My son Neal and I saw the Cardinals whack the Astros, 13-5, on Tuesday night. We should have gone Wednesday and we could have seen the Astros rally to defeat the Cardinals by 4-3.
Which is the greater cardinal sin? Is it remaining loyal to the Houston Astros even though they have now been forced to play baseball in the American League and to abide by the “DH” rule that governs there? Or is the greater cardinal sin to be found upon the souls of those who abandon the Astros as a result of their involuntary league switch as they also shift their allegiances to other National League teams?
Neal was happy with the 13-5 Tuesday Cardinal drubbing.
Yours truly falls into the “Astros Loyalist” category. My son Neal is an adamant defector and now a rabid supporter of the team he always liked secondarily to the Astros as a kid, the St. Louis Cardinals.
“Dad,” Neal says to me, “you’re the one that always taught me that it’s the NL that plays real baseball, not the AL with their stupid DH rule. Now I will no longer go to Astros games at Minute Maid Park, unless its to go with you to watch them get their rears kicked by the Cardinals!
“What happened to you, Dad?” Neal goes on. “How can you abide watching the Astros playing by rules that aren’t even real baseball in the first place? I just don’t get it.”
I’m not sure if I have a good explanation – or even a strong need to explain myself to Neal or anyone else on this point, although I do think Neal gets what I’m now about to say in repetition to each of you here:
I am first of all a Houstonian. Once the Crane purchase came down with the AL move requirement put in place as Commissioner’s Bud Selig’s condition for approval of the deal, I saw my choices as (1) walk away from baseball altogether; (2) do what Neal did, transfer my loyalties to the Cardinals, the MLB team of my youth, along with the now defunct Browns; or (3) deal with the AL move and stay true to my hometown team.
Well, for better or worse, it didn’t take me long to see my only choice. I wasn’t going to give up major league baseball and, unlike my son, I wasn’t capable of simply transferring my loyalty to the Cardinals. I had to stay with my hometown Astros and deal with both the imposed influence of Bud Selig and the coming of DH baseball to Minute Maid Park.
Half way through the 2013 first AL season for Houston, I’ve only seen two games in person and none on television. Our house is among the 60% that doesn’t get Comcast, the only carrier of Astros TV games.
Both of my MMP games have played out over the past eight days: On Thursday, June 20th, I went with a friend to a day game and got to see the Astros down the Brewers, 7-4, on an exciting 10th inning walk-off homer by Carlos Pena. Then Neal and I went to see the Tuesday, June 25th, 13-5 drubbing that the Cardinals put on the Astros earlier this week.
Here’s what I notice: (1) I don’t miss the Astros on TV, but that has to with the fact that they are a losing baseball team, not because they are playing in the AL; (2) the DH doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I had no sad feelings at all over the fact that we were not going to see the pitchers bat; (3) I suffered no feelings of loss that the DH rule was protecting Astros manager Bo Porter from some big strategy decision with the double switch; and (4) I was more intrigued now with how Porter was deciding when to make a big pitching change without the NL’s built-in pinch-hitter-for-the-pitcher spots in place to make the tough decisions easier for him.
Astros right fielder Justin Maxwell suffered a mild concussion on his failed attempt on a diving miss of a bases loaded triple Tuesday night.
For me, my acceptance of the AL/DH presence in my hometown Astros’ lives comes down to this: I’m 75 years old now and I’ve never seen my Houston Astros win a World Series. Maybe we’ll have better luck in the AL within two to three years. I like manager Bo Porter and I like what GM Jeff Luhnow is doing with the farm system. Now we just need to see owner Jim Crane and President Reid Ryan sign and keep the players we need on the roster long-term to have a winning shot.
I also look forward to regular season games with the Yankees and Red Sox far more than I do regular annual contests with the Brewers and Marlins.
As for cardinal sins here, there really isn’t one in my book. I respect everyone’s right to decide for themselves what they choose to do with the Astros in the AL reality.
Give up MLB baseball. Transfer your loyalties to another NL club. Or work it out and keep watching the Astros.
The choice is yours.
Tags: Astros as an AL club
The Pecan Park Eagle 
June 28, 2013 at 1:58 pm |
No offense, Bill, but you’re proving Selig right. He figured Astro fans would moan for a little while about the move to the AL, but soon would just give in and take it. Would Cardinal fans roll over and take it? Never. Dodger fans? Yankee fans? Cub fans? Nope. But Astro fans would. I for one don’t want to prove Bud right. I respect your right to stick with the Houston team, but I’m with Neal.
June 28, 2013 at 2:03 pm |
I’m quite torn. The league switch, the cutting off of cable (which does not offer the Astros here in Austin anyway) and the poor play have caused me to seriously cut back my Astros fandom. What surprised me is not that I don’t care about the AL or their style of play (I still don’t) but I don’t care about the NL either since I no longer have a horse in the race.
