I'd just like to note that an historical era is apparently ending.
For 60 years it has been common to refer to someone in charge who one was not agreeable with as a "Hitler"; maybe the person employing it did not understand all the intellectual and emotional ramifications of throwing that sobriquet around, but no matter. . . that was the default for a petty and/or tyranical leader for many years.
Now it appears we are moving on. But, Hugo Chavez? Unless I believe present day Astros locker room wags have a fairly developed sense of the subtleties of international politics and/or the political irony sometimes attached, I have to believe the appellation being used now is more along the lines of a blunt instrument rather than a rapier, which it certainly could be used as (no one ever laughed at Hitler the way one can laugh at Chavez, if he is looked at in a certain way.)
What does this say about the drift in the Astros locker room nowadays? Do some view Cooper as a somewhat comical petty despot whose forays into international politics, especially his tilting at his big brother to the north, are going to get him squashed like a bug sooner or later? Or do they see Cooper as a brutal martinet who is probably going to overrun Poland and the rest of continental Europe any day now?
If they are thinking Chavez = Hitler, what does that say about the state of brutal despots in the world these days? It is a pretty big step down from Der Fuhrer to Persident Hugo.
Or maybe it is just the club's venerable Venezuelan connection coming through again. Will Elvis C. have to change the song to "Two Little Chavez's"?
And, oh yeah, it wouldn't bother me if Cooper gets himself deposed. And soon, too.
