Terrible Fan Fiction, Astros v. Nationals Preview Edition

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Series Previews

Contributed by Great Bagwell’s Beard

The Oval Office, Washington, D.C.

“I’m not your whore. I don’t come when you call, or when you touch me. I’m here to run your campaign, nothing more.”

Olivia Pope was out of breath. These monologues were hard to deliver.

Fitz flared his nostrils. It was time for Facial Expression 2.

“All I know is that if those Astros on the schedule, I NEED YOU BY MY SIDE!”

There he went, yelling for no reason again.

“I’ve brought in a new Vice President for you. You go through them faster than the Astros go through relief pitchers, so I wanted to have a new one ready just in case.”

“Who is it?”

The Oval Office door creaked open slowly.

“Hello, Fitz.”

Frank Underwood oozed into the room, and immediately turned to face an invisible camera.

“Now I may sound like Foghorn Leghorn after a series of debilitating strokes, but I’m no fool. I know those National boys are missing Harper and Fister, and I’m worried as hell about Houstonians laying waste to the team that represents our fair city.”

A silence settled over the room. Olivia filled a glass of red wine.

The door of the office swung open, nearly snapping off its hinges.

“Who the fuck are you talking to, Frank? NO ONE KNOWS, NO ONE CARES. Get the shit out of here, Buford T. Closetfucker! I’m still the fucking vice president last time I checked.”

Selina Meyer was actually having a pretty good day for once. She walked over and sat down behind Fitz’s desk. He stuttered a protest.

“Zip your mouth and your pants, asswipe! This is what you get for never calling me. Now where are we on the Astros?”

Olivia cleared her throat.

“It’s only two games. And we don’t have to face McHugh.”

“I’m STILL WORRIED ABOUT COSART!”

“Stop yelling, Mister President. You’re tighter wound than taffy in a tornado.”

“Shut the fuck up, Frank.” The President sulked and looked at a portrait on the wall. “What would you do, Josiah?”

“Paintings can’t talk, numbnuts,” Selina spat.

“Have some respect. Mr. Bartlett was our wisest President, nay, the wisest man in human history, whose wisdom we were all privileged to bask in, in hallways, in corridors, in offices, in really long hallways. Everywhere in this godforsaken town.”

Frank’s gentle correction silenced the room again. Olivia finished her wine with a gulp. She knew what needed to be done.

“I’m going to have my father kill Bryce Harper.”

Probable Pitchers

Tuesday, April 29th
7:10 CT, MMPUS
Gio Gonzalez (3-1, 3.00) v. Jarred Cosart (1-2, 6.12)
Gio never gets treated like a dirty player, even though he most assuredly is one. Fucker. Fowler has hit a homer off of him as part of a fun .500/1.167/1.667 slash line. Altuve and Guzman have also hit him pretty well.
Cosart looked great to start the year, but needs to find his rhythm in his first full season. He’s never faced the Nats. Because they’re an NL team, and we’re an AL team. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Wednesday, April 30th
7:10 CT, MMPUS
Jordan Zimmerman (1-1, 4.05) v. Brett Oberholtzer (0-4, 4.61)
Zimmerman is a lot of letters to put on a jersey to begin with, and adding a first initial makes it even more crowded. Maybe when Ryan went on the DL, they agreed to let Jordan have sole possession of the surname. Guzman and Marwin have hit him well, but he strikes out Fowler a lot.
Oberholtzer feels like a bad luck guy in the early going, but the numbers sure don’t back that up. He’s never faced the Nats, either.

Injuries
Astros
Albers – 15 day DL. Shoulder tendinitis.
Crain – 15 day DL. Seriously. Maybe he’s in a space-time thing where 15 days actually means 2 months.
Feldman – 15 day DL. Bicep tendinitis.
Fields – Strained quad. Would’ve figured his neck was hurt watching balls fly off hitters’ bats.
White – TJ surgery.

Nats
Erik Davis – the “k” means he’s a mediocre white guy. 60-day DL.
Doug Fister – HAHAHAHAHA your name dude.
Gio Gonzalez – shoulder tightness. From cheating.
Scott Hairston – Left oblique strain.
Bryce Harper – Sliding headfirst? That’s a paddlin’
Jeff Kobernus – Fractured left hand.
Ross Ohlendorf – Right lumbar strain
Wilson Ramos – Hand surgery
Ryan Zimmerman – Fractured left hand

Prrrrrromotions
NONE! You get nothing and you’ll like it!

