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.

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

Cubs 5 Astros 4

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.

Astros 3, Cubs 0

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.

Astros 7, Brewers 0

W: Lyles (5-12)
L: Fiers (9-10)

Last weekend Mrs. Brand and I attended the last two games during the 50th Anniversary Legends Weekend and left the big city with a kitty adopted from the shelter a friend of mine runs. Kitty #2 was supposed to go with us too, but he’d developed a cold and we elected to wait a week for his eyes to clear. Kitty #1 has now been christened Rocket J. Squirrel because he’s turned out to be a Somali kitty and he looks everything like a flying squirrel. He also has the flying part down cold. He’s a great kitty, even slept all the way in the carrier on the 160-odd miles back to the homestead.

Today I was informed early that I would be making the second trip alone. Well, it was an option, but Mrs. Brand had a lot to try and take care of today, so sure, I had no problem with the up-and-back.

I made great time, like really great time, just a bit over two hours (don’t tell). Kitty #2 was waiting there, eyes all cleared up and anxious to be on his way to his new home. I put him in the carrier and walked to the car, just as the rain I’d been leading caught up with us again. Kitty #2 proved to be a Houdini, able to get a paw and then his head past the zippered and strapped top of his carrier, so I had to redo that and grab the seam, bending it into a U around my fingers so that he couldn’t catch the miniscule opening and force it wide to escape into the car.

All the while, he is yowling. At the top of his voice. Every second.

It’s raining hard as I pull onto the highway, negotiating the steering wheel, the wipers, closing the escape hatch on the carrier and hoping I can find a clear spot so I can call Mrs. Brand and let her know we’re on our way. The yowling is constant still, and louder than the thoughts in my head.

He’s also scrabbling constantly, fighting and scratching, trying to shred the mesh on the carrier or the top or the ends, anything to get out of what surely is a kitty coffin. Yowling is doing a good job of keeping Kitty Death away but if he stops, something bad might happen so no way that’s going to be halted.

I thumb the speed dial and put the phone on speaker to let her know we’re coming, but it’s not going nearly as well as last week’s trip. The rain stops and starts, making me take my hand off the wheel to slip it between the spokes of the steering wheel to flip the wipers on, or off, or adjust the intermittence. Over and over. While never releasing the grip on the carrier, even though my arm is going to sleep. Or my wrist. Or a couple of fingers, so I’ll adjust and readjust. This only convinces Kitty #2 that Kitty Death is drawing nearer, so more yowls and scratching are necessary.

This goes on for 160 miles or so. I did get a four minute break once, when he took a nap. Then he woke up and was surprised he was still alive, so he redoubled his efforts to stay that way.

At last we made it home. I lifted the carrier, ran the gauntlet of dogs into the master bath we’d set up as a transition area for him, blocked off from Kitty #1 and the bedroom. I sat the carrier down and unzipped the door.

Kitty #2 sauntered out, purring loudly. He looked around, purred, rubbed up against us and immediately felt very nearly at home. We’ve spent the rest of the day introducing him to his new friend Rocky. They’re playing like buddies, snuggling up against us, purring, drooling the drool of love on our noses.

***

How’re you going to make your way in the world
When you weren’t cut out for working
When your fingers are slender and frail
How’re you going to get around
In this sleazy bedroom town
If you don’t put yourself up for sale

Where will you go with your scarves and your miracles
Who’s gonna know who you are
Drugs and wine and flattering light
You must try it again till you get it right
Maybe you’ll end up with someone different every night

On their way out of this league and into another, the Astros stopped off to drop a steaming turd into Milwaukee’s postseason punchbowl this weekend, capped off by Sunday’s 7-0 chain-whipping of the doomed bratboys. Four home runs, including the first for Lyles, the first this year by an Astro pitcher, and most likely the last an Astro pitcher will ever hit regardless of league buried the offal that Bud Selig did so much to coax into life.

Gleefully avoiding the fifth-inning malaise that has plagued him this year, Lyles fashioned his complete game shutout with guile and poise. He struck out three and only walked one, despite only having command of two pitches today. The fastball and slider was enough to tantalize a fatigued Brewer nine, who never really squared up on anything and certainly didn’t threaten to break through.

Fiers wasn’t so lucky. He surrendered shots in the fourth and fifth to Martinez and Lyles (418 feet!), then two in the sixth to Lowrie and Dominguez before leaving. Corporan added two RBI to cap the scoring on the NL Central’s latest tired whore.

You said you were an actress
Yes, I believe you are
I thought you’d be a star
So I drank up all the money,
Yes, I drank up all the money,
With these phonies in this Hollywood bar,
These friends of mine in this Hollywood bar

Loneliness and frustration
We both came down with an acute case
And when the lights came up at two
I caught a glimpse of you
And your face looked like something
Death brought with him in his suitcase

This journey isn’t one most of us wanted, but it’s one we’re going to take. Maybe it’ll be ok when we all get to the end, but one thing’s for sure – the Astros crapped all over the Brewers’ party this weekend. Fuck you, Bud.