Houston, we have a World Series champion!

Finally! 

Houston, we may have problems but our baseball team isn't one of them.

Congratulations to the Astros for the most entertaining and thrilling season in this fan's long memory and for what surely must be one of the most exciting World Series in the history of the game.

Congratulations to the unflappable Charlie Morton for the win in the final game of the series and for being on the mound for that final out. Nothing could have been more fitting. And thank you, Charlie, for not screwing around and walking people in that final inning. I don't think my heart could have taken it. Three batters up, three batters down. That's the way it is done.

Baseball is an old-fashioned game, a game of nuance and grace and elegance and, yes, poetry, more balletic than bashing. It's a game without a clock which is why a particular game might last less than two hours or five hours and seventeen minutes. It takes as long as it takes. A lot of modern fans don't have the patience for that.

Baseball is a game that will break your heart two times out of three. But, oh, that third time is worth waiting for.

John Updike knew and loved the game and explained it best of all. Let's give him the last word and then, let the off-season begin!

Baseball

by John Updike

It looks easy from a distance,
easy and lazy, even,
until you stand up to the plate
and see the fastball sailing inside,
an inch from your chin,
or circle in the outfield
straining to get a bead
on a small black dot
a city block or more high,
a dark star that could fall
on your head like a leaden meteor.

The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops
between your feet and overeager glove:
football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not—those whose mitts
feel too left-handed,
who are scared at third base
of the pulled line drive,
and at first base are scared
of the shortstop's wild throw
that stretches you out like a gutted deer.

There is nowhere to hide when the ball's
spotlight swivels your way,
and the chatter around you falls still,
and the mothers on the sidelines,
your own among them, hold their breaths,
and you whiff on a terrible pitch
or in the infield achieve
something with the ball so
ridiculous you blush for years.
It's easy to do. Baseball was
invented in America, where beneath
the good cheer and sly jazz the chance
of failure is everybody's right,
beginning with baseball. 

The nail-biter Series

Five hours and seventeen minutes. That's how long last night's fifth game in the World Series lasted. It was almost 1:00 in the morning by the time it ended here in Houston. But Astros fans went home happy. Our team had won 13-12.

This has been an aggravating, heart-stopping, nail-biting series all the way. Every game has been in doubt seemingly up until the last out, because these teams, the Dodgers and the Astros, just don't quit! 

They've been playing baseball since March. The players must be exhausted both mentally and physically, especially after last night's game. But they don't quit.

I've been a baseball fan since I was twelve years old and an Astros fan for almost forty years. It's really the only sport that I follow. The others are just background noise in my life, but baseball is the main event. This year's Astros team is the best I've ever seen. Not only are they good but they are a lot of fun to watch. This entire baseball season has been pure joy for me and for all long-suffering Astros fans. But I can't take much more of this!

I haven't even been able to bear to watch much of the series because it is so stressful. I just stay glued to the Astros website's gameday feature and follow the games that way. I find that slightly less heart attack-inducing. 

Most of the news websites that I follow have raved about what an exciting Series it has been so far. Well, I could do with a little less excitement about now. A score of 10-0 with the Astros in the lead in the first inning would be most welcome. I could actually stand to watch the action then.

The sportswriters and commentators all spend a lot of time on the exploits of the stars of the game.
In the case of the Astros, that's people like Jose Altuve, George Springer, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, and Justin Verlander. They deserve all the accolades they get. But I especially appreciate some of the lesser known players.

Two pitchers in particular deserve attention - Charlie Morton and Mike Fiers. 

During the dog days of summer when three-fifths of the Astros' starting rotation was on the disabled list, Charlie, who wasn't even supposed to be a starter this year, and Mike, who was the fifth starter, took the mound every five days and pitched their hearts out. They both ended the season with win totals in the mid-teens, even though Fiers flagged a bit toward the end of the season and didn't even make the cut for the playoff roster. But without Morton and Fiers, the Astros wouldn't be where they are now.

Charlie Morton has pitched in the World Series and has pitched well, although the Astros lost the game that he started. Not his fault though - that loss as well as the second Astros loss are all down to an exhausted and shaky bullpen.

So, two more games (possibly) to go. At least we get a chance to catch our breath today, but it all begins again with everything on the line tomorrow night.