What To Watch For
– Maybe Singleton? Nah, probably not.
– Headfirst sliding.
– Veep’s streak as the most accurate show about the Beltway ever.

Talk About It In The Game Zone!

The Legend of Collin McWho

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros 5, A’s 1

W: McHugh (2-0)
L: Milone (0-2)

Submitted by Reuben

By 3:42 Central Time Sunday afternoon everyone wanted to know: Who is this Collin Mc… Hugh? Whatshisname. Who is that guy? Where did he come from? Whose shirts does he wear? And why is it that no one could remember ever hearing of him before last week?

Stories vary widely about the origins of the mysterious Mr. McHugh. Some say he had never played professional baseball until a month ago, when he was discovered performing Herculean feats of farming prowess in a cornfield outside of Lucas, Kansas, and convinced by an Astros employee to try throwing a baseball. Others insist that he’s played major league baseball for years, except his name used to be Johan Santana, and he used to throw left-handed.

And then there are those who believe that he was found in a crate, hidden in a warehouse belonging to the US Government, the product of top-secret experiments conducted by Nazis to create the ultimate soldier/curve-ball specialist. Oddly, no one in the Astros’ front office can quite remember whose idea it was to trade for Mr. McHugh, or where they’d even heard of him. One source familiar with the Astros’ thinking explains that if you squint at the computer printout of McHugh’s career Sabermetric stats, it looks a little bit like an image of Jesus wearing a baseball cap.

Easily the most plausible theory of Mr. McHugh’s genesis, however, involves Astros manager Bo Porter, who, of course, is largely, if not solely, responsible for every win or loss earned by the club. Fans and 3rd-string Chronicle writers alike laud Porter’s brilliance for his rumored use of a time machine to travel 20 years into the past and enroll a young McHugh in a little-known pitching academy perched upon a mountainside in Nepal, run by a group of mute Buddhist monks.

Believers in this theory praise Porter in particular for coming up with the idea to plant a post-hypnotic suggestion in McHugh’s mind, that would prevent him from tapping into his vast pitching abilities until he donned an Astros uniform and had Jason Castro whisper the mystic phrase “yangervis solarte” in his ear. However, Porter draws heavy criticism from the same sources because, they argue, any halfway-competent MLB manager with access to a time machine would have gone back to 2009 and insisted that his organization draft Mike Trout, and not, say, Jiovanni Mier.

While his history prior to last week may be shrouded in obscurity, what is perfectly clear is that Mr. McHugh pitched another dominant baseball game Sunday, tossing 8.666666667 innings of 2-hit ball, allowing 1 meaningless run and striking out 7. Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the game, although… can any of us truly be sure that we’ve actually seen Collin McHugh pitch? Or have we just dreamt it?

**Check out the GameZone thread, full of hearsay and tall tales.

**And the mlb.com boxscore, with the “facts”.

White Elephants 12, Astros 5

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

contributed by NeilT

I love the A’s. If I didn’t have a kick-ass team like the Astros to follow, I might well like following the A’s, what with their Southern Baptists stylings of green and gold polyester with white shoes, and Mr. Bean as their general manager. Plus they have a storied history that could serve as a model for other franchises.

When Connie Mack finally stepped down as manager of the A’s in 1950, they had a losing record that covered almost all of the 17 years from their last dynasty. Overall during that period Connie Mack would lose 1,489 games and win 986. That’s a winning percentage of .398. In 1950 they finished with the worst record in baseball, 52-102. Mack had given a minority interest in the A’s to his three sons, and they finally did the only thing that they could do: they fired the manager. It’s just like King Lear.

Being good sons, having slain their father, they immediately fell to disagreeing. Mack had owned the team with Tom Shibe, and then Shibe’s sons, and Connie, Jr. and the Shibe heirs allied against Roy and Earle Mack and put the team up for sale. Roy and Earle had a first option, and to buy the team they mortgaged it to Connecticut General Life Insurance Company for $1.74 million, with annual payments of $200,000 for the first five years of the loan.

