Astros Meet Expectations

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros lose to Rangers 4-0

W: Ogando (1-0)
L: Humber (0-1)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

Ah, a day game. A businessman’s special. The euphoria that wafted through and around MMP Monday like napalm on a Vietnam delta circa 1967, had long dissipated and been replaced by the turd-like smell of a shitty baseball team.

To hear most in the media and elsewhere, you’d think the Astros were the worst team in baseball with the cheapest payroll. Well, maybe they are, but to me they are also a collection of brave young misfits who show fortitude and comraderie every time they take the field. The Astro players have to be aware of their low standing but they don’t let it get them down, they continue to show up and make an effort in spite of the overwhelming odds. Plus as MLB players, they get paid well. And it’s baseball.

Wednesday afternoon, Ranger starter Alexi Ogando picked up where Yu Darvish left off and proceeded to whiff one Astro after another. It was a horrible performance by the brave and outmatched Astro hitters, spoiling a good outing by Philip Humber who gave up only one run on five hits through 5 and 2/3 innings. Ogando, who was pitching like his face had once caught on fire and somebody used an ice pick to put it out, was marvelous in picking up the win while striking out 10 courageous Astros before being relieved after 6 and 1/3 innings. In all the Astros struck out a total of 15 times–quite the opposite of impressive, if you’re still an Astro fan.

It’s easy to evaluate the performance of a bad team – when they win they overachieve, when they lose they meet expectations. I don‘t see this team overachieving much.

Marwin Sez Yu Ain’t Perfect

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Rangers 7, Astros 0

W: Darvish (1-0)
L: Harrell (0-1)

Contributed by Reuben

This week I am on vacation in a sleepy little town about an hour south of Charleston, South Carolina called Edisto Beach. Jasper Johns once had a studio here, but so far no one I’ve encountered, while biking around, strolling along the beach, or shopping at the Piggly Wiggly, has looked likely to have any idea who Jasper Johns is. A glance at the Edisto Chamber of Commerce website reveals many suggested cultural and recreational activities to do… in Charleston. What I love about it, though, is that it’s a nice, quiet, un-hyped place to be with your extended family and look at the ocean and play board games and cook shrimp. My youngest niece, Lily, is 3, and she’s quite the uber-cute ball of squealing energy in such a setting. When’s she not being hypnotized by the Lorax DVD, she loves to fight with my brother and/or me, pretending we’re monsters or some kind of bad guys. She and my brother have developed a little routine where they just take turns pointing at each other and saying “You get out of MY house!” giggle giggle “YOU get out of MY house!” It can go on for quite some time, because she is very, very amused by it. So I almost titled this recap “Yu Get Out of My House,” but I felt like Marwin really deserved to be included. Maybe I’ll save that one for when the Astros actually beat Darvish, at Minute Maid.

I don’t really feel like I need to say anything about the game itself, so I’ll just send you over to The Most Beautiful Single Ever Hit In A 7-0 Losing Cause.

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Opening Day 2013 – If You Believe, It Can Come True

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

The first frosty mug at Alice’s Tall Texan went down so smooth that I was ready for another. Ice cold malty Bock with friends, talking baseball and making new friends. Easter Sunday, time for another redemption that we really never dared to plan.

It was great seeing everyone at Spanish Flowers. Bags of chips and untold bowls of salsa were scarfed down amid the squeals of infants, wearing their Easter outfits while trapped in high chairs. From there the group moved on to the Flying Saucer for more cameraderie and then on to the ballpark.

Surprisingly, the day was clear and no clouds obscured our view of the field. The Sherpas didn’t think to leave us with bottles of oxygen, so we and the other 20-odd thousand in the upper reaches were left to our own devices. Following an outstanding rendition of the national anthem by Lyle Lovett, new #1 pitcher Bud Norris got the American League Houston Astros era under way with a strike.

Bud fought his command through much of the night but managed to make pitch after pitch when it counted. Jose Altuve smacked the first pitch he saw for the first AL hit, a single. Outstanding plays in the field were a nice surprise, but in many ways this night belonged to Justin Maxwell. Two triples, two runs scored, two RBI, one great catch against the wall and one great ‘catch’ of a soft liner were the bedrock that the Astros’ 4-0 lead was built on.

In the sixth, Norris was tiring and the Rangers reached him for two runs before Bedard was brought in to relieve. Unconventional, but the move was effective and after the theatrics of Rick Ankiel’s two-out, 3-2 pinch three-run jack deep into the right field stands, this one was over.

Deflated, the jackal fans from Dallas headed for the exits after Ankiel’s shot and Astro fans were left to stand and cheer the home team’s first Opening Day win since 2006. It was a great night and a great celebration for all of us.