The Astros may win this Series, or they may lose. But one thing we know for sure: They won't quit. 

So proud

I am so proud of our Houston Astros. What a season they have had! For most of the season, they led their division and played one exciting heart-stopping game after another. They gave us thrill on top of thrill. 

Their season ended today with a loss at Kansas City, but they've nothing to hang their heads about. One of the youngest, most inexperienced teams in the Major Leagues came this close to going to the American League Championship Series. Next year they'll be older, more experienced, and better. Now, we wish them a long and restful winter.

As for us fans, like in the song, we'll wait'll next year and hope.

As for now, go Cubs!

Baseball will break your heart every time

“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

― A. Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time For Paradise: Americans And Their Games

~~~

So, the Astros have a 2-1 lead in games of the Division Series in the American League going into today's game. With just one more win, they can take this series and go on to the League Championship Series.

In the seventh inning of today's game, they opened up a 6-2 lead over the Kansas City Royals. In the eighth inning, the manager, who has made brilliant moves all year, turned it over to his usually reliable bullpen to close it out. Victory seemed assured.

Then, it all fell apart.

The bullpen gave up the lead and the batters were not able to come back in their last six at-bats. Final score: 9-6. Royals win. 

Bart Giamatti is proved right once again. Baseball does break your heart. Especially if you are an Astros fan.

On to Kansas City.

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the ball park

My beloved Houston Astros are having a good season this year. They are presently leading the Western Division of the American League and they have done for much of the season. They have some very exciting young players who play the game with the abandon and joy of Little Leaguers. They are great fun to watch.

That hasn't been true in recent years. In fact, we fans have suffered through several years of below par baseball when our Astros had the worst record in the Major Leagues. 2015 is our reward for staying with them in all those years.

All that being said, I do have some empathy for the plight of Phillies fans this year. Their favorite team has fallen from the great height they achieved in 2008. This year they, too, have played like Little Leaguers but not in a good way. They haven't had much joy. 

In fact, there is no joy in Mudville...er...Philadelphia these days. Their season has turned into a horror movie.  

The worm turns and about time, too!

Who could have predicted? Very few baseball people, I think, would have thought in March that the end of the first month of the new baseball season would find my lowly but no less beloved Houston Astros in first place in their division. But that's where they are! Regardless of the outcome of today's games, they will end April in first place.

STANDINGS

AMERICAN LEAGUE

• EAST
• CENTRAL
• WEST

	W	L	PCT	GB
Houston	14	7	.667	-
LA Angels	10	11	.476	4.0
Seattle	10	11	.476	4.0
Oakland	9	13	.409	5.5
Texas	7	14	.333	7.0

After suffering through several years of below par teams, it has been a decided pleasure to see the team playing well and performing above expectations. Can they keep it up? Who knows? It's a long time until October. But no matter what happens, we'll always have April. And hope. Hope has been rekindled.

Go 'Stros!   

The once and future All-Star

We made what has become our annual June trip to Minute Maid Park the other night, courtesy of our thoughtful son-in-law, to see my Astros play the Atlanta Braves. It didn't turn out too well for the Astros that night. We weren't able to bring them any luck, but they bounced back the next day, beating the Braves 6-1.

They actually seemed pretty flat in their play that night, but perhaps that was due to the pitching that they faced. One guy on the team, though, is never flat. Winning or losing, he's always hustling and it shows in his results. He's leading the major leagues in hits and in number of games with more than one hit. He's also leading the American League in stolen bases and is near the top in batting average. In the field, he's only had two errors all year. About the only statistic where he isn't among the leaders is home runs. He only has two, but that may be related to his physical stature - at 5'6" he's the shortest man in baseball. He only plays like he's 6'2".

His name is Jose Altuve and this is his third full year in the major leagues. He's already been an All-Star once and he seems destined to be one again this year. Of course, since he plays in Houston and the All-Star voting by fans is essentially a popularity contest, he's only fourth in the voting so far, but even if the fans don't vote him in, the players almost certainly will. If they don't, surely the manager will pick him because somebody from the Astros has to go and who else is more deserving?

If he doesn't get to go, it won't be my fault. I've voted for all the members of my family, using their email addresses. So, we've added over four hundred votes to his total!

Voting continues until July 3, so if you haven't voted yet, you, too, can vote for Jose Altuve and help make him an All-Star again.  Just access the online ballot and follow the prompts. (Unless you are a member of my family in which case - trust me - you've already voted. No voter fraud rules apply here.)

