Hope is Where the Heart is.
Humphrey Houstonfan and Hope Furtomorrow had been together for a long time, since 1962 to be exact. Their lifelong dream had always been for two things: watching their Houston Astros club win a few World Series titles and then simply living happily ever after as members of the National League family of organized major league baseball clubs.
All that changed in 2011 when the Houston Astros were sold to Mr. Jim Crane, who was also forced by the fascist regime that runs baseball from the Commissioner’s Office to accept reassignment of the club to the American League West as a condition of the deal’s approval.
Humphrey sagged. Hope sank. And the always loyal Houston couple spent the next year in painful deliberation of their next fan course of action: Would they simply go along with the move to the AL, pretending that any league that used a DH was playing real baseball? Would they painfully divorce themselves from the Astros and shift their allegiance to a longtime Houston NL favorite like the Cardinals? Or would they simply re-focus their fan attentions upon amateur baseball, and preferably upon some league that still either avoided the DH – or else – didn’t charge much for watching?
Rice and UH came to mind. Giving up baseball altogether never did.
Humphrey and Hope finally decided to shift their support in 2013 to the Houston Babies of the growing Texas Alliance for Vintage Base Ball. It was good clean 19th century base ball fun. Played from the soul. Played for free. And played out in bucolic grandeur from a deep love of the game on the Elysian-like fields of naturally green places like the George Ranch, south of Sugar Land.
The couple also agreed that they would drive to the big Houston airport and say goodbye to the Astros in the wee small pre-dawn hours of their first road trip of the 2013 season. Because it was so special as a goodbye, Humphrey had been able to get clearance from authorities for he and Hope to be right there at the departing gate with the Astros when the moment of goodbye finally came.
And here’s what actually happened that historic morning. It was like a script for some movie I once saw, but can now hardly remember by title. Perhaps the name will come to me, as time goes by:
As the list of all passengers set for the Astros flight is checked off with each person in line, Humphrey suddenly flashes a single extra computer-printed ticket and speaks to the attendant at the check-in lane:
Humphrey: “Add the name of Miss Hope Furtomorrow to your list.”
Hope: “Why my name, Humphrey?”
Humphrey: “Because you’re getting on that plane. These kids are green. They can’t win without Hope. They need you.”
Hope: “I don’t understand. What about you?”
Humphrey: “Forget me. I’m not Hope. You are. I may still be Love, but I’m too old and tired for this job. It belongs to you.”
Humphrey’s intention suddenly dawns on Hope. The pain in her face is tearful.
Hope: “No, Humphrey, No! What has happened to you? Last night, you said …”
Humphrey: “…Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. – You’re getting on that plane with the Astros where you belong.
Hope: (now protesting) “Humphrey, I..”
Astros Manager Bo Porter notices the couple’s struggle. He walks up close enough to be a concerned third-party listener.
Humphrey: “Hope, do you have any idea what we’d be up against here in Houston if the Astros have to go to the American League with no bats, no arms, and also no hope? Guess who gets the blame for that last one. It will be you and me. And nine chances out of ten Bud Selig would ban us from every park in organized baseball if you don’t go with the team. – Isn’t that true, Bo?”
Bo Porter: “I’m afraid Commissioner Selig would insist.”
Hope: “You’re saying this only to make me go.”
Humphrey: “I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us we both know you belong with the Astros. You’re part of their work, the thing that keeps them going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with them, you’ll regret it. …”
Hope: “…No!”
Humphrey: “…Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
Hope: “But what about us?”
Humphrey: “We’ll always have the Spirit of 2005. We didn’t have, we’d lost it until you started going with me to vintage games. We got it back in the pasture land fields at George Ranch.”
Hope: “And I said I would never leave you.”
Humphrey: “And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Hope, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Maybe someday you’ll understand that my job as general manager of the Houston Babies isn’t all that easy. Finding players that can both catch a baseball with their bare hands and also understand the one-bounce out rule from 1860 aren’t that easy to come by.”
Hope’s expression wells with tears as Humphrey tenderly embraces her chin with the fingertips of both hands and looks her straight in the eyes.
Humphrey: “Wherever you are, I will always have hope. – Here’s looking at you, kid!”
The Pecan Park Eagle 
February 27, 2013 at 9:55 pm |
Bill, it’s a no-brainer. Shift allegiance back to the league with real baseball and become Cardinal fans. It would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
March 1, 2013 at 5:41 pm |
Don’t worry. His son already has. After all, the old Buffs were once the farm team for the cards.