Oh Hell YES!
Folks who have been around here for a while know that my first true love isn’t politics – it’s baseball. Thanks to a beloved Grandpa, I knew baseball before I could walk.
I’ve always wanted to grow up and be my Aunt Lillian. She and her two best friends, who were also retired, rode the bus to the ballpark for every home game. They wore polyester pants and Astros jerseys. They had perms in their short grey hair and dangly earrings with little baseballs on the end. One Christmas I gave her a pair of light-up Astro earrings and she loved me best of all for a full year. They brought scorecards and kept complete semi-official score of the entire game. They thought the designated hitter rule was an abomination. They all had a beer or two. But best of all, these little old ladies referred to the team as “my boys.”
I, too, love the Astros, and every year they break my heart.
Except not last night.
The Astros, with a payroll of $73.8 million dollar – that’s second to last of all major league baseball teams – shut out the New York Yankees with a $213 million dollar roster.
For the non baseball fans – and shame on you! – the Astros are a very young team in a building phase. No one expected them to win. Anydamnthing.
They play with a love of the game and overwhelming joy at victory. They are my boys.
This might tell you how old I am, but I was at the first game played in the Astrodome. Astros won in 12 and Mickey Mantle hit a home run. I was living in Beaumont at the time.
1My dad and I used to listen to the Astros on the transistor AM radio while doing yard work, back in the day when Joe Morgan played second base and Mark Lemongello pitched. I LOVED Craig Biggio, thought he was the best dam’ thing that ever happened to the Astros! And my husband and I nearly got lynched in a Nevada, MO pizza joint the year the ‘Stros were playin the Cards. We won that night and our unseemly glee was not popular with the locals 😀
Plus, I have loathed the Yankees for nearly ever!
2Today I love the Astros. Shutting out the Yankees is awesome!!! My Daddy can recite any Steinbrenner joke ever uttered. What he says about the Yankees? Nope. Can’t say. Mama would kill us both.
3I grew up in the 50’s, in NE Ohio, and my dad was from Grand Rapids, so Ernie Harwell and the Tigers was the music in my house every summer night. When they played each other, we had a great time ribbing each other..Detroit usually won. Back then, you could follow a guy’s entire career on one team. Nowadays, I don’t really follow, because the teams are not ‘teams,’ but hired hands, and as likely to be traded as not.
4Frankly, I look at the 74 million and wonder how many kids could be fed with that; how many schools improved; how many teachers could be paid what they are worth and not leave the profession they love because they can’t afford to stay. I am happy for you and your current team, but professional sports are not good for the US.
Yep, That’s how it all ended last evening… HOU 3 Evil Empire …. zero, zilch, nada. Ineffectively whiffing at HOU pitching.
I do hope the ALCS has TEX and HOU battling it out in 7 and TEX winning game 7 by 1 run!
BTW I HATE everything about the Yankees, except how they will all be home during the Series.
5Let this Brooklynite tip my hat to the ‘Stros as well and join JJ in saying they may be not just a winning team but one of the most enjoyable and unpredictable teams to watch. I can’t root for them against the Mets if they both make the Series, but against any other team… (And that even includes against my long-time second favorite team, the Pirates. In fact, the combination of the two National League teams, the Astros and the Royals, give the playoffs four teams I’d be rooting for if the others weren’t in the games.)
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I have ‘Extra Innings’ — the MLB service that gives you all the out of town game, and discovered the Stros on, I think, Preston Tucker’s first game. (My wife and I had considered Anthony Recker one of the best-looking guys in baseball, and I told her he had to take second place.)
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Then they bring up Carlos Correia, the youngest position player in the game, a skinny shortstop who is hitting third in the line-up with 22 home runs. Another debut I caught, and then I watched Lance McCullers come up as well, and probably earn Rookie Pitcher of the Year status.
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They have the twin beards of Keichel and Gattis, one a Cy Young Award level pitcher, the other a 6’4″, 260 lb DH who is an ‘RBI machine’ but who also somehow came up with 11 Triples. And we — the Mets — sent you a pitcher who was totally hopeless, that we couldn’t wait to put on waivers. How many games has Collin McHugh won this year? (Actually, I think he went elsewhere, to a team who gave up on him too before you got him.) Then, when our trade fell through for Carlos Gomez, you got him, and we got Cespedes, and we’re both happy (as is Wilmer Flores).
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And I haven’t mentioned Springer, Maresnick, or the all-or-nothing guys, Carter and Valbuena, or Jose Altuve, who wins the Stolen Base crown and combines with Correia for the best DP combo.