Glory days to come

Just a few more days until Major League baseball season starts. Spring training is almost over and many young players go to bed at night dreaming of glory days. Will this be their year?

Even young players on "rebuilding" teams like my beloved Houston Astros, the team with the worst record in baseball for the last two years, have such dreams.

All of which, of course, brings to mind the Springsteen song. Nearly everything in life brings to mind some Springsteen song.  Here he is with the E Street Band in a 1985 performance of his anthem to those lost days.



Were any of us every really that young?

(Props to Paul Krugman for first posting this video in his blog today. He was writing about the lost "glory days" of  tea party idol Paul Ryan, but I prefer to think about the glory days to come for talented young baseball players.)  

It's all over

Yesterday was the last day of the regular season in baseball, the last game for my beloved Houston Astros. They won't be going to the post-season again this year. The fact is, they ended the season with the worst record in baseball - 55-107.

This is the second year in a row they've earned that dubious distinction. The good news is that it makes them eligible to make the top draft pick again next year. For a team mostly stocked with 20 - 24-year-olds, that could be important. They are rebuilding from the ground up and the more talented young players they can latch on to, the better their chances of catching lightning in a bottle.

You might think that a team with a 55-107 record had a deadly boring season. You would be wrong. April and May were good for the team. They played well and showed what they were capable of. Unfortunately, those two good months were followed by three mostly bad months which wiped out the gains they had made. But throughout it all, the kids - and they are mostly kids - played hard, played with enthusiasm and never gave up. The mistakes they made were mistakes of eagerness and inexperience, but they were never dull.

In late August, they changed managers and the team responded by playing some of its best games of the year over the last six weeks of the season. The last week of the season, their last road trip of the year to Milwaukee and Chicago, saw them win four out of six games and their pitchers pitch three shutouts. Surprisingly, they also hit about 15 to 20 home runs in those games. It gives their loyal fans hope for the coming year.

If we need further encouragement, we need only look at the lineup of teams in the playoffs this year, teams that also were mostly built from scratch. It's heartening to see teams like the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, and the "Moneyballing" Oakland Athletics get their chance to make it to the World Series.

The most amazing post-season team has to be the Oakland As. At one time in the season, not so very long ago, they were 13 games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League West. They came all the way back to tie the Rangers for the lead and, yesterday, in the final game of the season, they beat the vaunted Rangers 12-5! They are the American League West champions!

The As are a team of nobodies, has-beens, never-wasses, and rookies, but they had a vision, starting with General Manager Billy Beane all the way down to the greenest rookie in the dugout. They believed if they played hard, played right, they could win. They did.

See that, Astros and Astros fans? It is possible.

Go Oakland! Go Atlanta!

Countdown to 2013 season: 180 days.

Take me out to the ball game

It's the first weekend of the new baseball season and my team, the Astros, are at .500. That means they are on a pace to win 81 games this year. That's after losing a record 106 and winning only 56 last season. Winning 81 games this year would be a miraculous improvement.

Of course, this is a very, very young and inexperienced team and probably no one, except maybe their mothers, really expects them to have a winning season, but stranger things have happened in baseball. Stranger things happen every day in baseball. That's one of the reasons the game never gets boring - except to boring people.

The Astros are playing the Colorado Rockies at home in this first series of the season. In the first game of the season yesterday, their youth and inexperience showed. They made four - count 'em, four - errors. You can't win a major league baseball game when you make four errors and give up four unearned runs, and the Astros didn't. They lost 5-3. But at least they did hit two home runs in the game. Home runs were scarcer than hen's teeth in Astros games last year, but in today's game they again hit two home runs. That means they are on a pace to hit 324 home runs this year!

Well, 324 home runs in a season aren't going to happen and 81 wins probably won't happen either, but today, after yesterday's awful game, they played error-less ball and looked like champions. Their young pitcher, Lucas Harrell, was particularly impressive. It gives their die-hard fans hope that this may at least be, if not a winning season, an interesting one. If the young guys pull together as a team and improve throughout the coming months as we have every right to expect they will, then it will be an interesting season.

It might even be a winning one. It is April, after all, and hope springs eternal in April. In April, any team seems capable of making it to the World Series. Even my Astros.

