Indians 2, Astros 0
By NeilT

I grew up on Cleveland’s gritty east side, in the Amish Ghetto, and the Indians have always been my team.  Who didn’t love the ‘89 Indians’ playoff run?  Take that, Yankees.  And I like saag paneer.  I love interleague play because I get to see real baseball, Cleveland American League baseball, complete with that great two-color cap and a stylized depiction of a Designated Hitter.
 
Of course I love this Astros team, too.  Ain’t they spunky!  They actually make me think of that great ‘89 Indians team.  They have a speedy centerfielder with an arrest record, a power hitter who can’t  hit, a short second baseman who never should have made the majors, and a closer with decorative tattoos.  They have a cut out with tear-away clothes in the clubhouse.  How great is that!  Just like Hollywood!  It’s too bad that redhead is leaving us.  She could have played Renee Russo.

I didn’t get to watch much of tonight’s game though.  We were driving to Tyler for a high school reunion.  I don’t know why.  Neither of us went to high school in Tyler, but there you are.  When you get old as us it’s fun to crash high school reunions.  Everybody thinks they’re supposed to know you, and can’t really remember that they don’t.
 
Harrell pitched 7 outstanding innings with 2 hits, 3 bb, one ER.  He should really be an all-star.  Wright pitched a 1-2-3 8th.  There is nothing but good to be said about Wright.  Carpenter got pulled after a hit in the 9th.  He was just about to put it all together, too.  And then my favorite Astros reliever, Abad, took the mound.  Before tonight he’d had 11 innings of work with only 10 hits.  He kept on pace, and now has 11.1 innings of work with only 11 hits.

FeRod has an era of 6, but he’s had lots of bad luck.  Did I miss something?  Where’s Myers?

12 Astros Ks.  7 lob.  Lots of fly balls that might have been but weren’t.  It’s even worse than being in Tyler.

Royals 2, Astros 1
WP: Chen (6-6, 4.81)
LP: Lyles (1-4, 5.04)

by Sphinx Drummond

The thing that first comes to mind whenever I think about the Kansas City Royals is George Brett. And when I think of Mr. Brett, a great player with some amazing accomplishments, the first thing that comes to mind is always hemorrhoids followed closely by the pine-tar incident, and then the amazing catch of Brett’s head by Lee May as Brett tumbled into the Royal’s dugout making an equally amazing catch of a pop foul by Tom Nieto in the ’85 World Series.

The next thing I think about is Darrell Porter out of his mind on dope and speed. Porter was a really good player and a great clubhouse guy. No one had anything bad to say about him, except he was out of his mind on dope and speed. Porter was so wrapped up in his addictions that he once found himself so paranoid that he stayed up all night guarding his front door–clutching billiard balls and a shotgun, convinced that Bowie Kuhn was trying to sneak in his house to ban Porter from baseball for life.

Kansas City had a good run in the ’80s. They had some good pitching staffs, anchored by Saberhagen and Quisenberry. Dick Howser was a great manager. They peaked in ’85 with their WS victory against the Cardinals in what was known as the “I-70 Showdown” and alternately the “Show-Me Series.” The Royals have been pretty much a non-factor for the past 20 years. A team with no hope of winning a division. In some respects I relate to them as an American League version of the Pirates.

It drives me to nuts to see the Astros fall to such depths that they are now looking up at teams like Kansas City and Pittsburgh. Yesterday, I had to work and was too busy to even listen to a day game on radio. But I hear the Astros lost. Meaning they dropped two of three to the lowly KC Royals. It would be nice if the Astros had better players, if they’d be a better team, and won more games. In time maybe, for right now, they are just a bad team looking to get better. Not bad guys, just not good baseball players.

Rangers eleventyasswhipping, Astros giveuplikepussies

Eighth grade, dressing in our cramped, fetid cinder-block dressing room. There’s the usual roar of conversation, laughs, jokes that begin to tail off and then there is silence. Elbows nudge, glances to a corner of the room lead other eyes in the silence.

Bart, already down to his briefs, has removed his undershirt. From his shoulders to his thighs, he is covered – covered! – in bruises. Not one square inch of unbruised skin. Belt impressions, fists, fingers. He dresses quickly, doesn’t say anything. Neither do we. By ninth grade, Bart is gone.

***

17, beautiful and innocent, Barbara was the prettiest of the three best friends that I was surreptitiously juggling in that fertile ground of restaurant work. Too pretty by far for me, she was also too innocent; out of them all, this one was the least likely to survive more than a few weeks.

One day I showed up for a shift and it was clear that something was wrong, something that the three of them knew about, wanted to talk about, but could only share their dark truth with a trusted…boyfriend…

Seems that Barbara’s father had decided it was time for her to learn all about the birds and the bees, so he locked her in the bedroom, sisters and mother outside, while he took the time to deliver the details in a hands-on fashion.

***

Richard fought with his father for his entire life, a physical relationship that destroyed any concept of self-worth that he might have had a chance for. At 17 he started using drugs, graduating to a significant IV crank addiction by his mid-20s. Three ex-wives, couple of kids, covered in tattoos because the pain felt like a punishment to him, he finally did time for armed robberies he committed to pay for his latest wife’s heroin addiction.

***

Forrest was eight when his father called him out to the back porch to see something. His father wanted him to watch while he stuck a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

***

My father was the dad that all my friends wished was their dad too. He was personable, very funny, sharp and perceptive. He also had enough of the rogue in him that made him even more attractive. He got middling marks at best in school – he was the kind of student who would call the instructors ‘teach,’ the guy who wouldn’t wear the motorcycle jacket but he’d attach the hook to the police car axle in the parking lot. He told me that story a long time before I saw it on the screen in American Graffiti, so I have no doubt that it was true.

