Setting Sail
Astros (0-0) at Padres (0-0)
Petco Park
100 Park Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92101
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I am overly fond of nautical metaphors anyway, and we are directing our attention presently – those of us able to stay up late enough, that is – to San Diego, after all; what with the hometown Houston Astros opening the 2008 campaign with a four-game set at the home of the San Diego Padres, there in SoCal, fish tacos and all, down by the sea.
• Game 1: Monday March 31, 2008 – 9:05 p.m. CDT (FSN, ESPN2)
• Game 2: Tuesday April 1, 2008 – 9:05 p.m. CDT (my20)
• Game 3: Wednesday April 2, 2008 – 9:05 p.m. CDT (FSN)
• Game 4: Thursday April 3, 2008 – 2:35 p.m. CDT (FSN)
So you were more than likely to be getting some long, twisted, marine allegory here, anyway.
Add to all this the fact that I am composing the meat of this preview on Saturday evening (the 29th), after having spent most of the day getting baked on the north jetty off of the Bolivar Peninsula, in pursuit of seafood. It was pretty goddamned windy out there, for one thing, and threatened to rain like hell late; but I did manage to get some fishing in, a little sunbathing, and 7-8 cold brewskies. You will be glad to know that I hooked seven speckled trout, two flounder, and one large and rather involved metaphor.
Thusly, the Astros are setting off on a long and treacherous voyage this spring, in a boat with an engine (the offense) that is plenty big enough; but with a leaky hull (the defense), and a bilge pump (the pitching staff) that looks like it may operate correctly only part of the time, if at all. Only it had better operate, and well, most of the time. Otherwise the good ship Astro – Cap’n Cooper at the wheel, Admiral McLane there next to him in his white cap and blue sports coat, smiling and snarling instructions under his breath – may flounder not long out of port, and sink slowly to the bottom, right off the jetty there, until only the very top of the mast is still visible above the waves. At which point all the other boats in the division will circle around, and drop anchor. They heard that wins like underwater structure, and that this may be a good spot to fish for them.
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Pitching Matchups
(last season’s records in parentheses)
Monday
RHP Roy Oswalt (14-7, 3.18) vs. RHP Jake Peavy (19-6, 2.54)
Tuesday
RHP Brandon Backe (3-1, 3.77) vs. RHP Chris Young (9-8, 3.12)
Wednesday
LHP Wandy Rodriguez (9-13, 4.58) vs. RHP Greg Maddux (14-11, 4.14)
Thursday
RHP Shawn Chacon (5-4, 3.94) vs. LHP Randy Wolf (9-6, 4.73)
Fun Facts
The Padres have two of the best names in baseball in their middle infield this season – SS Khalil Thabit Greene and INF Callix Sadeaq Crabbe. Greene was born in Pennsylvania but famously grew up in Key West. Crabbe came, of course, from out of the Caribbean . . . The Padres placed “Anaheim Jimmy” Edmonds on the 15 day DL retroactive to sometime (he is set to come off on April 5) because of a strained calf which kept him out of almost all spring training action. Word is he needs his highlights touched up, too. The Padres should have a lot of fun with Edmonds this season . . . OF Brian Giles, for most of his career a middle-of-the-order, power hitting run-producer (Astros fans – and Billy “Gas Can” Wagner – will remember him fondly from a star-crossed double-header in Pittsburgh a few years back), has quietly begun the transition to full time leadoff man. I am trying to remember the last time something like this has happened, and I cannot. Giles has seen his power basically negated by age and Petco, but has a lifetime .404 OBP (.361 in 2007.) Giles batted leadoff the last half of 2007, and the Padres plan for him to be there basically every day in 2008 . . .
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I am feeling a little bit wistful – I realized recently I am beginning my 41st year of following the Astros. Closely, that is. As a fan.
Okay. One cannot be too precise about such things. I think I became aware of the team and some of its star players sometime before that. My father was a fan, and some of the older kids in the neighborhood would talk about baseball most of the time, so I probably began picking up on the Astros from the time I became cognizant, whenever that was. But, while my early childhood memories are getting hazier, I am almost certain it was the summer of 1968 – the summer after the Summer of Love, the summer of the riots in Los Angeles and Detroit, the summer of the Tet Offensive, the summer I was 8 years old – that I fell in love with baseball for good, and began following everything to do with it intently.
I remember that summer, the last we spent in the old house, through a few private interior vignettes, primarily. Through his work my father was able to get a ticket to attend the All-Star Game in the Astrodome that summer. The NL won the game, 1-0 (1968 was also The Year of the Pitcher, remember), the only run being scored in the bottom of the first by Willie Mays, on a groundout. When he got home that night, late and more than a little beery, my dad woke me up and told me all about the game, in excited tones. He also produced an official game program, which is still in my possession.