Requiem for a Gunslinger – Rangers at Astros

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Ron Brand in Featured, Series Previews

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

“Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.”

“When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”

“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”

“I am Evil Forest. I kill a man on the day that his life is sweetest to him.”

* * *

The 1979 season drew to a close, and the Astros finished 1 1/2 games out of first place behind Cincinnati. A wretched offense and the lack of a fourth starter somehow still teased 89 wins, fifteen more than the previous year. J. R. Richard was truly feared and at the top of his game, but the supporting cast was wanting. So very close, but those last steps up the mountain would prove more difficult and more costly than all the ones that had gone before.

In 1979, there was really only one Gunslinger, and the Astros needed him to prove that they were serious at last. Four no-hitters, over 2400 strikeouts, 383 in one season, a fastball that often touched 100 miles per hour and a knee-buckling curve that couldn’t be ignored had placed Nolan Ryan in the pantheon. When Ryan was on the mound, the game was reduced to a series of one-on-one confrontations and that’s the way he liked it. His history of pitching for weak teams shaped his approach, seeding the mythic appeal of One Man Against All Comers. Proud and alone, he would stand or fall based on the strength of his peerless right arm.

This Gunslinger ethos matched up well with Houston, and they made him the highest paid player in the game with that three-year, $3.5 million dollar contract before the 1980 season. The million dollar club option in the fourth year was expected to be Nolan’s last before he hung up the leather for Alvin, to ranch and raise his kids. Now all the Gunslinger had to do was to ride into town and take center stage, mowing down challengers over the seasons and hoisting the Astros into the postseason.

So he did. Three times in seven seasons the Astros made it to the playoffs. Ryan’s pitching wasn’t the only reason, but he was the public persona of the team, the shiny gold belt buckle or the star behind the capital H. With his growing success as a gunslinger in a gunslinging town, a better cast followed that improved the team steadily. Now in the reflected light of success, the Astros were on the map nationally.

The knock on Nolan had always been that he played for himself and because of that was a .500 pitcher. His gifts were such that reducing the singular conflicts might mean denying the special talent, denying the very reason for his celebrity. Celebrity it truly was, for he was alone in the American conscience as the Gunslinger Personified. He transcended the sport, his legend drawing upon the history of the American Experience and those echoes were wildly popular. “Things happen when I pitch,” he said. “A sinker-ball pitcher gets three ground outs and nothing happens. It’s boring watching guys get singles and groundouts. My games are exciting.”

The trappings of this celebrity warped that initial expectation of ending after four years in Houston. After all, he was still at the top of his game, still winning those challenges, and his star continued to grow and his legend exploded. A fifth no-hitter. 3,509 strikeouts, then unthinkably on to more than 4,700. His continued success defied all of the concepts of the aging ballplayer. At the age of 40, Ryan led the National League with a 2.76 ERA and 270 strikeouts. Despite the 8-16 record that year, he finished fifth in the Cy Young voting. As Mark Belanger said, “It’s a moral victory not to strike out against him.” Age and those 16 losses were difficult foes to subdue, however. Fearing the unkind diminution that age was sure to take on the Gunslinger, Astros owner John McMullen offered to re-sign the star but with a 20% pay cut.

===============

Texas Rangers vs. Houston Astros
Sunday, March 31, 7:05 PM CDT, Minute Maid Park

Matt Harrison, LHP – 18-11, 3.29

Bud Norris, RHP – 7-13, 4.65

Two pitchers getting their first Opening Day assignments. Norris pitches pretty well in MMPUS, but he’s prone to getting that fastball up and against this team, that’s not the way to stay in the game for long.

Promotions: Opening Day Street Fest, Schedule Magnet Presented By United Airlines

=============

Texas Rangers vs. Houston Astros
Tuesday, April 2, 7:10 PM CDT, Minute Maid Park

Yu Darvish, RHP – 16-9, 3.90

Darvish held the Astros to two runs in eight innings last season, the only time he’s faced Houston. He’s expected to be much, much better this year. Great.

Lucas Harrell, RHP – 11-11, 3.76

A groundball pitcher with a good sinker, Harrell has a decent puncher’s chance to go deep in this one. Say, a Chuck Wepner’s chance.

==============

Texas Rangers vs. Houston Astros
Wednesday, April 3, 1:10 PM CDT, Minute Maid Park

Alexi Ogando, RHP – 2-0, 3.27

Ogando is making the conversion from reliever to starter. What better way to do this than against Houston?

Philip Humber, RHP – 5-5, 6.44

Humber has thrown more perfect games than anyone on either team.