The games dwindle down to a merciful few

It's official.  The Houston Astros have tied the worst loss record of their history.  They have now lost 97 games this year with only 16 more to play.  They have the worst record in all of Major League Baseball.  Their next three games will be against the team with the best record in Major League Baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies.  By the time the Phillies leave town at the middle of the week, the Astros loss record could well stand at 100.

Their sorry won/loss record does not tell the whole story though.  Many, if not most, of their games have been interesting.  That is especially true of the last couple of months in which they have featured a team of mostly rookies, and very young rookies at that.  These guys have been fun to watch with their enthusiasm and their energy.  Moreover, they are a talented group and they do know how to play the game.  They show great promise for the future and give their loyal fans, like me, hope that we won't have to wait until we are old and gray (Well, older and grayer!) until we have a competitive team to support once again.

Meantime, as we anticipate the stars of our future, tonight we get to see the stars of our past.  Roy Oswalt will be pitching for the Phillies and Hunter Pence will be in right field. How strange to see them in those uniforms!  And Brad Lidge will be in the bullpen.  A few years ago, one would have thought those guys would be Astros for life, but things like that don't happen any more unless your name is Bagwell or Biggio.  It probably wouldn't even happen to them if they were playing today.

As the games dwindle down to a precious few, this season will certainly be one for Astros fans to remember (or try to forget) for more reasons than one, but we can at least hope that this will be the team's nadir and that we can look forward to brighter days ahead.  As the song from "Damn Yankees" said,  "Wait'll next year and hope..."

UPDATE:  Astros win 5-1!  Baseball is a funny game.

There's always baseball

When the world turns black, when petty politicians think more about their own reelections than the good of the country and the world, when madmen turn their guns on innocent children attending summer camp and their cheering section on right-wing radio tries to excuse them, when the earth continues to heat up and all hope seems futile, there's always baseball.  During the dog days of summer - and they all seem like dog days this year - the most perfect ballgame ever invented by humans offers respite and relief from days of unrelentingly bad news.  This season, though, for Astros fans like myself, even baseball hasn't given much relief.

The Astros as of today and for most of the season are and have been possessors of the worst record in Major League Baseball.  Their current record is 33-69.  They are 36 games under .500.  This is territory that this franchise has not been in since John F. Kennedy was president.  They could well finish this season with the worst record ever recorded in MLB.

Baseball's trading deadline is July 31 and the vultures are circling my team, hoping to pick some viable parts off the dead bones of a once-proud franchise.  Teams are hoping to grab Hunter Pence or Michael Bourn or Wandy Rodrigues or perhaps one or two others that have value for teams that are trying to go to the playoffs this year. They've already taken Jeff Keppinger, a serviceable second baseman. We Astros fans will be holding our breath, hoping that our favorite player will not be playing for another team by August 1.

But this is baseball.  And in baseball, unlike Washington politics, there is always hope.  Our hope at the moment is for the future and it resides in the three aforementioned players as well as some new guys recently brought up from the minor leagues.

Jordan Lyles looks like the real deal as a right-handed pitcher.  He doesn't have a win yet although he has pitched 10 games.  His record is 0-5, but only one of those losses is really his fault.  In the other nine games, he has pitched well enough to win if he were playing for a team that was able to score runs.  He's only 20 years old so he has the potential to be a very good pitcher for a very long time.

And just last week, after Keppinger was traded, Jose Altuve was brought up from AA-Corpus Christi to play second base.  He was batting .387 in the minors.  So far in the majors, he's batting .412!  He is 21 years old, 5'5'' tall, and he appears unawed by major league pitching.  He looks like a keeper, too.

There are about two-and-a-half months left in the regular season, no time for the Astros to really make a move, even if they had it in them - and they don't. It's statistically unlikely they could even get back to .500.  The most they can hope for is to be an irritant to the teams that are in contention and to give their best effort to every game.  After all, on any given day, any team can beat any other team.  It's a game of inches and it all depends on the way the ball bounces.   If they play the game the right way, maybe good things will happen.

But even on the worst days, it is still baseball and that is still good.

At long last, baseball!

Our long national nightmare is over. Baseball season has begun.

The boys of summer begin their game these days in places where it is still winter. Many of the ball parks hosting games over the next few days will be having snow flurries and weather more typical of football season. Nevertheless, the calendar says it is time and so we begin.

