What to do in the Astros Off Season - Part 1

The Astros were eliminated in August. Now the team I was cheering for in the playoffs (Phillies, for Pence and Roy O) are out. I don't really care about the outcome of the playoffs. And, given the remaining teams, the TV advertisers are probably less than celebratory also. The Yankees are so great for business.

So what to do, now that Astros baseball is over but the hot stove hasn't started heating up? Well, there's Real Life to attend to. Now that Yom Kippur has passed, it's time to build our sukkah! If you don't know what that is - it's a little temporary branch-covered dwelling we build to live in (or at least eat our meal in) for the weeklong Jewish holiday Sukkot. (If you really want to know more, check out Wikipedia.) Here's your Fan in Exile in the sukkah - walls are up, but no schach (branches on top) yet. The holiday starts Wednesday evening.

Another, less joyous thing to do in the off-season: Read about the trouble that the Astros' youngsters get into when they aren't busy playing baseball. Two in the past week, one tragic and one just stupid, and both probably avoidable: The Astros' 34th pick prospect, 18 year old Dustin Kellogg, was killed in a late night traffic accident, after cutting across 4 lanes to hit an 18-wheeler head on. The reports didn't give a reason for why the accident occurred, but it's hard to keep from wondering what might be behind this driver error. Very sad anyway, whether it was vehicle malfunction or impaired judgement. The second incident was definitely impaired judgement: Our young center fielder, Jordan Schafer got arrested for felony possession of marijuana, while puffing away and driving his car. He's lucky that it was an arrest and not an accident that resulted. It's also idiotic -- with the field wide open for young players on a team that's rebuilding, this doesn't exactly help his chances.

I'll figure out some more things to do in the Astros Off Season and post them in future blogs. Meanwhile, reply to this blog to give me YOUR ideas for how to pass the time until Spring Training!

There's Always Next Year (with Photos)

I have a confession to make: I bet against the Astros this year. I bet my sister Elizabeth (the one who came with me to Spring Training) $18 that the Astros wouldn't win 60 games this year. She was willing to make the bet at 64 games, but I was pretty certain that 60 would be unattainable. As it turned out, there was plenty of room to spare, as the Astros finished the season with only 56 wins and a whopping 106 losses. One for the record books -- time to start thinking about what to do with that first pick in next year's draft! I'm saving the $18 to take Elizabeth out for a vegetarian Indian dinner at Woodlands in Orlando, when we go to Spring Training to check out the upcoming crop of baby Astros. We'll be rebuilding for a while...

Meanwhile, here are a few pictures that I took at the Astros vs Nationals game here in Washington on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The Nats fans went home happy, having seen Strasburg pitch, and the Nats win 8-2. I went home happy, just having seen the Astros for the first and only time this season. Given the outcome of the standings, it really didn't matter whether we won the game. It was just a great day to celebrate our national pasttime!

Fan in Exile happy to see the Astros for the first time this season

Me with my friend (normally a Twins Fan) Ann 

Altuve takes batting practice, but (alas!) had the day off

Schafer and Bogusevic miss the catch

Martinez makes a good throw from the outfield 

Downs blows bubbles - got the start at second

Schafer waiting for a can of corn to drop into his glove

Corporan behind the plate 

Sosa in trouble after giving up 3 homers in a row 

Not an Astro - but who could pass up wanting to take pictures of Stephen Strasburg?

Wallace and Bogusevic during BP

Martinez batting, Lee on deck

Can you find the BALL?

No Caption required...

The Nat in the Hat?

Unfortunate end to Lance Pendleton's Astro's debut:
He struck out 2, then hit 2, then gave up a RBI hit

Melancon throws - NOT a save situation

Goodbye and good riddance, Astros Season 2011! I don't have a real favorite for the playoffs so don't look for much blogging on that subject. I guess I'll cheer for the Phillies, for Oswalt and Pence. (After all, Pence was the Astros' MVP this year! How sad is that?) I'll be back in the off-season to talk about trades, rebuilding, and plans for going to Kissimmee. There's always next year, you know!

