Folks who have been around here for a while know that politics is my second love.  My first love is baseball.  It’s been that way since I was 4 years old and Grandpa Duke took me to my first baseball game in what became a friendship that lasted until he died when I was in college.  Some of the best hours of my life were spent sitting beside this large Creole man with giant hands and enormous feet who taught me how to keep score at a neighborhood ball park.  He loved me deeply.

Instead of doing my homework, I made countless score cards so I would be ready at every game.  It really didn’t matter that I skipped homework because I learned math at baseball games. I could figure ERAs and batting averages.  I understood how geometry works because it was happening right in front of me.  Grandpa had played a little semi-pro ball and got to meet the big boys of summer as they were coming up.  He taught me to tell stories by telling me stories.

I hear his voice every time I sit down at a typewriter, “A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Now tell me the beginning of your story.”  I became a reporter.  Screw homework. The best teacher I ever had smoked cigars and drank beer while showing me where to watch on the field as a play developed.

Forgive me this memory today.

I started watching the Houston Astros when they were the Colt 45’s.  We would always find a way to get to the game.  “Hold on to my pants leg, Cher, because I can’t reach down that far to grab your hand,” he joked at me, the smallest little girl in town, as we waked into the park.

I have tickets to the ballgame today and tomorrow for the playoffs.  Every year the Astros break my heart. Every year I think this is the year. Then they break my heart, dammit.  We’ve won a few pennants along the way, but we’ve never won the World Series, so every season opens a new possibility that maybe this year … because my story needs an end.

All this is to say that I will open a few threads today and tomorrow because I will be at the game both days.  You can talk about whatever you want and I’ll have someone approve comments when they get a chance.

Go Astros!