My beloved Astros will be starting their season in Philadelphia tomorrow, a daunting prospect for them since they had the worst record in spring training and Philadelphia is one of the strongest teams in the league, the one that many prognosticators pick to go to the World Series this year. And now the Astros are further hobbled by injuries to key players on whom they were depending for improved play this year. It seems the poor guys just cannot catch a break.

Still, one of the reasons that we love this game is that, on any given day, any team can beat any other team, even if that other team looks far superior on paper. They don't play the game on paper; they play it on the field, and on the field strange things can happen. The ball can bounce in crazy ways or the wind can lift it. An outfielder can misread the ball and turn the wrong way and, the first thing you know, you've got an inside-the-park home run!

It's the first day of the season. Only a few games were played today. The rest of the teams will play tomorrow, and so, at this point, anything is possible. Even the Astros could go to the World Series! I mean so far they have a clean slate. Their lousy spring training is behind them and they haven't lost a single game in the 2011 season.

Wait'll next year and hope...

So now it has come - that time that we have dreaded for the past six months. The end of baseball season. No more nightly visits with Brownie and JD. No more astonishingly balletic moves to gasp over, no more unjust umpires to moan over, no more ecstasy of victory or agony of defeat. The Astros' season is over.

The season ended on a high note as they shut out the Cubs, but over the last week to ten days of the season, they had lost the momentum that they had enjoyed since the end of June. Suddenly, they were in a funk, playing with no more energy than they had during the first several weeks of the season when they were truly awful. They looked tired and out of their depth and they limped to the end of the season.

For a while there in late August and early September, I had high hopes for the end of their season. I thought they would at least finish in third place and might even overtake the Cardinals for second place in the division. It was not to be. They finished fourth out of six. Now, we'll just have to look forward to spring training and hope that next year will be kinder to our team. It would help a lot if they could learn to play as well in April and May as they do in July and August.

Meanwhile, of course, the season isn't over for eight teams, as the playoffs loom in just a couple of days. On the last day of the season, San Francisio clinched the Western Division of the National League and Bobby Cox's Atlanta Braves clinched the Wild Card, so Bobby has one more chance to go to the Big Dance before he retires. Unfortunately, his Braves are so hobbled by injuries that it is hard to see how they could go very far, but you never know with a short series.

In the long marathon of a 162 game season, every team pretty much ends up where it deserves to end up, but in a five or seven game series there isn't always time for the cream to find its way to the top. On paper, right now, the Phillies are far and away the best team in baseball, but they don't play the games on paper, and emotion can sometimes carry athletes to highs they didn't know they could reach. I am quite sure that there are no players in baseball who would love to win for their manager more than the Braves would right now, but will that emotion be enough?

In the American League, I must say my heart is with Tampa Bay and Minnesota. Speaking of cream rising to the top, year after year, the Minnesota Twins, with few marquee players and a minuscule payroll, seem to find a way to end up at or near the top of their division. They must be doing something right. Maybe the Astros should pay attention to how they do it.

Maybe by next spring, the Astros' management team will have picked up some valuable lessons from these successful teams. Anyway, we fans will wait till then and hope.

0-for-Houston

So, the Astros have swept the St. Louis Cardinals, making the second time in just a little over a week that they have swept a playoff-contending team, their first being a four game sweep of the Phillies. Not only that, but they didn't allow Albert Pujols to get a single hit during the three game series. He ended up 0-for-Houston!

I tell you, some days life is good!

Mets vs. Astros: Now that's baseball!

The New York Mets, AKA the Hated Mets, came to town this week to play a four game series with the Beloved Astros, and three games into the series, it has been just about all fans of either team could have hoped for. The games have been vastly entertaining. They have been marked by good pitching, good defense and just enough hitting. All the games have been close.

Moreover, these games are being played by two teams that are going nowhere this year - "somewhere" being the playoffs - and yet both teams seem to be enjoying themselves, having fun with the game. You see lots of smiles and lots of energy from both teams. Both of the Mets and the Astros are in the process of getting younger and it shows in their attitudes. They are not worrying so much about winning the World Series just yet. They are happy to be playing in the major leagues and living their dreams.

