Joe E. Brown: “I’m gonna miss them Astros!”
Bill Frawley: “Me too, Joe!”
It won’t be long now. The Houston Astros are now less than a month away from closing out their final season as a National League club after 51 seasons as an active member and just about a century of minor league association as long-time farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals and short-time affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.
Now it soon ends – and against the same team against which it all began back on Tuesday, April 10, 1962 against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday, April 10, 1962, when Houston was just starting out their big league run at old Colt Stadium as the Colt .45s. Houston won big that day, going 11-2 behind little lefty starter Bobby Shantz as Roman Mejiias led all hitters with 3 hits, 2 homers, and 6 rbi on the day for the locals.
| Baseball Almanac Box ScoresHouston Colt .45s 11 – Chicago Cubs 2.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Game played on Tuesday, April 10, 1962 at Colt Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Game played on Tuesday, April 10, 1962 at Colt Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Baseball Almanac Box Score |  |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Now it all ends at Wrigley Field in Chicago at 1:20 PM on Wednesday, October 3, 2012 against the same frustrated Cubs that once welcomed the Pride of Houston to the NL. They aren’t the same players, of course, but they are the same hapless Cubs.
We are going to miss those Cubs pretty quickly once the Astros move to the American League. next season, but that’s life. As we go along, and if we end up lasting a while on the road to survival, we always end up missing someone who is no longer there. And for the Astros and their fans, the Cubs will surely rank high on that list of lost and/or missing persons.
Maybe we should all pack our bags for Chicago that first week in October and be there to say goodbye to the Cubs and the National League in person. – What do you think?
The Pecan Park Eagle 
September 12, 2012 at 11:51 am |
Over the years I’ve learned to detest the Cubs and everything related to them including that rat-infested band box called Wrigley. I’ve attended games in the Astrodome against the Cubs where the clowns in goofy Cubs hats and posters far outnumbered the fair-weather Houston fans. I’ve sat in Wrigley as a stoned Ozzie Osbourne butchered “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” I’ve suffered through that sanctimonius Harry Cary and his Rafael “Palmetto’s.” I’ve watched fans along the third base line being hit by falling concrete that later was slowed by chicken wire tacked over the rotting concrete outcroppings. I’ve gagged over the filth wedged between the walkway and the ugly hurricane fencing used to prevent drunk Cub fans from falling onto West Addison. I’ve barfed at the Cubbies moaning and wailing about the “Cubs curse,” their use of stupid goats, and the incessant talk of those “lovable Cubbies.” And I’ve enjoyed the Astros’ relative dominance over the team supported by those shirtless, drunken bums in their bleachers. Now I’m going to miss those bastards. Thank you Bud Selig. Thank you Jim Crane for not refusing the move to the minor league. Please take some of that money you get from those stupid Chick-Fil-A Fowl Poles and the other advertising you’re using to replace the train and Tal’s Hill with and buy a spine…fire Selig and hire George W. Bush as commissioner. Geez, he can’t do worse.
September 12, 2012 at 12:44 pm |
Gotta love it!
Thank you, Wayne, for dropping some rat poison disguised as those little multi-colored sugar drops on this whole just-now-really-heating-up “Goodbye, NL Cookie” subject. – Nobody does it better.
September 12, 2012 at 3:05 pm |
It was interesting the recent comments from a Cardinals owner who said he would have “never agreed’ to switch leagues which either implies he doesn’t know Crane wasn’t given a choice or that Crane really did have a choice but took the rebate instead.
Just 13,000 Monday night to watch Cubs-Astros and 14,000 last night. So even our “rivals” don’t attract much of a crowd anymore.
Us National League fans are going to miss the old gang and the interleague series won’t have the same passion they had when the games actually meant something. Won’t you just love it when MLB deems the Diamondbacks or the Rockies as our “designated interleague rival”?