SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. II, NO. 5

July 16-July 18, 2010

Astros (36-53) vs. Pirates (30-58)

PNC Park
115 Federal Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15212

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I can hear chants and incantations
And some guy is mentioning me in his prayers
Well, I don’t know what it is
But there’s definitely something going on upstairs

IS THAT A REAL PONCHO? OR IS THAT A SEARS PONCHO? Going into/coming out of the All Star break, the Astros look to be in a lot better shape than they were about a month-and-a-half ago. Oh, they are still not very good, and they are going nowhere with regard to the standings; but they are now solidly mediocre, which I will take over ‘fucking awful’ just about any day. The insertion of Chris Johnson and Jason Castro into the lineup has seemed to rev things up a bit. . . oh, alright, the offense is still woeful sucks. They have been getting some really good pitching out of the starters, though, and that has kept them from sliding all the way down the slippery slope, so far. I no longer think they’ll lose 115 games this season, or even 100.

Lately I’ve been mentally comparing this season to 2000, rightly or wrongly. One of the main differences is that prior to this season, most anyone with any sense knew the team was going to be bad, if not this bad. I don’t think very many fans at all saw 2000 coming. I know I didn’t. But I’ll say this – if suffering through a crappy season is the only option, let it be with a team with a crippled offense and decent pitching, like this year; rather than a decent offense and zero pitching. I couldn’t watch many of the high scoring borefests in 2000 for very long, but a lot of the games this season, especially lately, have been interesting and even gripping.

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PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday July 16, 2010
Game Time: 6:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: Pirates Beach Towel, sponsored by Fed Ex Ground. It’ll come in handy for Pirate fans headed for the Pittsburgh beaches this summer.
Matchup: Houston – Brett Myers (6-6, 3.41) Myers has been solid all season, and lately he has even got better. He has pitched at least six innings in all 18 of his starts so far. That is called taking care of business. You’ve got to pick up every stitch, you know? ‘Cause the rabbit’s running in the ditch. And beatniks are out to make it rich.
Pittsburgh – Zach Duke (3-8, 5.49) Zach Duke was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the third of seven children. Duke claims not to have any horrible memories of his home life; although his family was of working class background, he remembered always having shelter and other resources. The community considered his family to be a respectable, with well-behaved children. Duke’s father was by all accounts a mild-mannered man; he was a carpenter who was often unemployed due to rheumatoid arthritis in his hands. During these periods, Duke’s mother supplemented the family income by working as a waitress.

Saturday July 17, 2010
Game Time: 6:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: An Italian Celebration. There are a lot of Italians in the Pittsburgh area; along with every other kind of ethnic group you could think of. I’ve been to Italian celebrations – my wife is Sicilian, which is the same thing, sort of – and all I can say is bring a lot of beer, and I hope you like spirited conversation. And good food. And a lot of guys in pin-striped suits, standing around and mumbling to each other.
Matchup: Houston – Bud Norris (2-6, 5.97) Norris sometimes looks like he might get it together and become a decent middle of the rotation starter. This is usually when he starts against the Co-ardinals. Other times he looks helpless helpless helpless helpless. This is in his starts against everybody else. He should probably stop while he can. Get some fried eggs and country ham. Find somewhere where they don’t care who he am.
Pittsburgh – Ross Ohlendorf (1-7, 4.22) Ross Ohlendorf was born in a one-room log cabin in Blacksburg, Virginia, the youngest of nine children. His mother was an alcoholic prostitute. His father was an alcoholic and former railroad employee who had lost his legs after being hit by a freight train. He would usually come home inebriated, and would suffer from his wife’s wrath as often as his sons. Ohlendorf claimed that he and his brother were regularly beaten by their mother, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma after his mother struck him with a wooden plank, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her having sex with strange men. He also claimed that his mother would dress him in girls’ clothing. His sister supports this story, and she claims that she once had two pictures of Ohlendorf as a toddler dressed in girls’ clothes. Ohlendorf described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his uncle, only to see his mother shoot and kill it. He also claimed that, at the age of eight, he was given a teddy bear by one of his teachers, and was then beaten by his mother for accepting charity.