My big project while I don’t have cable is to transfer the many games I’ve put on videotape over to DVD and I am enjoying old telecasts of the Astros and Oilers and feel a tinge of sadness that both franchises are pretty much dead to me when they used to mean so much.
I have to stay engaged about the Astros for the sake of my website and I find myself rooting for some of the prospects with the team that beat the odds and have made the majors despite being products of the old “barren” farm system like Jose Cisnero, Jose Altuve and JD Martinez. I like Bo Porter but I’m not sold on the folks above him like so many seem to be. They still need to produce at the Major League level and show a desire to win there before I hand them my trust.
Part of me is with you, Bill, and I understand fully what you mean. Part of me is with Neal and I understand fully what he means. How wonderful to be a fan of a franchise that tries to win every year and adores their long, successful history rather than a franchise that sells out their past. Neither one of you is right or wrong here. It is simply the sign of our disastrous times. The Lord is showing me there are better uses for my time than baseball.
June 28, 2013 at 4:58 pm |
It is always a surprise to me when the Astros win a game, Most of the time the score is a disaster . I miss the tv of the games , I feel the ownership could care less about stay at home fans , young children , and older folks who can’t get around as much, Or those who just can’t afford the cost of attending the game in person,
Tough to reconnect with that new ownership thinking,
Neal is correct ,All my life the Cards have been a wonderful team to follow , and support .
June 28, 2013 at 6:01 pm |
WERD…….http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp?content=products&c_id=hou
Now I guess by out of market games they mean those not played there at home. Anyway I think a good handheld touch phone like an android you could watch those games. You probably don’t miss the home games anyway. Where there’s a will there’s a way, or sumpin like that!
June 28, 2013 at 6:50 pm |
To Neal – welcome to Cardinal Nation but never lose respect of the Astros and their fans.
June 28, 2013 at 10:32 pm |
The new collection of the columns of Red Smith includes his dyspeptic reaction to the advent of the DH.
June 28, 2013 at 11:46 pm |
Tony –
On page 206 of “Red: A Biography of Red Smith”, the iconic sports writer refers to the “designated hitter” as “that loathsome ploy” of Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, but I’ve not read the extended opinion from the collection you mentioned. Do you have a reference or a link for us? If so, please post it here as an additional comment or reply.
Thanks, Bill
June 29, 2013 at 5:10 pm |
Bill, thanks again for a wonderful column. Since we grew up in
San Antonio during the 50’s, the Buffs were Texas League opponents, and we knew their connection to the Cardinals. From 1948 thru 1962, the Missions were AA affiliates for the Browns,
the Orioles, and the Cubs. Then, came the Colt 45s.in 1963-64.
The Bullets had good teams, poor attendance. So, the Houston
ownership locked up Mission Stadium and moved the team to
Amarillo, leaving San Antonio without professional baseball for
several seasons. Mission Stadium just sat there empty. When local
volunteers were able to get a commitment to re-enter a AA team
into the Texas League, Houston ownership refused to make a deal
for use of Mission Stadium. The pros were able to play at St. Mary’s
University instead. Most of this took place during the late 60’s when
I was in the service.
Our best family memories of the Astros come from taking our three
kids to the Astrodome from ’72 thru ’82 before we moved from
Houston to Victoria for twenty-five years. We all have great stories
to share about adventures at The Dome.
Given fan-type allegiance to teams like the Browns, Orioles and Cubs prepared me in some ways for the recent/current Astros. With
some sort of blinders on, we root for the players, the team and
the Game regardless of League affiliation and front-office choices.
We’ll always cherish our old pennant from 1975 which reads “The
Tenth Anniversary Season of The Astrodome.”
Forgive me for rambling on today.
Thanks.
June 30, 2013 at 12:27 pm |
I always suspected how the fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Baseball Giants felt when their teams abandoned NY for the West Coast. Now I know. Selig and the traitorous, cynical Crane ripped my baseball heart out. I could care less about baseball anymore. I am gearing up to unload a massive collection of memorabilia and autographs collected over the past 40 years. I don’t even want to see this crap anymore. I was forced to watch a little bit of the minor league Texas Rangers playing the Reds yesterday and wondered about a scenario that may have kept me in the game: eliminating both leagues and all divisions. Divide the season up so each team plays all others an equal amount of times (or a rotating system that approximates that idea [sound like T-ball?]) and then have the top twelve records at the end of the season involved in post season. It would have been fair to all fans in all cities. Too simple. Too late Bud. I pray to the baseball gods that the Astros go bankrupt. And the Brewers.