Although he was an ardent Astros fan, the old man had an older, deeper allegiance to the Detroit Tigers, a result (I believe) of him growing up in Beaumont at a time when the AA Texas League franchise there was affiliated with the Detroit club. Anyway, some of that must have passed on to me, because I became a big fan of the Tigers that summer, too. That was the season Denny McLain won 31 and he and Kaline and Horton and McAuliffe and Lolich and Cash, etc., led “El Tigres” to the AL crown and an improbable World Series win over the Co-ardinals in the fall. I have a vivid recollection of playing whiffle ball in our driveway that summer, and turning around and batting left-handed (I am a natural righty) in order to emulate Jim Northrup, and of catching hold of a fat pitch and slamming it all the way into the street. A home run, left-handed. I could hardly circle the bases, I was so mesmerized by my accomplishment.
Anyway, I am fairly certain 1968 was the magic year of awekening for me, baseball-wise, so I am going with that. My father could probably verify it for me, but he is dead now, having passed on at the start of the Division Series last fall. My mom can remember when I started Cub Scouts and shit like that, but not much detail about sports. There are two other people who were close enough to me at that time . . . but one of them is dead by now, too, it occurs to me; and the other is an inmate at the TDJ Wayne Scott facility in Angleton, and is not scheduled for release until November of 2031, by which point he, or I, or likely both of us, will be long gone, too, and it won’t matter at all any more, if it ever did.
But for the sake of this narrative, you guys will just have to take my word on the forty years thing.
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Injuries
Houston – RHP Felipé Paulino (pinched nerve right arm), 15-day DL; 2B Kaz Matsui (anal incontinence), 15-day DL from March 21.
San Diego – RHP Carlos “Che” Guevara (strained right groin, advanced decomposition), 15-day DL from March 21; RHP Clay Hensley (right shoulder strain), 15-day DL from March 21; LHP Justin Hampson (left shoulder tendonitis), from March 21; RHP Mark Prior (right shoulder strain, overall Cub stigma), 60-day DL; RHP Tim Stauffer (right shoulder strain), 60-day DL; OF “Anaheim Jimmy” Edmonds (bad calf, bad hair), 15-day DL.
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This may well be a bit of a difficult year for following the Astros . . . Actually, no, it won’t.
Back in the middle of the successes of the late 1990’s-early 2000’s, I would sometimes wonder how I made it through all those bleak years following the Astros, through the 1970’s and late 1980’s-early 1990’s. Then, once I stopped being delusional, I remembered that it was not “difficult” at all to follow the team through tough times, in lean years. It all depends on how one looks at it, I suppose. If one is a fan boy, anything less than having one’s wildest expectations met and right away, too, is grounds for disappointment and bitterness, whining and acrimony. Sorta like in life, actually. We all are acquainted with the sort of person who, if everything isn’t great and stupendous and just so in their lives, dissolves into abject complaint, usually when we are nearby.
One (useful) thing my old man told me in the course of things, sort of his life’s philosophy, was that one should “absorb the losses.” By that I believe he meant losses inflicted from outside, and from within, too. He basically meant one should just tacitly endure whatever crap one gets along the way, and then move on, hopefully to something more fun. I have followed his advice on that, or have tried to. I figured he would know. He suffered tremendous losses himself, inflicted on him at a very vulnerable stage of his childhood, and (I always felt) it fucked up everything else he did, to some extent, for the rest of his life. But one never heard that from his lips. And he somehow managed to keep it together long enough to put in 75 years and accomplish some things, including yours truly, of course. And he seemed to have a good time doing it, most of the way, too. I can only hope for as much.
One thing we can do is to enjoy these games, and the gift of another season. We will have the privilege of following a team with a potentially explosive offense, and a pitching staff that may or may not be explosive, too. And a defense that will always be, well, exciting. We are standing on the deck at the beginning of the voyage, unable to see through the early morning mist, or to discern what will transpire on our passage. For all we know, the earth may really be flat, and we are about to sail right off the end. But we never even flinch at the thought of that. We yell, “Crank this fucker up and get going, dammit. Fuck the Padres, and the Cubs and the Co-ardinals and everyone else beyond. Fuck ‘em all.”
In the immortal words of the Austin head shop owner from way back whenever, “Onward, Astros. Onward, thru the fog.”
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You may follow the game action as it unfolds in the Game Zone.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.