Dad taught me everything you’d want your father to teach you. He was an excellent baseball player and he instilled that timeless love of the game in me. We played catch often. He was always up for working on my pitching. He took us to Astro games pretty much every summer.

He taught me the value of hard work. He ran a gas station with his father until they finally sold it in the early 70s as self-service company-owned stores began to replace the old franchises. He worked as a line mechanic for a dealership, drove a bread truck on the side and even was a part-time wrecker driver to make ends meet. His calm and personable manner earned him significant promotions at the dealership until he ended up being a general manager. We were very proud.

There were lots of other things that Dad taught me. Compassion, thinking situations through logically, what it means to be a good friend, and how to recognize crazy. Some of these lessons took many more years to sink in, but he was teaching them, whether my head was too thick to receive it or not.

Dad showed me how to be strong. When they wheeled him into the OR to see what was on his kidney, he never showed us the fear that we were all feeling. After they looked around and closed him back up instead of doing anything, he accepted that and never faltered.

We didn’t even know how close he was to the end until it was already upon us. He got to meet my wife but missed the wedding. He missed my children being born too, and I’m sure he would have been a fantastic grandfather. I miss his love and guidance and counsel every single day, but at least he was my dad for those years and I know I’m far more fortunate than many for that.

If you’re a father, I hope you can do your best to be the kind of father you’d want to have, regardless of your situation. You can’t do anything greater or of more importance than making your kids’ lives better.

If you’re not a father, maybe you can show your dad some appreciation for the sacrifices he made, even if they aren’t apparent.

Or, if you’re like the people I wrote about at the beginning, I hope you can find some peace and not make the same horrible mistakes those men did. Let that cycle of shame end with them and create a new legacy.

***

On this Father’s Day, Dallas Keuchel got the call due to Norris’ injury. Miraculously, he left in the bottom of the sixth with a 1-0 lead against the juggernaut Rangers. Of course, after a single by Cruz Mills brought in FeRod, who walked the bases full so he could hang a breaking ball to Kinsler for a three-run triple and the shitrain began to fall in torrents. Carpenter came in, gave up a single and then a home run to Beltre.

Lackadaisical play ensued in the field as the Astros gave up, resulting in well-deserved catcalls and hoots from the denizens of the GameZone. The fans pay for and expect better, but what they’re getting is the same watery explosive shit you’d expect from an infant, which is about the level of baseball IQ this team displays more often than not.

Watching this team mail it in on their way to shitsville every day is exasperating. After a brutal week, they have more favorable matchups next week so maybe they’ll care a little more when they aren’t being depantsed and beaten around the head by superior teams. Or maybe they’re about to go on a run of shitty baseball that we thought they’d graduated from. If that’s the case, look for a lot of changes to start happening soon, either with the team or with the managing.

Happy Father’s Day, y’all.

Rangers 6, Astros 2
by Mr. Happy

Caught up in the exhilaration of contributing my first piece to SnS yesterday, I decided to tempt fate and go back to the well for another drink. The circs were different this time though. We weren’t in the City by the Bay; we were in Hell, Texas, a/k/a DFW. If you want just a short list of why Dallas sucks big time, read Ebby Calvin’s fine palpably hatred-filled series preview. In a nutshell, tonight’s game sucked. The clues as to suckitude arrived early on, just as we found out that CB Bucknor was going to be behind the plate tonight. How that guy is still in the big leagues is beyond me. He must have the pics of FYB channeling J. Edgar Hoover in a tutu and spikes. Disgusting. CB’s knowledge of the strike zone tonight was, well, just a shade big. Make that two shades.

This was a matchup of young Jordan Lyles and the well-rested Japanese/Iranian phenom Yu Darvish. The second clue that tonight wasn’t going to be the Astros’ night was that they were facing a starting pitcher who often pitches out of the stretch even when there is no one on base. After four innings, the young Lyles held on to a 1-0 lead, courtesy of a Jed Lowrie RBI single, driving home Altuve, who had gotten in scoring position after a walk by swiping a bag.

For the second straight start, Mr. Lyles ran into a five in five problem. The fielding let him down as Clank Johnson committed his ninth error of the season, which opened the floodgates of Hell with a following series of dink bloop hits and seeing eye singles. But it added up to five runs, which chased Mr. Lyles. The Regulators came into tonight’s game with one out in the bottom of the fifth, and only allowed one run for the balance of the game. But the damage was done.

Rhiner Cruz allowed his fifth home run-a solo bomb tonight by Mitch Moreland- in just 22.1 innings of work—numbers that are Abadesque. Should we keep Rhiner around should be the question on everybody’s minds. To me, he’s taking up a roster spot and better start showing some potential fast or send him back to the steM. His BAA of .311 suggests that he ain’t exactly fooling anyone. And he’s sporting a peachy 1.75 WHIP. Great.

The only other good thing that happened tonight was Justin Maxwell’s seventh home run, a solo shot. Jordan Schreefer should start looking over his shoulder at Maxwell, whose power, with a batting average close to Schreefer’s, may give him an edge in CF.

Yu Darvish, taking advantage of fucktard Bucknor’s ridiculously big strike zone, struck out 11 Astros. The Astros committed three errors tonight, so it just wasn’t a good effort anywhere around.

The good news is that the Game Zone, which had been moribund on the previous day, came back to life with a vengeance, where luminaries such as our own lovable Ron Brand waxed poetic on their intense hatred for front-running, classless RangerFan. I’ll close with another shot at CB Bucknor: you suck, Bucknor. If Millsie had half the nuts of some managers, he’d have gotten run by the end of the fifth inning on your horseshit strike calls.