==============

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

“There is no story that is not true.”

“‘When did you become a shivering old woman,’ Okonkwo asked himself, ‘you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'”

“But he was not the man to go about telling his neighbors that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. His enemies said that his good fortune had gone to his head.”

“It was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age.”

* * *

Once again The Gunslinger was cast off from his home, sent away because no one could do what he had already done, and anyone could do what was left for him to do. In Anaheim, they figured it was easy to find .500 pitchers for much less money, so they let Nolan Ryan walk. At 42, Ryan was already past where anyone else had been on the thin ice of possibility. He couldn’t possibly have anything left, and no owner in his right mind would commit to paying what he wanted, only to see it all go down the tubes.

Even more futile and downtrodden than the Astros had been, the Texas Rangers had won as many as 94 games once, in 1977. Since then the club had slid into that hell of 65-75 wins a season, never able to crack the code that would bring them to the next level. Motivated by the burning need to imprint his middle fingers on the psyche of the Astros’ owner, Ryan’s signing provided the Rangers with a sorely-needed marquee draw and legitimacy in the baseball world. His five years with the Rangers didn’t bring any postseason appearances – the best finish the team had was 86-76 in his final year – but his mythic status finally took on a size commensurate with the Gunslinger’s ego. Every start was An Event, covered ad nauseum by national press, filled with entire stadiums lighting up from camera flashes as he struck out challenger after challenger. Personal rewards were the ultimate culmination of a career seen through the lens of individual challenge and combat; he was a Texan, and he pitched for the Rangers, but Nolan Ryan was and always had been a mercenary, a modern gladiator. Accepting his pay and then turning a team game into a series of small battles that he needed to win by himself. This was the basis of his story. The fact that he won so many of them, raising his middle fingers to the disbelievers, is what made him so special.

Fittingly, the end occurred on the field when he blew out his elbow, trying to win another battle. Stopped at last, the tidal wave of myth crested and slowly drew back. After his playing days Ryan struggled to find ways to quell his restlessness, his need for personal victory that in the end could not be stilled. Dabbling in business and politics, he found that the friends he’d made while riding high as gunslinger weren’t quite as deferential now. He found that courtesies were only extended based on a quid pro quo, not freely given just because he had been The Gunslinger who once had slain all comers. This time, he’d cast himself adrift into a world that no longer cared about his every move but would like an autograph.

==============

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

“Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.”

“No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.”

“Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: ‘Why did he do it?'”

“It is against our custom, It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it.”

* * *

Eventually he came back to the game. It was the place where his currency was brightest and crispest; the constant attempts to relive youth through remembrance fill the veins of baseball and pump a new but different life into the husks of old stars. Like washed-up boxers retelling dim stories in a bar, they come alive and feast on memories. He parlayed his wealth and connections first into significant Texas minor league ownership and then he accepted the mercenary’s role once more and became the public face of a group who purchased the Rangers. The competitive fire was burning hard in him still; the challenges were shadowy and potent. It was easy for Ryan to work the public and grin for politicians, but fending off the quizzical bumps he got from all directions at the hands of multi-billionaires threatened to be overwhelming. The old gunslinger had learned some tricks though, and soon enough he could function in this new arena too. He learned the game of keeping focus off of yourself, while making sure that what he wanted to do didn’t interfere with enough of the Really Big Money to cause him problems.

It was an inevitable but delicious circumstance that resulted in the takeover of Texas baseball. Sticking it to Houston had long ago been replaced by much larger challenges, but in order for him to be successful with the Rangers he had to do just that – find ways to dominate the competition on every possible front. An addled and complacent Astro owner, flush with success but without a plan to maintain it, provided the perfect opportunity and Ryan seeded the state with an aggressive crop that strangled the Astros into submission. Their minor league teams fled the state. The major league team became a moribund laughingstock, ripe for the ultimate takeover, and was finally subjugated as weak and ineffectual prey in a killing field designed to strip them of all cover.

Internally though, the Rangers were slipping. Ryan’s bullish style and outsized ego resulted in a series of missteps that required action by other hands on the rudder. Once this realization became public, it was now more clear than ever that Ryan had been used again, his celebrity and mystique bartered for public interest and acceptance as long as it didn’t interfere with the larger questions at hand. At 66, facing the possibility that he couldn’t win this last challenge, he played the last public card he could and floated the humiliation to the press. The call to arms was noted, but not heeded. This is the last showdown for the old gunslinger.