The Astros hitters have been hot lately, raising their batting averages and their runs per game since the All-Star break when Jeff Bagwell took over as hitting coach. But even better than being hot, from my perspective, is that they seem to be competitive again. Even when they get behind in counts, they don't give up. They keep looking for a way to get the ball in play.

Last night, these young hitters faced a veteran knuckleballer and were totally flummoxed, but they hung with him and, in the end, he didn't beat them. They survived nine innings with him with a tie, but, finally, in the 14th inning, their luck and their bullpen gave out and they lost the game 3-2. One more game to go, and my team is down 2-1 so far. We'll find out tonight if they can salvage a split.

Regardless of the outcome of that final game, this has been a fun series, fun for the players and their fans alike. Let the Yankees' fans obsess over every game and every run and worry that their team may only make it to the playoffs as a wild card this year. I'll take my lowly Astros and the hated Mets who play for pride and fun (and, yes, I know, some money!). Now that's baseball!

The kids are all right

My beloved Houston Astros are five years removed from their lone World Series appearance, and, in those five years, the team has fallen on hard times. For fans of a team that was once respected for its professionalism and hard-nosed play, it's been painful to watch. There are signs though that that era and our frustration may be coming to an end.

This week, the Astros traded their last two ties to their winning era, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman. In return, they got some young and very promising players. All of a sudden, this formerly old team has gotten a lot younger. They have rookies or very young players at nearly all positions. These kids bring their enthusiasm and excitement with them to the game and that is very exciting to their fans. Suddenly, their games are fun to watch again.

I know that they have a lot of learning to do and there will probably be some rough spots in the road ahead. Well, the Astros' road this year, as well as last year, has been mostly one of rough spots so that won't be anything new, but with these kids, we at least have the hope that they can get better and some of them may actually be quite special.

Chris Johnson, their rookie third baseman, looks like he might just about have things figured out, and the rookie catcher, Jason Castro, though he hasn't had much luck in the batter's box, has been very, very good behind home plate. In time, he might even make me forget Brad Ausmus. In tonight's game, their rookie first baseman started his first major league game. He looks like a baby, but I can actually remember when Jeff Bagwell looked like a baby, and look how well that turned out!

The guys are swinging the bats aggressively again and they look like they are having fun. I can see their confidence growing. Yes, I really believe that these kids are all right.

Jeff Bagwell: Hitting coach. Really???

My beloved Houston Astros have had a really pathetic offensive attack this year. They are near the bottom of the National League in all categories of hitting.

Their pitching has been more than adequate to compete in their division. Both Roy Oswalt and Brett Myers have pitched about as well as anybody in the league all season. Lately, Wandy Rodrigues has been rounding into form, and their two young guys, Felipe Paulino and Bud Norris, show great promise if they can just manage to stay healthy. Their "old reliable" Brian Moehler is, well, reliable. He knows how to pitch. Those are the starting pitchers. The bullpen, meanwhile, has been adequate and sometimes more than adequate.

So the fact that the Astros head into the All-Star break next to last in their division and with one of the worst records in all of baseball is not the fault of the pitching. And the defense has been okay, so the poor record can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the hitters.

When a team is severely deficient in a particular aspect of the game, the time-honored tradition in baseball is to fire the coach who is in charge of that aspect, even if the failure is not his fault. That is what happened with the Astros today. Sean Berry, their hitting coach, who was a very good hitter when he played the game a few years ago, was fired. He is well-liked in the organization and will be offered another position with the team, but management felt they had to shake things up, perhaps give their lackadaisacal hitters a kick in the pants.

Well, if that's what they wanted, I think they've found the right guy to do it. Jeff Bagwell, about whom I might be prejudiced since he is my all-time favorite Astro, is the best hitter the team ever had, but perhaps more importantly, he's probably the player who was most respected by other players. When he was playing, the atmosphere around the team was totally different than it is today and that was mostly down to him and his buddies, Craig Biggio and Brad Ausmus. The team has gone steadily downhill since Bagwell's career was cut short by a bum shoulder in 2005, their World Series year. Without his presence in the clubhouse, it just isn't the same team. I think the Astros wanted to get that presence back in uniform, back in the clubhouse, anyway they could, even as a hitting coach.

