This is a move as welcome as it was unexpected (by me). I never thought that Enron would accept so little money – just a little less than half of what they’d coughed up for the 2002 season – to walk away from the naming rights contract. This still has to be approved by the bankruptcy judge, so there may yet be another twist, but I hope that his honor slaps his rubber stamp down on this deal and gets it over with.
Next up, what to do with all the signage? Dismantling all the Enron references around the park will be a time consuming matter. And the replacement name won’t even be known for a couple of months according to the Astros. I can’t imagine that Drayton will spring to have the word “Enron” replaced with the word “Astros” everywhere, but he may do it in a select few, high-visibility locations. It’s either that, leave it as it is for now, or have “[Blank] Field” all over the place. On the positive side of things, my ticket stub from the opening series against the Yankmees just got a little bit more valuable.
Hopefully, this will put an end to the hackneyed plays on the old name such as “HomeRun Field” and “TenRun Field”. Drayton says that he’s been approached by a number of entities about naming the crib but won’t say who. I have it on good authority that the front running candidates are Yak.com., Gopher, Inc., The Bandbox Corporation of Texas and Whaddayameanitsonly316feettotheleftfieldwall, L.L.P. Whew!
Miller Time
Reportedly, Wade gets the annual pat on the arse that is the start on opening day. Now this is a little premature as no one’s thrown ball #1 in anger yet and Yimy still claims to be learning the players’ names. However, the Miller-Oswalt one-two punch does signal the passing of the torch from one generation to the next. I’d still like to see Shane start for sentimental reasons, but his streak was broken last year so this argument is somewhat diminished.
What I do find curious though, is that Williams has chosen to go 1 through 5 from Game #1, rather than adjust his rotation to match up against the Cards in Games #4 to #6. A win is a win, of course, and the unbalanced schedule gives the division rivals plenty of cracks at each other. But you can be certain that La Genius will be double and triple guessing himself into adjusting his rotation to throw his star arms at the Astros as early as possible. There’s really only one time all year that you can guarantee to have the opportunity to plan your match ups, and this is it. I would do it, but that’s just me.
Make It a Bud Light
Other Spring activity not actually involving a baseball game included the signing to one year major league contracts of a slew of Astro hopefuls. I’m not sure this means much other than causing a slight surface ripple as these drips fall into the Astros’ salary ocean, but it’s baseball news, and that’s what counts. Lane and Puffer were included amongst the 9 signees while at the same time confirmed on the Zephyrs’ roster. Huh? If they’re starting in N.O., why sign them to a big league contract now?
I can only imagine that this type of move is designed to prevent a Nick Leason type in the New Orleans organization trading away all the Astros’ talent without the club’s knowledge. This is an old-fashioned way of thinking, as everyone knows the real risk is that they’ll be sold to an offshore corporation and replaced on the published roster by the Barry Bonds and Pedro Martinez.
Real American Heroes
GriffeyGate continues unabated. Ron Oester has now joined former Dickities Pokey Reese and Dmitri Young in slamming the Red Messiah. It’s a pretty widespread theory that Junyah is all about Junyah and little else. What we’re now seeing is a confirmation of that fact from those who’ve seen it from the inside. It’s also a pretty widespread theory that self-centered players destroy team chemistry and that affects team performance. What we’re also seeing is a confirmation of that fact from those who’ve seen it from the inside.
By way of a perfect contrast, the Chronicle published an article about Bagwell and Biggio. They are completely nonplussed as to why they’ve been dragged into the low-key hoopla about Dierker’s departure. They claim that their pipeline to Drayton is exaggerated and that there’s no way they could’ve had any influence on the decision. By way of explanation, Bags pointed to the number of friends he’s lost from the team over the years who he would most certainly have kept had he had the power. He specifically mentioned Alou and Castilla, both of whom would’ve stayed had the Astros offered them the right package.
The Houston press corps is mostly sycophantic and incompetent, so there’s little chance of this story becoming a full-on shit storm. Both say they remain proud to be Astros. Biggio dismissed the whole thing as nonsense, saying that Dierker is the perfect player’s manager – he writes your name on the team sheet and lets you get on with it. I think we’ve all seen that practice in action (or rather, inaction), and some of us have railed against it from time to time. Bottom line, it’s not totally out of the question (Biggio is supposedly the Astros’ clubhouse’s lead attorney), but I think that the more likely cause was yet another embarrassing play-off flame-out. Bagwell says that falls on the team, but accepts that you cannot fire the players. The conspiracy theorists amongst you are welcome to disagree.
Trojan Man
Brad Lidge is pencilled in for some action on Friday when the Astros (mercifully) begin their ST schedule at the camp of the hated Dodgers in Vero Beach. Words like “nasty” and “filthy” seem to track this guy around like a faithful hound. That’s good in only two industries – baseball and porn. I am pulling for this guy to stay healthy because I really want to see what he can do. I don’t know about this season – there’s way to many question marks to get a warm and fuzzy, IMO – but I really think that the young talent this organization has can take it to a whole new level.
Yes folks, I’m talking about the NLCS!
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter
Regular readers will know that Saturday (3/2) brings the much anticipated England-France clash in Six Nations Rugby. To do my bit for some entente cordiale between these two nations, here’s the English translation of the French national anthem, the “Marseillaise”:
A Frenchman went to the lavat’ry,
To have him a jolly good shit,
He took his coat and trousers off,
So that he could revel in it.
But when he reached for the paper,
He found that someone had been there before,
“Ou est le papier?”
“Ou est le papier?”
“Monsieur! Monsieur! J’ai fait manure.”
“Ou est le papier?”
For the sake of international friendship and brotherhood, please stop what you’re doing at 8.00am, and sing along with me. Thank you.