===============

Much has changed for the Astros since 2012; actually, almost all has changed for them. It’s still the same ballpark, but new paint and colors are everywhere as they cast bread and circuses to the fans. New players, new broadcasters, new front office, new logo and uniforms, new business model, new frontiers in public relations stumbling. It’s normal to see extensive change under new ownership and expected that those changes would be even more pervasive when a failing one is taken over. Any way you look at it, it’s a New Era. Ice Age or Age of Reason? We aren’t going to have answers to these questions for years. It is, however, baseball season. It’s the greatest game, and we still get to see it played in Houston, night after night. Take the solace you can in this and continue your journey with patience. There is a horizon, and the sun does rise above it.

Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros don’t sweep the Cubs but take the series after losing final game.

Cubs 5 Astros 4

WP: Marmol (3 -3)
LP: Ambriz (1 – 1)

by Sphinx Drummond

Well this is it, the last recap for the Houston Astros 2012 season. A season full of things to forget and very few to remember. And it has fallen upon my narrow and bony shoulders to put the cherry on top of the crap-fudge sundae of a season that was 2012. Time to lay it down and put it to rest. I guess it’s also my job to try to pull the covers up and over the face of the dead National League Houston Astros. For those who cared or paid attention, it was a glorious 51 year run. The road was bumpy along the way for sure, but between those bumps being an Astro fan was one of the greatest things life has to offer a person.

With one game left to play the symmetry of the numbers was compelling. One more win and the franchise would have a nice even 4,000 wins in its NL history. One win and the ball club would leave the NL the way it came in — with a sweep of the Cubs. And one more win — the lowly 2012 Astros would equal the win total of the 2011 Astros — something that seemed impossible back in August.

With Travis Wood on the mound for Chicago, the Astros got the scoring started in the first on a Carlos Corporan single that scored Matt Dominguez. The Cubs tied it up in the second inning with a solo shot by some guy named LaHair. The Astros had pitched 28 consecutive scoreless innings before LaHair’s homer. Astro starter Edgar Gonzales got himself in trouble in the fourth allowing three runs, and had his season end by giving up a two run single to the opposing pitcher Travis Wood.

Speaking of Wood, he pitched a very good game and was relived by Jaye “The Crying Game” Chapman who got the last two outs in the top of the 7th inning. Down to the last six out in their NL history, with nothing to play for other than pride and some quirky numbers, the Astros managed a comeback in the 8th with a game tying three run homer off the bat of Justin Maxwell, his 18th of the season. A momentary glimmer of hope had returned to the Astros faithful.

It was short lived though, some guy named LaHair hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth. A disappointing end to a disappointing season. The Cubs celebrated on the field as the game was won, acting not like they just lost their final series of the year but had instead won something special. Fuck them. I can’t stand them. I can’t believe I once liked them.

I was arrested for disturbing the peace
But, hey, I was disturbing the war
I was waving a small white handkerchief
Singing “please don’t fight no more.”

In 1968 Bobby Reed’s dad took me, Bobby, and Danny Edwards to a ballgame at the Astrodome. It was against the Cubs but we didn’t care. We had field box seats. I had never sat so close. Three rows above the third base dugout. We got there a half hour before game time, so I had the idea to take my game program and lean over the roof of the dugout and hand the program to anyone in the dugout and ask for an autograph. Cub outfielder Jim Hickman, responded, “sure kid,” and disappeared. Within a few seconds some kill-joy slack vampire of an usher shooed me off of the dugout roof. I pleaded with him to let me wait but to no avail. He told me to go stand at the end of the dugout and maybe they’ll get my program back to me there.

Well, Mr Hickman eventually found me, said, “here you go kid,” and he turned and walked away before I could even say thanks. When I sat down I started looking at the program and noticed more than a few players had signed it and most next to their picture in the program. Fergie Jenkins, Bill Hands, Phil Regan, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert, Joe Niekro, Randy Hundley, and Ernie “let’s play two” Banks. four eventual Hall of Famers. For a while it became a prized possession and endeared me to the Cubs for a few years.

I lost that game program sometime during on of my many moves in the 80s. Also in the 80s while living in St. Louis, I started developing a hatred for the Cubs. That hate grew more when they became a division rival and became full bore by the time the Clown was doing his circus show at the Wrigley Big Top.

I was taken to court in a city of gold
Where silence is a sure sign of guilt
And you can’t speak out in your own defense
Or be heard over worlds being built
And the trial was a farce as befitted a place
Where comedy and tragedy share the same face
The judge read the verdict, a curtain was raised
An audience roared out in praise.

If you’ve been able to remain an Astros fan through this miserable course of a season, don’t fucking quit now. Sure the move sucks, I hate it too, really I do. I fucking hate it. Really hate it. But not only have I followed them this year at their shittiest point in their history, I have followed them since they started playing MLB ball in Houston, long before I knew or cared who Bud Selig, or Drayton McLane, or Jim Crane, were. Fuck them.