The team had been cheaply run since the 30s, except for a brief period in 1950 when Connie Jr. tried to spend some money on improvements. Now Roy and Earle — you got to wonder who played the banjo and who played the fiddle — did what their father would have done: they cut costs. They had a winning season in 1952, but otherwise they were about as bad as a bad baseball team could be. They were purposefully bad, and it wasn’t for any rebuilding purpose either.

The Phightin’ Phils meanwhile were playing well. In 1950 the A’s were in last place while the Phils went to the World Series. Roy and Earle again faced the problem and cut more player and front office costs, turned over the rents to Connecticut General, cut minor league teams, and began phightin’ among themselves. In 1954 the A’s finished 51-103, with season attendance of 304,666, or 1,978 per game.

It’s hard to imagine a team winning only 51 games.

By 1954, the Macks were heading to bankruptcy, the Phils controlled Philadelphia, and the American League owners were bitching about the lousy gate. The American League president, Will Harridge, forced a move to the Midwest, to Kansas City, where the Yankees AAA affiliate played in Blues Stadium. Arnold Johnson bought the club. In 1955 opening day for the A’s was in Kansas City. Johnson — and write this in your notes ‘cause there may be a quiz — owned Yankee Stadium and was a business partner of the Yankee owners. And it wasn’t like the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants. No one in Philadelphia seemed unhappy to see them go.

The take from Johnson was $3.5 million, which paid off the mortgage and gave a nice return. The Macks sold Shibe Park to the Phils.

***

With thanks to Wikipedia. There’s also a very good article here: http://sabr.org/research/departure-without-dignity-athletics-leave-philadelphia

***

What can you say about a game like tonight’s? I have to admit, I left in the 9th after fields? gave up the first three runs on sucky relief work and sucky fielding. It was almost 11, and I wanted to go fishing in the morning.

Into the 9th the score was tied, 0-0, or 5-5, or 25-25. Ok, 5-5. Peacock gave up 4 in the second, and one more in the fourth, and did not look like the 30-game winner we all know he is. It wasn’t tied because of excellent pitching and fine crisp defense. Nossir. It was tied because both teams had sucked in about equal ways, with lots of walks given by Peacock, men stranded, and poor fielding, but in the 3rd the the ‘Stros scored one off of Chavez, and in the 4th scored four more.

Going into the 9th, tie game, I was thinking man, we could win this thing.

We didn’t. In the 9th the Astros showed their love, taking it at about every angle in every orifice. I left maybe 4 batters into the 9th, walked 8 blocks to my car, drove up out of the garage and drove through downtown and midtown and Montrose to home, and when I got home the ninth inning wasn’t over yet. It was the longest 9th inning ever, and the pukiest. The A’s scored 5 ER off of fields? and 2 off of Bass.

End of the game, 5-12 A’s. The A’s had sent 48 people to the plate in the 9th, including their team trainer, the headshot coordinator, and the dog walker.

Thank goodness I love the A’s, because otherwise I’d hate the A’s.

Early and Often

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Athletics 10 Astros 1

Contributed by Mr. Happy

Little did we know it at the time, but this one was over in the top of the first frame, when Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods clubbed the first of his two long balls to give Oakland and Scott Kazmir (3-0) an early 2-0 lead that they would never relinquish. Poor Brett Oberholltzer (0-4) was pretty ordinary tonight, leaving too many pitches over the plate, and the A’s didn’t miss them. Alberto Callaspo also contributed a line drive home run as the Athletics garnered 14 knocks in the game. As bad as it was, it could have been worse—the Athletics were 3-14 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. The Astros made five, count ‘em, five fucking errors. Sheesh. Pick up that damn ball for crying out loud.

Oberholtzer didn’t get out of the fourth frame, surrendering six earnies and two free passes. Paul Clemens relieved Oberholzer and pitched rather ineffectively until the home plate umpire, Toby Basner, ran him for dotting former Astro Jed Lowrie in what appeared to be a hangover from last week’s shenanigans. If Clemens gets fined, I’d demand that Porter pay it, because I’m convinced that Porter gave that order. On the bright side, if there is one in a 10-1 ass kicking, punching bag Jerome Williams, whose lifetime BAA against the Athletics was around .370 in over 100 ABs, pitched two scoreless and hitless frames to bring his ERA down under 6, so he’s got that going for him.