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If any of you have ever enjoyed baseball, this playoff season is the year to come back to it. There are more teams that are simply fun to watch than I can remember. (Last year, after watching the Royals almost make it, I assumed I’d be rooting for them in the AL this year. They are still as good, and as enjoyable, but they are only my fourth choice to win it all.
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As you may have gatered, baseball is my first love as well, going back to when I actually saw the Brooklyn Dodgers play in Ebbets Field. Then there was the day after a birthday of mine when I decided to treat myself to a Mets game. they had a double header, and I’d miss the first game, and the ‘transistor radios’ of the day didn’t work too well on buses, so the rather strange atmosphere I walked in surprised me. Then I saw Jim Bunning strike out John Stephenson, who was pitching, and complete what was then the first perfect game pitched in the majors in over forty years .
As for the Yankees, I am a long-time Yankee hater, but I had to put that aside during the great years of Torre and the ‘core four’ of Jeter, Williams, Posada and Rivera. You just couldn’t hate them. even though it was still hard to actually reduce them.
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But my long-time hate is the Cardinals. First it was just a rivalry and fun, when they had Herzog running the team, but when that drunk and racist (at least two or three DUIs that he got arrested for, and the man who supported the Arizona anti-immigrant bill and made Albert Pujols play in the All-Star game there that year) Tony LaRussa took over, they became the only team it was easy to root for the Yankees against.
Micr, one of the few of my Dad’s sayings that I can loosely paraphrase without bringing on the wrath of Mama:
A-Rod. Stands for anything, but Alex or Rodriguez.
8@pkm
Great to know. Cause I didn’t think A-Rod stood for anything. Except maybe overpaid, juicing, cheating a$$hole getting paid serious scratch for playing (at) a children’s game.
BTW, back in the day, when I counseled the Sportsmanship merit badge for Boy Scouts, A-Rod was my poster boy for “Sports don’t build character, they illuminate it.”
9JJ knows that my fondest wish this year was for my Nats to play her ‘Stros in the World Series.
My Nats didn’t hold up their end of that deal. So, knowing how much joy JJ and Bubba are getting out of this turn of events, I was delighted to find last night’s game on the radio here in DC and spent the evening listening to the delicious thrashing of the $%)*^&^ Yankees.
GO ASTROS!
10I grew up south of Philadelphia and now live on the Maryland side of Washington, so I’m glad I don’t care diddlysquat about baseball. As for the NFL, looks like I’m rooting for Green Bay again this year. (I like how the fans own the team, not some bloated obnoxious owner as with the Washington Team That Shall Not Be Named.)
11To this day (and I’m 60 now), the best job I ever had in my life was working as a batboy for the Amarillo Giants (San Francisco farm club) of the Texas League in the late 60s. I got there around 3:00, dragged out the bats, balls, and helmets, and such (15 minutes, tops) and then had until game time to play baseball with a bunch of professional baseball players. I shagged flies, took batting practice, pitched batting practice, took infield practice, the whole ball of wax. The SF Giants and Cleveland Indians played an exhibition in Amarillo one of those years, and I got to give my still-all-time-favorite baseball player, Willie Mays, his bat and watch him crush a double off the left field wall. It’s where I learned how to cuss and how to chew tobacco.
Thanks for the baseball post, JJ. Just remembering those days made this day a whole lot better.
12JJ,
I watched my first “Astros” game at Colt Stadium. I think it was Sandy Koufax and a guy (I think) named Turk Farrell piching that day. Saw the Yankees and Astros play the first ever game played in the Dome. My mom and Dad took me. @Barb in DC….. I also have my grandmother to thank for my love of baseball. When we lived in D.C., she used to drag me along to see Walter Johnson pitch. (You do the math.) 🙂
Loud and Proud Astros Fan !
13“Pitching”
darned arthritis.
14The last time I had any interest in Baseball,Houston was National League and the Rahgers were American League. My last baseball hero was Mark McGwire.
15JJ, I’ve been cheering for your Astros and monitoring their game progress via MLB.com, even switched over to the game last night for a few pitches before daMrs noticed and said “ahem.”
But as anyone who’s been around me for 5 minutes knows, I bleed Cubbie Blue for “my beloved Cubs.”
First game at Wrigley: I was too young to recall, but I do recall the moment I became a true Blue fan: five years old, sitting on the first base side with my dad, Ernie Banks hits a walk-off in the 11th off Don Sutton.
My most prized possession* is a baseball signed:
To Chip
Hope
Ernie Banks
So I ask all my friends here to cheer for my Cubbies tonight, especially, and in the coming weeks.