Coming Up: Two Losing Teams, Strasburg, and the Ten Year Anniversary of 9/11

The long awaited Astros trip to Washington to play the Nats is almost here! Unfortunately, it's a weekend series, so (due to Sabbath observance) I'll only be able to make it to the Sunday game. Thanks to my friend Chuck, who will be off on a fabulous vacation, I have most excellent tickets to this game. I'm expecting it to be quite a notable event, considering that it's a late season game between two losing teams. But with Stephen Strasburg expected to pitch for the Nats, and the momentous date (tenth anniversary of 9/11), it's likely to be a full stadium with quite a bit of pomp and ceremony.

After watching Strasburg pitch yesterday for the first time this season, I'm really looking forward to seeing him on Sunday. He's great and it's hard not to cheer for him. So here's the deal -- I will hope that he throws a perfect game for 6 innings, and then after they take him out, I hope the Astros go on a binge and win the game. The Nats left Strasburg in for 5 innings yesterday, and I doubt that they'll take a chance with letting him pitch much more than that in what remains of the year.

On Sunday I'll be sitting in the sixth row, ground level, behind first base. You can look for me during the televised game, wearing my Sunday red jersey with FAN IN EXILE on the back! But since Fox Sports Houston (which sometimes shows Astros fans in the stands between plays) isn't broadcasting, I'm not likely to appear.

Suddenly September...

After six long grueling months of Astros Spring Training, suddenly it's September. Can anyone really say that the games this season have seemed like anything but months and months of training camp? When our team is eliminated by the beginning of September, the outcomes of the games are not really important. When most of the players have spent more time in Corpus and OKC than in Houston, there's more of a sense of "Spring is in the air..." than anything else.

You might have noticed that my blog postings this year have been remarkably free of my Spring Training photos. The Astros are playing a team full of youngsters, most of whom don't appear in the thousands of Astros pictures I've taken. Three reasons:
1. I didn't make it to Florida for Spring Training this year to see the latest crop of minor leaguers get their cup of coffee -- first time I missed since 2004.
2. Some of these kids were still low minor leaguers when I was at Spring Training last year, and not all of them were considered top prospects. Who was really watching J.D. Martinez a year ago? Jose Altuve started the year playing A ball - has he ever appeared in a Spring Training game?
3. Many of these guys came to us in trades during the season, so I wouldn't have seen them in Kissimmee anyway. At least not in Astros jerseys; some of them might have been there playing for the other teams. More likely they were in the other teams' minor league camps.

Seriously: Who would have guessed that our lineup would have changed this much since opening day?
1. Schafer (Braves) or Bourgeois (AAA), CF  (Bourn to the Braves)
2. Altuve (A/AA), 2B (Bill Hall to the Giants)
3. JD Martinez (AA), LF (Lee to 1B)
4. El Caballo, 1B (Wallace to the minors) 
5. Paredes, 3B (CJ to the minors)
6. Bogusevic (AAA), RF (Pence to the Phillies) 
7. Barmes, SS (Sanchez to the minors)
8. Quintero or Corporan (AAA), C (Towles to the minors)

And the starting rotation? We started the season with Wandy, Myers, Happ, Norris, and Figueroa. All but Figueroa (now Pirates) still pitch for the Astros, but don't expect to see Wandy or Myers back next year. They're likely post-season trades. By next year, Norris may be our "ace," along with some combination of Happ, Lyles, Clemens (Paul), Cosart, Sosa, Harrell, Wright...?

I hope this is not coming across as negative -- that's certainly not my intent. I'm really glad that the Astros have finally faced the truth and have embraced "rebuilding" as a team theme. I'd rather watch the young players go through growing pains than to see random combinations of veterans year after year. How great is it to see Martinez (no prospect buzz) with RBIs in nearly every game? Who doesn't love Mighty Mouse Altuve? I hope the Astros will continue to collect prospects (including our 2012 first pick!) for a brighter future.