Not that there is anything wrong with it but I will not let those butt-chomping cocksuckers and their avaricious hunger take my team, take my joy. Those greedy bastards just don’t have the power. Sure Selig and McLane dropped their drawers and took turns shitting and pissing on Astro history and tradition, all while Crane held their dicks, wiped their asses and administered reach a-rounds, but fuck them. Shit and piss washes off.

I’m quite sure if the franchise had begun in the AL, it would not have made a difference to little 6 year old Sphinxy, I’m not going to let it make a difference to 56 year old Sphinx.

I was put in a cell for the whole afterlife
But my mind was just as free as can be
Somebody said, “just your body’s enchained”
And you can guess how that encouraged me
So I wandered and roamed for the rest of my days
I was clearing my name, I was apportioning blame
When I woke up, it was all a dream, all was well
When I woke up, I woke up in my cell

Sometimes I’m Gandhi, sometimes I’m a sexy beast. Most of the time I don’t know. Thanks for allowing me to rant every Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I’m honored to be included with Ron, Neil, Reuben, BudGirl, Mr Happy, and the others who did recaps this year. Onward into the void.

This Is Baseball

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros 3, Cubs 0

W: Norris (7-13)
L: Volstad (3-12)

Contributed by Reuben

It turns out I was completely mistaken in my recap for last Tuesday’s game. At the time I saw a weary, overmatched team that looked like it had run out of gas and was just hoping the damned season would end soon. Since then, they have won 5 out of 6 games, including 4 shutouts. The bullpen that for most of July and August seemed to be staffed entirely of pitchers destined to give up 1 or more runs every time they appeared in a game has quietly made the final innings of 2- or 3-run victories seem undramatic. Starters that looked exhausted a week ago – Norris, Harrell, Lyles – finished out their seasons in fine fashion, without allowing a single run.

And the offense did just enough (granted, they popped homers all over the place in the bandbox known as Miller Park, but that’s nothing extraordinary). Tonight they scraped together 3 runs again. Brian McTaggart actually put it very nicely:

Perhaps it’s only fitting the Astros are winding down their time in the National League with an impressive display of pitching and solid defense — trademarks the club was known for in its heyday.

I have ranted often, in the past year, to anyone who will listen, about not just the travesty of the Astros being forced to move to the DH league, but the bitter irony of it – the Astros, who for most of their history have been perhaps the quintessential National League team – known for speedy, line-drive hitters, small-ball tactics, and especially, as McTaggart notes, for pitching and defense.

So, for me, this past week has stoked a lot of Astros pride. That this patchwork collection of players, nearly all with highly questionable Major League futures, could manage to close out the season in this manner, that pays just a tiny bit of homage to the Astros of yesteryear, is more than I or any reasonably cynical person could’ve hoped for. Hell, I think every single one of us would’ve been perfectly happy with Jordan Lyles’ Fuck You Bud game, even if they lost every game after. At least one last Astro pitcher got to hit a home run.

Anyway, with the shutout tonight, the Astros have thrown 3 in a row, the first time the team has done so since the famous lead-up to clinching the division in 1986 – Deshaies’ 2-hitter, Ryan’s 1-hitter, and Scottie’s no-no. Speaking of, fuck Nolan Ryan. As I type, the A’s just finished beating the Rangers, 3-1. If they can win again tomorrow, Lynn Nolan’s team would be relegated to the 2nd Wild Card spot. Either way, I hope they experience a swift and humiliating exit from postseason play.

That, of course, is about the only pleasure we Astros fans will be able to take once the playoffs begin- I mean, I’ll be rooting for the Orioles, but in general the teams I root for are always the first ones eliminated, so very quickly I’m left with merely rooting against the teams that I hate the most.

For one more day, though, we’ll be able to root for the 2012 Astros. It’s been a rough, brutal, often embarrassing season, but I’m thankful for the respectable showing they’ve managed over the past month, and in particular this last week. They have earned a small measure of respect, in my mind, for the way they’ve veered the ship off its collision course with an historically awful season to a merely terrible one. It doesn’t even matter whether or not they win tomorrow and avoid setting a new franchise record for losses, although as my dad put it in a text tonight, it “would be a fitting bouquet to a season fraught with weeds”.*

*I think that must be something they used to say back in the North Carolina tobacco country, where my dad grew up. I’ve never heard it before, but I can’t think of a better way to end my last recap of the year than with some Astros-related musings from my dad, who got me into this fuckin’ mess in the first place, almost 30 years ago.

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