game — and okay, I’ll leave the room the next time they bring in Harris. (Hey, I may be a rationalist everywhere else, but every bb fan is superstitious.) At least it gives me another chance to see these two, and sorry, Texans, but if the Astros don’t make it, GO ROYALS — until/if you meet the Mets.
(And if the #@&%*&(! Dodgers win, I’ll even root for the Cardinals or Texans if I have to. Utley!)
18I’m with you about the Dodgers, Prup. Right now the Mets are leading 10-3 in the 5th. GO METS!
19Last night they were so on fire not even Erik O’Flaherty could have lost the game for them.
‘
Oh, and e plat. on/, My crush in 1962 was Dorothy Provine as Cricket on the short-lived ROARING TWENTIES. (I was also watching Hugh Hefner on the equally short-lived PLAYBOY’S PENTHOUSE — think it made me a life-long pipe smoker, which meant a longer-lived smoker, even before I started adding a layer of *ahem* another substance on top of the tobacco. (That substance, which I’ve been using daily for well over fifty years — with only a couple of breaks when even I couldn’t justify spending the extra cost — is probably why my doctor keeps being surprised at my lungs being totally clear. We have a running ‘feud’ over marijuana and some of his political ideas — with both of us exaggerating our positions to pull the other’s chains — but once I discovered and pointed out that it not only helps treat glaucoma, but that it both helps prevent and cure osteoporosis, he’s retreated to the last flimsy inner wall of ‘…but it’s a gateway drug.’ (Of course, for people who have these problems, the term doesn’t exactly apply.))
‘
back to crushes, before Dorothy Provine — for those who don’t know her, her “He shouldn’ta hadn’ta ought’na swang on me” from THE GREAT RACE is on YouTube — there was Princess Summerfall Winterspring from Howdy Doody who was a crush before I knew what one was. (Her tragic death in a car accident after filming JAILHOUSE ROCK was why Elvis could never watch the movie, a truly beautiful woman.)
Which sorta wanders myself so far I can’t find the thread. Oh, yeah…
GO METS, GO MATZ!
20I don’t follow sports; I don’t care who wins anything. However, after what Uttley pulled, I’d rather the Mets win. That was a dirty play.
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