You are Not Alone...

Being a Fan in Exile generally means that I'm the odd one out in a baseball crowd, one of the few cheering for the Astros when they come to play in my current place of residence, the Washington DC area. That's one of the joys of Spring Training - the opportunity to join in with a crowd that's cheering for my team, blending in within a sea of Astros hats and jerseys. I've never put too high a value on being a conformist, but now and then it's nice to be part of the in-crowd.

As always, I'm meeting some great fans at Spring Training this year. So before I get around to writing about the game (an easy 11-2 bashing of the poor Nationals), I want to tell you about my Fans of the Day from today's game:

My sister Elizabeth and I got lucky today - the folks sitting around us were wonderful Astros fans. Elizabeth sat next to Carmen, who was here from Houston with her family. She's a longtime fan and it was great swapping Astros stories with her. She knows a lot about the players, past and present, and seems to really appreciate them - we even cheered together when Willy Taveras (now in a Nats uniform) hit a homer, just because he used to be one of our guys. (Happily the Astros enjoyed a pretty sizable lead so we could afford to be generous with our cheers.) Carmen's son is a high school freshman, who plays baseball for his varsity team, which recently had the "honor" of losing to the team that Craig Biggio coaches.

The folks behind us were having a blast, dancing in their seats and cheering for the Astros today, so I asked them if they'd also be in today's group of Fans of the Day. Here they are: Doug, Jeanne, and sister Karen.

Sitting a few seats down from us was Marie "Red" Mahoney, another veteran of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, who was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.  A native Houstonian  (and like my mom, a San Jacinto HS grad), Red was an outfielder for the South Bend Blue Sox and later for the Fort Wayne Daisies. To my knowledge, I've never met a female pro baseball player before coming to Spring Training this year - now I've met two in two days!

After the game, we went to the Astros store, so I could buy a Spring Training 2010 hat. There I met a woman named Kim in an Astros' Ensberg jersey. I told her that if she's an Ensberg fan, she should really check out his terrific new baseball blog, Morgan Ensberg's Baseball IQ. She said she would and agreed to have her picture taken for my blog. Here she is (modeling the Ensberg shirt), with her son Caleb. From his hat, I'd say he's a budding Astros fan too.

 Rounding out today's group of Fans of the Day is my sister Elizabeth, who took off work and came down here from Denver to keep me company at Spring Training. She was a big Astros fan as a kid, but moved away from Houston at age 15. She's still a baseball fan, but now cheers for the Rockies. As I'm writing this blog, it's just past midnight, and it's now March 18th - Elizabeth's birthday. We're going to the beach to celebrate (something she doesn't get much chance to do in Denver), then we'll be back for 4 more Astros games from Friday through Monday. So if you see Elizabeth at the stadium at Friday's game, wish her a Happy Birthday!

We sat with all these fine fans behind first base today, and I have a whole lot of good pictures from the game. (Much better than the ones taken through the net yesterday!) I'll post some pictures and a few game comments about our 11-2 trouncing of the Nats in my next blog. Meanwhile, check out my Astros Fan in Exile Daily Booth for ongoing photo updates. And if you're on Facebook, join the Astros Fans in Exile group!

We are most definitely NOT ALONE!