Sunday July 18, 2010
Game Time: 12:35 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: Kids’ Paddle Ball Set, sponsored by Huggies – the disposable diaper mega-conglomerate – and Giant Eagle, a regional chain of grocery stores. Brilliant idea, just brilliant. We are talking a Pirates-themed paddle, with a rubber ball attached to it by a long straight rubber band. You remember playing with a paddle ball setup as a kid, yes? I am glad I won’t be in the PNC stands for this. Paddle noises in your ear, rubber balls in your beer.
Matchup: Houston – Roy Oswalt (6-10, 3.08) RoyO is pitching like he is 22, instead of 32. He says he
feels better now than he ever has. Last time out, he tossed a one-hitter at these same Pirates. They
must look like easy pickings to him. Roy’s slim and they’re weak, they got the teeth of the hydra upon
them. Roy’s pitching like an untamed youth – that’s the truth – with a cloak full of eagles.
Pittsburgh – Paul Maholm (5-7, 4.37) Paul Maholm was born in Australia. His father was an American naval officer and his mother an Australian. He almost died at birth, but recovered; only to almost drown in a swimming pool at age two. In his teens, he pled guilty to a charge related to a gang-rape at a beach in Sydney. He was put on probation. During this time he received electroshock therapy. There is some evidence to suggest that this course of treatment only exacerbated Maholm’s violent sexual tendencies. It is known that he had virtually memorized the text of the 1963 novel The Collector by John Fowles, in which a man keeps a woman in his basement against her will until she dies. A copy of the novel can always be found on Maholm’s person, no matter where he is or what he is doing. Maholm got married, but his wife left after only a week. He then emigrated to the United States. He lived in Boynton Beach, Florida, in a mansion on Mission Hill Rd., and made a small fortune in real estate while developing an interest in photography. Over the next few years, he was in and out of court facing various charges related to sexual misconduct. He eventually raped a young woman he had lured into his truck on the pretense of photographing her for a modeling contract. This would become part of his modus operandi during his later rape and murder sprees. Despite several convictions, Maholm has never been jailed for any crime.

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All the bush league batters
Are left to die on the diamond
While in the stands, the home crowd scatters
For the turnstiles

THE TRAVELING BASE HIT SHOW. By far the most noteworthy thing to happen to the Astros lately is the hiring of franchise icon Jeff Bagwell to be the team’s batting (or hitting – which is it?) coach, to replace Sean Berry. Opinion on this move runs from, it was a cynical PR move spurred on by the business side of the Astros operation, to the Astros will now start hitting on a prodigious scale, with Bagwell instructing them. Personally, I don’t know which. I have never been real clear on what a hitting coach actually does, or to what degree highly paid major league hitters listen to position coaches at all. One thing I do know – the scribes and talk show yahoos wondering how Bags is going to teach hitting while simultaneously dissuading any pupil from adopting his unusual style and stance from his playing days don’t know much about hitting. No matter what you look like or where you are at the start, the basics of the swing are the same for everyone – try to pick up the ball out of the pitcher’s hand, don’t start your swing too early, keep your weight back as long as possible, keep your swing as level as you can through the hitting zone, etc., etc. Jeff Bagwell knows all this stuff like Einstein knew physics. The trick, as it always is in teaching, is to get what one knows across to one’s students so that they know it as well as you do, and can use it.

Probably Bagwell’s greatest asset will be that he is Jeff Bagwell. I think players will listen to him just because of that. I know I would.

There has been speculation as to why Bagwell took the Astros job at all. He doesn’t need it – he is set for life financially, from his high-paid playing days; and pretty much all he can do in this new position is fail. If he is successful, in the sense that the team’s hitting noticeably improves under his tutelage, people will say, “Of course, it’s Jeff Bagwell.  It is easy for him” If it doesn’t improve, he will be blamed unmercilessly.

Bagwell himself said that he’d been hanging out with his wife and kids since he retired, and had done a lot of fishing and played a lot of golf, and that he was tired of it. He wanted to do something constructive. In addition, people close to him were urging him to “do something with (his) life.” He said that when he decided to do so, and started thinking about possible jobs, he realized the only thing he really knew well was baseball. Which makes sense. It would seem like a waste to have someone with Bagwell’s baseball knowledge and skills selling insurance or cars or real estate.

True cynics doubt Bagwell’s explanations – there has been talk, perhaps sarcastic, that he really wanted to get back out on the road to take advantage of some of the other perks that go with being a well-known professional athlete, or a recently retired one. I wouldn’t know, and it isn’t my business. I do think I can understand the thinking behind the reasoning Bags is putting out there, though. He is in his 40s now.  That is an age where a lot of men look up from whatever it is they have been doing for twenty years, and ask themselves, Is this it? Is this all I am to be remembered for, if I am to be remembered at all? As a guy who sure could keep a balance sheet balanced? Who could win lawsuits? Sell a lot of cars? Hit a baseball a long fucking way? Most guys end up saying, “Yeah, I can live with that” and go on doing what they were doing; some tell themselves they’ll think about it again in another ten years. And some, like Bagwell, decide to do something different.

