I know it’s poor form to post a Series Preview two days before the series actually starts, but that’s just how excited I am to cover the Astros vs the um…the umm…wait, don’t tell me, I know it…Nationals!  Yay!  Thanks, so much, Limey, for passing this one off to me.

In case you’re wondering, Dear Reader, where the ol’ boy has gotten off to, well, he’s probably been getting bladdered on mother’s ruin with a couple of birds and blokes in Jolly Ol’. Just don’t do anything stupid, Limey.  We don’t want you on the cover of The Sun like last time, do we?

I read the News today, oh boy...

So…here we are.  Astros vs Nationals, huh?  Let’s see, apparently the Nats have some phenom pitcher named Stravinsky or something.  He’s the real deal, let me tell you.  He came back last week  after, like, three or four broken arms, and he threw a no-hitter against the Yankees.  The Astros don’t stand a chance!  They’ll break that record they set of 24 strikeouts vs Carlos Zambrano – nobody will come close to hitting him!

Sigh….

Ok, so here’s the stark truth.  The Astros have 95 losses.  95.  There are 19 games left.  How’d they ever win 162-minus-19-minus-95?

Bud and his band of merry  buffoons keep Crane on the fence, and a move to the AL West is slowly fading into view.  Apparently Baylor is the holdup.

The young bucks continue to impress in their own little ways, and Paredes looks to be quite the player, according to chuck and Mr. Happy.  Don’t ask me, I don’t watch.

The Nationals are also firmly out of contention, as is almost every team not currently in playoff positions.  If only both leagues had an even number of teams, then it’d be more fair and balanced.

And that’s about it, really.  19 more games to watch the Home 9 before they pack it up for The Void.  That’s a good reason to watch baseball.  There’s a better one below.

Probables

Friday, September 9, 2011, 6:05pm, Our Nation’s Capital

Bud Norris (6-9, 3.83) vs Tom Milone (0-0, 8.31)

Saturday, September 10, 2011. 6:05pm, Washington Monument

Wandy Rodriguez (10-10, 3.47) vs John Lannon (9-11, 3.48)

Sunday, September 11, 2011, 12:35pm, The Pentagon

Henry Sosa (2-3, 4.11) vs Stephen Strasburg (0-0, 0.00)

Promotions

Friday – Same shit we see at MMPUS.  Also, no fireworks.

Saturday – Danny Espinosa Bobblehead, let’s hope he’s right handed.

Sunday – Kids Run the Bases, and….

The 10 Year Anniversary of 9/11

I don’t pay much attention to politics.  In fact, I don’t pay any attention at all.  I reason that I have too much on my plate as is, or that I’m not an argumentative guy by nature or that nothing I do or think will affect any outcome, good or bad.  Some of those reasons are valid, some not.  The bottom line is: it’s too fucking tiresome.  Any sensible arguments commonly make way for idiots with gigantic megaphones, shedding fact and logic for absurdity and a color-by-numbers ethos.  Then new people get elected and the megaphones change sides.

Maybe it’s the 24-hour media outlets or the shlubs they hire to blur the line between “Expert” and “Mouthpiece.”  Maybe that’s how it’s always been.  Maybe I just haven’t gotten to the chocolate center, choosing only to avoid on the dung-flavored candy that surrounds it.  I don’t know.  But you know what?  If I want to be yelled at or lectured to, I’ll turn the fucking TV off when I’m at home.

Ten years ago this Sunday, nearly 3,000 Americans lost their lives in a cowardly act of terrorism.  2,977 men, women and children who just wanted to live their lives another day and go home.  For such a mundane goal to end in such a terrifying way, for every dream vanished and memory forgotten, to be soiled by blathering politicians and pundits competing in a measuring test in which every single one of them has a one-inch dick –  well it just really pisses me off.

We have sons and daughters and brothers and sisters at war.  We have veterans struggling at home.  There are many for whom life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a distant memory, a visage of the past.  We have more pressing matters.

So for them, for the 3,000 who died ten years ago and the countless others who perished in the wars since, I will salute in the most American way I know how.

I will watch baseball.

We all should.