So the man with one of the weirdest batting stances in the history of baseball will now be a hitting coach and will try to wake up the sleeping bats of Pence, Lee, Berkman and company. But then, it's not really his expertise on batting stances that they need. They know how to stand in the batters' box. No, what they need is him - his personality, his competitive fire, his never-say-die attitude. If he can impart even a little bit of that, then the Astros hitters might just regain some respectability in the second half.

The woeful Astros

It's tough being a Houston Astros fan, especially this year. Last year, as well. Before that time, there was often disappointment for fans of the team but there was never embarrassment. The team always played hard and played well and even when they lost, they could hold their heads up. And so could their fans. Now through a combination of stupid decisions by the owner and his managers, the team has fallen on very hard times and the worst thing is that they make far too many errors on the field as well, really boneheaded moves that a professional baseball team with professional coaches just shouldn't make. They are just no fun to watch any more.

That's not to say they don't have any good players. They do. Michael Bourn is certainly one of the premier center fielders in all of baseball. Hunter Pence may have fallen off a bit this year, but he is still a very good player. The two young pitchers they have in their rotation this year, Felipe Paulino and Bud Norris, show promise if they can ever harness their talent and learn to pitch instead of throwing. And then, of course, there is Roy Oswalt.

Oswalt has been my favorite Astro almost from the time that he first came up in 2001. The Astros only intended to keep him on the big league team for a short time and then send him back to the Round Rock minor league club for more seasoning, but Nolan Ryan insisted that he had nothing more to learn in the minor leagues and lobbied for him to stay in the majors. He won the argument and Oswalt never looked back. He's been one of the winningest pitchers in all of baseball since then, but for the last two or three seasons, he's been in a very unenviable situation. He pitches well enough to win, but a pitcher can't win unless his team scores runs and the team he plays with doesn't score many runs. He's also frequently left the game with a lead only to see the bullpen give it up. Over the last three years, it's entirely possible that he could have won 30 more games if he had played for a team that was able to score runs. It must be extremely frustrating to a pitcher of Oswalt's caliber, and, of course, like the rest of us, he isn't getting any younger. He sees his chances fading along with this team's prospects.

So, he's said that he would be open to being traded to another team. He has a no-trade contract and would have to approve any trade before it could be made. He wants to go to a contender. What professional ballplayer wouldn't?

I can't really blame Oswalt for wanting out. He's in a dead-end job on a dead-last team, as it is. So, I hope the Astros do find an acceptable trade, one that will fulfill his requirements and one that will help the team. In the meantime, this whole situation is a distraction to a team that, God knows, doesn't need any more distractions.

I'll always be an Oswalt fan and I'll always be an Astros fan, but this year that is very tough and getting tougher.

Root, root, root for the Astros!

Baseball season lasts from April through September, and, if you are very good, even longer. But even fans of the most mediocre baseball team are guaranteed at least six months with the best outdoor game ever invented that involves a ball.

It's a long season and that's the way it is supposed to be - the way God intended - although, to some of us, the season seems to go by in the blink of any eye. The analogy is often made by sportscasters and writers that the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint, and there is truth in that. Teams have to play all 162 games and every inning of every game, but even though it doesn't always seem that way, the games that are played in April count just as much as the games that are played in September. The point being that teams that get off to a slow start can find themselves in a hole too deep to climb out of even before a quarter of the season is over.

That's the position that my favorite team, the Astros, find themselves in this year and almost every year. They are notoriously slow starters, but this year the start has been epically slow. Already they have had TWO eight game losing streaks. It is hard to get up much momentum or much enthusiasm from the fans with a record like that.

But this week, something remarkable has happened with the Astros. They went to St. Louis, the home of their nemesis, the Cardinals, and played three good games in a row! THEY SWEPT THE CARDINALS IN THEIR HOME PARK! Let me just repeat that because it feels so good: THEY SWEPT THE CARDINALS IN THEIR HOME PARK! That's the first time they have done such a thing in St. Louis in about six years.

Today, in the final game of the series, our rookie Bud Norris beat their ace Chris Carpenter 4-1. It just doesn't get much better than that, because Carpenter has virtually owned the Astros over the years.

I don't know how many more such days Astros fans will get this season, but this series has at least been a reminder to us that such days are possible, and that rooting for the Astros is not always a lost cause.

And that old adage about how on any day, any given team can beat any other team? It's still true.