Being a major league hitting coach isn’t the noblest thing anyone ever did. In the end, though, it is really just teaching, basically. And anyone who has ever taught can tell you, putting aside all the ancillary bullshit that goes with the job, teaching – passing along one’s knowledge to others – has rewards that are hard to articulate, almost impossible to properly compensate, yet are very real, and compelling.

Bagwell said his wife was on his ass to get out and do something, too. That says a lot to me. I am sure she knows he’ll be gone fairly often, out on the road without her and their children. Yet she urged him to do it. Maybe some of it was he was getting on her nerves, but I imagine some of it may have also been because she realized it would be best for him, in the long run. As far as I know, Bagwell didn’t grow up in a compound on Cape Cod somewhere. He’s from the middle class, and was likely imbued with middle class values growing up. Yes, he was in possession of a rare talent that made him rich at a young age, and able to live like some of the privileged classes do; and he did for awhile. But my guess is that at some point he began to feel a little worthless, like he wasn’t pulling his weight, in an existential sense, or really making any contribution to his society. That is middle class thinking, all the way. He wasn’t going to be happy with himself until he could balance the leisure available to him with some work, a real job. Maybe his wife realized that even before he did, and began urging him to think about doing something.

Or maybe she is just a nag, and was nagging the shit out of him to get out of the house. I don’t know, but I’d like to think not. I guess I am just too sentimental about marriage, but my inclination is to think Ms. Bags did what she did because she is on her husband’s side, all the way. Anyone who has been married for any length of time knows a lot of the shit you thought was important to a marriage at the beginning isn’t, really. But one thing that is important is that you and your spouse, through disagreements and arguments and whatever else, always are on the same side, never on opposite sides. You always stand up for your wife or husband, whether you think he/she is right or not. You always do things with at least 50% of your thoughts concerned with how whatever you do will affect your better half. It is not selflessness, exactly. Supporting your spouse will benefit him or her, but it will also bring some very nice rewards back to you. Everything is better, together. One plus one equals one. Be on my side, I’ll be on your side, baby. That’s what the man said. Of course, he said it right before he shot his baby, down by a watercourse of some sort.

But you get the idea.

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INJURIES

Houston
•Alberto Arias (RHP) – Out for the season after surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and labrum. Basically, doctors had to scrape and remove all the residual Cooper from Arias’shoulder joint, then completely re-attach the right arm to his body. They call this procedure Tommy John Rick Allen surgery.
•Geoff Blum (3B-SS, ex-Mgr.) – On the 15-day DL, he had surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow. Loose bodies, yes. “Honey, what’s wrong with you this morning?” “I got loose bodies.” Doctors call this procedure Tommy John Fantasy Cabaret surgery.
•Jeff Fulchino (RHP) – Went on the 15-day DL with tendinitis in his elbow. I don’t know where the term “tendinitis” came from, or what it means, exactly; or what whatever it is used to be called before they started calling it tendinitis. Probably part of the all-encompassing Wrench™ family of syndromes and maladies, i. e., Fulchino is on the DL with a wrenched elbow.
•Tommy Manzella (SS) – Went on the 15-day DL with batting average anemia. He underwent OBP implant surgery at the Free Clinic over on Peese. Doctors call this procedure Tommy John The Three-Percenter Solution.
•Felipe Paulino (RHP) – Went on the 15-day DL, with shoulder tendinitis. He too may need a Cooper scrape procedure (see Alberto Arias.) Aye-yi-yi. That fucking tendinitis again. I think Paulino’s affliction is related more to the kitchen appliance group off illnesses than the Wrench™ family of illnesses. In other words, Paulino is on the DL because he’s all stove up.

Pittsburgh
•Several Guys – None of whom you’ve heard of. Or give a fuck about what is wrong with them. Well, you know what? What is wrong with you? Have you lost your sense of decency? Your humanity? Where THE FUCK do you get off not caring passionately about a bunch of injured, no-name Pirates? Heartless motherfuckers.

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Astros sweep the Pirates, 3-0.

THE WEATHER

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If I could choose
I’d calm this dawn
But the storm is me
Insensible and free

Now that you know
I’ve come here to go
You’re suddenly sad
You’ve been mine

". . . the filtered sunlight coming in and glinting off of the dark, chiseled visage of his hirsute naked chest. . . "