On a related note, among the rare surviving veterans on the team, Carlos Lee has gone on a late season hitting spree -- going 15 for 27 over the past week. Too bad he didn't have a solid power year, so that there might have been any chance of dumping him and his mega-expensive contract on some AL team that wouldn't expect him to field.

All season the Astros.com headlines have read like today's "Wandy Aims to Get  Astros on Track in Finale," in some strange fantasy that our starting pitcher can somehow rescue them. Enjoy watching Wandy -- the last member of the pennant winning 2005 team still around -- in what may be one of his final starts for the Astros.

The Danger of Watching Baseball in Bed...

Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes in bed is dangerous. Well, here's a lesser known danger: Watching baseball games on an iPad in bed. So you may wonder, why is that so dangerous? Look at what happened to me last night and learn...

With the Astros playing just over .300 ball (that's wins, not batting average), on a 7-game losing streak, and trailing since the first inning, who could blame me for deciding to turn off the iMac before Take Me Out to the Ball Game? Instead, I went to bed with my iPad, planning to watch the rest of the game on the At Bat 11 app. But then, because it was late and the bed was comfy and the game was dragging... I fell asleep. That's how I came to be dreaming of next year's Spring Training when Bogusevic hit his walk-off grand slam in the ninth.

First thing in the morning, I grabbed the iPad to check on the ending of the game. I was brushing my teeth when Bogus' swing was anything but bogus, the ball was flying out over the center field wall, JD and Brownie were hyperventilating, and what was left of the crowd was going crazy. Then the Astros players jumped out on the field for Bogusevic's ritual head bashing. He may have lost a standard deviation's worth of IQ points from that, but, hey, it was worth it! I watched the ninth inning twice while I was getting dressed for work, then came downstairs and watched the Cubs broadcast of it while I was fixing my breakfast, so I could gloat.

It's kind of fun watching a surprise win when you already know the ending. It gives an extra depth to all of the broadcaster's comments -- that Dempster, the Cubs' starter, was probably in the clubhouse, icing his arm, with one eye on the game. Or that Bogusevic really does have it in him to hit one out of there, even though they didn't sound very convinced that this would be anything other than another routine loss. As JD and Brownie noted, it's a "bleak" season, to say the least.

Bogusevic didn't do it all himself, of course. After Paredes lined out to start the ninth, Shuck hit a single just past the first baseman. Barmes managed to knock a not very promising pitch into left field, to put runners on the corners with one out. Then Downs pinch hit for Q. Gotta like your chances with Downs off the bench, and he did his best to hit it into the seats. But he was patient, didn't go for Marmol's slider, and walked to load the bases. Then Bogusevic came up, got down in the count with two quick strikes, before whacking a 2-2 fast ball over the center field fence, way over the 404' sign. A thing of beauty. It brought tears to my eyes, even the fourth time I watched it.

Today's an afternoon game - I should be able to stay awake till it's over!

Special shoutout to my Spring Training pal Carole, who was there for the game -- guess you got your money's worth!!!

Cheering for the Twins!

Every so often, I have to take a quick detour from baseball to remind you all that in my Real Life I'm a secret Twins fan. Not the ones from Minnesota, dontcha know -- the ones from Brooklyn. Just had a two hour (much-too-short!) visit with my grandsons Oscar and Oren, who are passing through Maryland on their way to the beach. Now going on 9 months old, they are full of tricks - walking around the furniture, escaping when you're trying to change their pants, waving bye bye (alas!). So cute. We were too busy playing to take many pictures when they were here this afternoon, but here's one of Robert (AKA "Saba") making the airplane full of baby food fly into Oren's mouth, as Oscar looks on.

With Oscar in his helmet (for reshaping a flat spot on the back of his head), they kind of remind me of Doonsbury and BD. Here's a picture with the helmet off, so you can see how cute they are. That's Oscar in blue, Oren in brown.

So if that's not enough of a case for being a Twins fan, there's always this: their 3 1/2 month old girl cousins Lyla and Sylvie. 