Despite only putting one run, the Astros had ten hits. Jose Altuve led the way with three hits, while Matt Dominguez and Jonathan Villar contributed two hits apiece. Situational hitting was a bug-a-boo again because the club was 1-10 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. Saddle up sports fans, we’ve got the A’s again tonight, with Brad Peacock taking the hill against Jesse Chavez in another rematch from last week. Let’s pray that this one goes better than the rematch last night.

SEA GRRRRRRRRR…

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros’ lose 5-3 after Kyle Seager’s walk off 3 run homer

WP: Fernando Rodney (1-1)
LP: Josh Fields (0-1)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

For a brief moment it looked like the Astros might get their first series sweep of the year. Josh Fields came on in the ninth with a 3-2 lead and gave up hits to Robinson Cano and Corey Hart, putting a man on first and second before getting Justin Smoak to strike out. That’s when Kyle Seagrrr hit his second homer of the game.

Jared Cosart pitched well, bouncing back from his horrid last start. He took a shutout into the seventh after failing to make it out of the first inning in his previous start. The Astros got a two-run double from Jason Castro in the third inning and Chris Carter hit his second homer of the series in the seventh to take a 3-0 lead.

Seagrrrrr, who entered the day hitting .156 with just two RBIs on the season, hit his first homer of the game, a two run shot in the bottom of the seventh to make the score 3-2, Astros. Fucker.

The Astros return home Thursday to face the Oakland A’s and Scott Kazmir (2-0, 1.65 ERA). The Astros will counter with Brett Oberholtzer (0-3, 3.04 ERA) who is ready for a win.

Game Time: 2:50.
Weather: 53 degrees, Cloudy.
Wind: 2 mph, In From Left.
Attendance: 13,739.

Athletics @ Astros Series Preview

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Ebby Calvin in Featured, Series Previews

Jack and Lily landed in Lihue with little in their pockets and nothing on the schedule. No jobs lined up, no place to stay, no black-tie driver holding a placard with “Wandering College Graduates” scrawled upon it. Just a young couple with hopes and dreams and other applicable Neil Diamond lyrics. They figured they’d figure it out when they figured it out.

Johnny and Kim knew they were coming, sure, but the latest correspondence between the two parties went something like this:

“Hey you should come visit this summer!”

“Sounds great!”

The $300 cash they shared was tucked away in various zippered- and buttoned-pockets on each of their persons. Jack hid five tens in Lily’s backpack and vice versa, each bill leading to the next; the last traces of their net worth spread about like cookie crumbs. The last tenner slept soundly at the bottom of Jack’s sack, folded intricately inside a road map of Oakland they’ll never use again with a note that read ARE YOU REALLY SURE? The rest they kept in a red canvas O’Neill wallet (velcro).

First order of business: find a cheap beater and track down Johnny and Kim. Second order of business: find jobs.

Bedrolls affixed to backpacks, surfboards tucked under arms and a hastily-rolled pinner burning quickly between them, Jack and Lily walked into their new life.

Half an hour later the sprawl of Oakland lay open in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

***

Athletics @ Astros Series Preview

Probable Starters

I find this strange: I have zero idea what Oberholtzer, Peacock or Keuchel look like. None. If you stood the three of them in front of me and slapped a jersey on each of their backs, I’d definitely get two names wrong. And while I’m at it, let’s work out that whole tv deal guys, ok? Just end this, please.

Thursday, Apr 24, 7pm, MMPUS

Scott Kazmir (2-0, 1.65) vs Brett Oberholtzer (0-3, 3.04)

Friday, Apr 25, 7pm, MMPUS

Jesse Chavez (1-0, 1.38) vs Brad Peacock (0-2, 6.14)

Saturday, Apr 26, 6pm, MMPUS

Dan Straily (1-1, 5.40) vs Dallas Keuchel (2-1, 3.38)

Sunday, Apr 27, 1pm, MMPUS

Tommy Milone (01, 4.24) vs TBD

***

The 1983 Buick Park Avenue was drivable, but that’s fairly generous. The driver’s-side door fought at its hinges above 25mph and the front hood stood at attention once you hit 40. There were no floorboards. Fred and Wilma and Barney and Betty could drive this thing and feel right at home, save for the sparkly-blue paint job (spill?) that coated every exposed inch of metal, chrome or rubber. The tape deck looped endlessly with a compilation of Essential Waltzes that was apparently welded in the feeder slot. The volume knob decided long ago that it, and only it, would crank it up or bring it down when it damn well pleased. Waltzes can be tricky.