And let’s HOPE for a Cubs-Astros World Series.
*Second most prized possession is Gale Sayers’ autograph on his autobiography. Also, daMrs has a signed copy of “Dreams from My Father” that Barack signed at an ’08 campaign stop in Toledo; that’s her most prized possession.
16Really big wow!,but what do the Cubs have to do with baseball?
17Finally, a thread that makes me happy rather than angry, incredulous, or ashamed!!!!
I’m from Detroit & grew up a Tiger fan, thanks to my mom. She was a fan from back in the Cobb/Gehringer days. She also took my brother & me to see Denny McLain win his 30th game in ’68. Mom moved here in 2004 and became an Astros fan (although she always loved her Tigers). Hunter Pence was her favorite while he was here. She would love this team! Wish she was still here to see it.
18DaChip my folks is from Chicago, and my dad always said he’d have married a Protestant before he married a White Sox fan! and I was in love w Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg for years too, but that was later!
19@epo – Win or lose, watch the Cubs-Pirates game tonight. The Cubs are a happy, young bunch of up-and-comers, with Kris Bryant in line for rookie of the year. He’s a phenom at bat and on the field. BTW, tonight is a split-screen TV night for Chicagoans, because the Stanley Cup champ Chicago Blackhawks start the regular season at home against the New York Rangers.
@da Chipster – With you all the way. And Cubs-Astros would be a dream World Series.
20Love rooting for the underdog, especially when they beat the Damn Yankees. My boys, the Giants, are out this year, but can’t complain, we do our share of winning. Heck, we could lose for another decade, and I really still couldn’t complain.
21@ Aggieland Liz – The noon news had video of Sandberg this morning in a bar across the street from Wrigley Field, grinning and having selfies taken with a big early crowd. He’s still a hero at the corner of Clark and Addison.
22The best World Series for me was the 1960 Pirates/Yankees matchup. It was David and Goliath and the Bucs didn’t stand a chance, except they won! Bill Mazeroski’s 9th inning home run sent shockwaves through Casey Stengel and the Yankees organization. Stengel was fired over it. Pittsburgh went crazy and the kids in my high school class had transistors hidden in pockets with earplugs. They flashed the score to everyone and by the end of school that afternoon we couldn’t believe that the impossible had happened. This was the powerhouse team: Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra…Haven’t been nearly so happy since.
23I feel the same way about the Chicago Bandits. They are my girls and this year they won all the big ones.
24Us Minnesotans were happily surprised by our Twins this year. We were just hoping they would be less bad, but they were actually pretty decent!
I went to baseball games in the Kingdome in Seattle with an 82 year old. She new her baseball and Ken Griffey Jr. was her pal. She got there early to chat with him when he was shagging balls in the outfield. She could recognize the pitch from 200 feet away! “He should never have thrown a curve on that count.” Hell bells, Katherine’s expertise blew me away!
I also attended KC Royals games with Aunt Rita. Her favorite player was George Brett and her dream was to be the organist for at least one game.
Now don’t hurt me anyone, but I want to see the Royals and the Pirates in the Series. I’ve loved the Pirates since Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and “We Are Family”. Andrew McCutcheon is a great ballplayer.
I want the Yankees to have a 107 year drought on post season play. Plus, I want Barry Bonds, Roger (that roid rage pitcher), Mark Maguire, Sammy Sosa and any other steroid sleeze ball dopers out of the record books entirely.
Yeah, baseball is my favorite boys sport. Much better is NCAA women’s basketball and softball, WNBA basketball (Where my MN Lynx are playing Indiana in the championship series Right Now. GO LYNX!!!!), and the Fast Pitch League. (Baseball is soooo much easier than fastpitch, right Don A?)
25I’m glad they won, but I might believe they play for the love of the game more if the low salary team wasn’t still almost $80 million dollars. With everything else going on wage wise and all the inequity, I’m sorry, but these salaries for playing a game are disgusting.
26Woo hoo! Go Cubs go! Go Cubs goooo! Hey, Chicago, whaddya say? The Cubs are gonna win today!
Somewhere, that old Cubs fan Steve Goodman is smiling.
27Big grin.
28Hey Debbo, you should check out NCAA women’s volleyball. It’s a fast-paced, exciting game with lots of scoring. I got turned on to it a few Olympics ago, and it hasn’t hurt that the UT women’s team has been one of the best in the country for several years. It’s even starting to show up regularly on TV-ESPNU carries quite a bit, and if you have the Longhorn Network, you can get all the UT matches.
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