Okay, this is a baseball blog, so I should say something about the game. Having cleaned house, and sent Pence and Bourn packing, the Astros are mostly playing their new baby players -- just a little bit older than my grandkids. (They're all closer to the babies' age than mine!) I'm just learning to recognize the new players, since I missed Spring Training this year, and some of them were acquired since then in trades. It's kind of refreshing to see young players running hard, trying their best, knowing that this is their chance to get a spot on a big league team. Lots of hits, lots of diving plays, lots of running. We may not win many games, but the kids are fun to watch. Almost as fun as the Twins.

Strangers in a Strange Land...

Some years ago, my IBM colleague Sam and I went down in Texas to teach an "Object Oriented Design" class at the Clear Lakes office. Like most of the guys in our group, Sam preferred to stay in a Marriott. He was collecting frequent-sleeper points in hopes of someday going on vacation to somewhere exotic -- where he would reside in a hotel that was just like the ones he stayed in on our business trips. Back then, Clear Lakes (home of the Space Center) didn't have a Marriott, and the closest one was in Houston. I didn't care about collecting Marriott points, and would have preferred to stay close by the IBM office, so I could get a little more sleep and a little less commute. But this time, I didn't argue -- the closest Marriott just happened to be in the vicinity of the Astrodome.

So the deal was, I'd agree to stay in the Marriott near the Astrodome if Sam would agree to go to a ball game in the evening, after we got back from Clear Lake. Deal. We went to the Astrodome -- a huge thrill for me! I hadn't been back there since I'd moved away from Texas some years earlier. I picked the seats -- out in the bleachers, where I'd always sat as a kid growing up in Houston. The game started...

...and the Astros stunk. And worse, although I could rattle off the names of every starter on the team back in the day, I didn't recognize any of these guys. The year was 1991. 

[Side note: Remember what it was like before the Internet? Although I've always been an Astros fan, there were a number of years after I moved away from Houston when it was very difficult to be a very engaged fan-in-exile. Until the Internet came along - game stories, then pitch-by-pitch, the online radio, and finally streaming live video - my daily source of Astros news was generally limited to a sentence or two and a box score in the Washington Post. I became a fanatic in exile with my first subscription to mlb.tv in 2004.]

So back to 1991... Who were these guys? A quick review of the roster in my program explained why the players were so foreign to me. Many of them were in their first year in the big leagues -- like Jeff Bagwell, who went on that year to be the MLB Rookie of the Year. Other rookies: Darryl Kile, Luiz Gonzales, Kenny Lofton. There were some other young guys I'd never heard of, who were in their first (or only) year with the Astros: Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, Pete Harnisch, Mark McLemore. And a few others, whose names I'd know better in later years: Craig Biggio, Ken Caminiti, Casey Candaele, Jim Deshaies...and coach Phil Garner. I don't remember who I saw on the field that night -- not even who pitched. Mike Scott, one of the better known Astros players, was in his last injury-plagued season, and didn't pitch that night -- I would have remembered that!

The night I went to the Astrodome, the Astros lost -- badly. It was one of many bad losses that year, as they went on to finish with a 65-97 record, one of the worst seasons in franchise history, tied for the most losses in a season. As we are all well aware, the 2011 Astros stand to demolish that record.

I'm telling this story for two reasons: First of all to celebrate how the Internet has made it possible for fans to really stay in the game for their home teams, even if they are exiled far away. Second, and more importantly, to remind us all that a team full of young nobodies one season may be a team full of winners later. The Astros had a .500 season in 1992, and did not have another losing season until 2000. In the meantime, they were first or second in the division 6 times in those 8 years.

So 2011 is a throwaway season - one to groan about or laugh about, depending on your outlook. Maybe both. One long Spring Training, without the nice Florida-in-March weather.  But in losing Oswalt and Berkman and Pence and Bourn (and Wandy today?), we've picked up some young quality players. We've signed a lot of our draft picks, and who doubts that we're due to get the first pick in next summer's draft? By stocking up on prospects and rebuilding our miserable farm teams,  the Astros just might have some fun years ahead.

Now back to our regularly scheduled loss...