The whole package cost exactly $250, and the beast’s previous owner, a local who just needed the cash, threw a few rolls of duct tape in the back seat out of either thanks or pity.

They drove north.

***

Uncle Johnny floated in and out of restaurants, trading his culinary degree for a bag of pot when he needed it. He owned exactly two pairs of shoes: blue rubber flip-flops and the brown leather flip-flops he wore at his wedding. Aunt Kim was a local who ran a highly-regarded real estate business with her mother, which is a very, very, very good thing to own in a place like Kauai. They had a happy marriage and happy daughters and a handful of chickens out back. And I can’t give you a single reason why they shouldn’t have all three.

Their two-story wooden house (which Kim secured for a steal) sat on its own bluff, where from the second story porch the Pacific stretched to the end of the earth. Humpbacks mated there in the spring.

***

Promotions

Thursday – $1 Hot dogs

Friday – Astros Golf Umbrella; fireworks

Saturday – Jason Castro All-Star bobblehead

Sunday – Dog day!

***

Hanalei, according to Google, translates syllable-for-word into “the most beautiful fucking place on earth.”

Johnny picked us up in a rusty green Toyota Tacoma and I voluntarily jumped in the truck bed for the hour drive up the Eastern shore. I grabbed leaves and berries when the road got slow, traced Red-Crested Cardinals’ paths from limb to limb. Gazed at the ocean. Saw a lot of goats.

I could hear my parents’ animated conversations muffled through the back window. The backseat window slid open as my dad mouthed to me: Jack and Lily never showed up. Johnny and Kim didn’t know they were here. They landed five months ago. My cousin was missing.

***

There had been no contact. Email was still a relatively new phenomenon and therefore completely unreliable as a means of communication. They had no phone number and didn’t write letters. Aside from the airline’s confirmation that yes, Jack and Lily were on the plane to Lihue, they left no trace.

We called the police, called their friends, called hospitals – all dead ends. Johnny and I spent each of the next three days combing highways and back roads, polling local businesses, flashing pictures in restaurants. Lily’s mother flew up.

The fourth day we found them. Johnny and I had been jolting and jerking our way through the thick of the jungle along a long-forgotten dirt road when I caught a flash in my periphery. A white-hot, neon-blue flash that glimmered in the sun. Almost…sparkly. A closer look revealed a very old, very blue and very broken Buick Park Avenue, tucked neatly under drooping ferns. Two surfboards duct-taped to the roof. Johnny stopped the truck.

***

Injuries

Athletics

Jacob Elmore – spotted leopard crotch flu

AJ Griffin – striped bass anal fissures

Eric O’Flaherty – miniature Chihuahua tooth ache

Jarrod Parker – bearded lizard beard lice

Fernando Rodriguez – strep

Astros

Jesse Crain – recovering from biceps surgery, due early May

Scott Feldman – bicep tendinitis, due early May

Alex White

Asher Wojciechowski – lat strain, no timetable for return

***

I recognized Jack’s surfboard immediately and hesitantly poked my head in the window. No signs of life, but the car was clearly dead. For some reason the floorboards were missing. The nearby banana and avocado trees seemed to have mistaken it for a nursery.

Johnny ventured into the jungle, eyes trained at the ground. Then, “Ow! MotherFUCKER!”

I ran to his side, then I felt it – like a paintball in the middle of the back from three feet away. “MotherFUCKER!”

We looked up together as Jack lobbed another avocado at us from twenty feet in the air.

“Heads up!”

***

They never made it to Johnny and Kim’s because they just never got around to it. They got lost on the way to Johnny’s that first day and the Buick died in a puddle that was deeper than it looked. Why they took the worst possible route to find the house was completely beyond their understanding or explanation.

Jack found a job cleaning old lighthouses while Lily taught dance to 4-year-old girls in town. Both jobs paid cash. Food was picked from the trees and the farmer’s market. The Buick became their pantry. And Lily was pregnant.

When asked what their plans were for the baby and why the FUCK they didn’t tell anybody what they were doing, Jack said, simply, “we figured we’d figure it out when we figured it out.”

They still live there, 14 years later. In a house. With a Buick.

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