Astros Games TV Blackout Rolls On.
Baseball Lagniappe
John Paciorek’s Slip Shod Exercise Program
John Paciorek achieved a level of immortality when he retired from baseball with a 1.000 MLB batting average. It all happened on September 29, 1963 at Colt Stadium in Houston when the 18-year old Paciorek played right field for the Colt .45’s on an all-rookie team and went 3 for 3 with two walks, 4 runs scored, and 3 RBI on the day for his all single day. He played in a lot of pain that day, but neither he nor the club knew that day that his worsening back injury from even earlier than that day would eventually push him out of the game without another try at big league play.
What most people may not have known at that time was the fact that Paciorek himself may have helped or caused the back problems by his helter-skelter dedication to all kinds of exercises that he simply made up and thought were good ideas to try. The most suspect one was Paciorek’s attempts to muscle up his neck to 19 ” by standing on his head for inordinately long periods of time. It was shortly after he began this regime that permanent lower and upper back pain began to take him over sporadically, then pretty much constantly, as implied by the writings of Dennis Snelling.
In writing of John Paciorek in his profile book on peripheral major league greatness, Dennis Snelling aptly quotes Thomas Carlyle in “A Glimpse of Fame” (1993). – “Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.”
Dodgers Rival Astros with Dumb TV Deal of Their Own
Yesterday I learned for the first time that the Dodgers and their fans are going through a similar freeze on TV games as we in Houston are with Comcast. The provider “bad guy” in LA is Time Warner, whose pricing to other payment television services has been so high that only their 33% of the market now has access to televised Dodger games.
The Pecan Park Eagle most humbly chooses to offer that this mishandling of the fan bond, vis-a-vis the home television blackouts to large portions of the Houston and Los Angeles markets, is evidence of our need to reassess the aggregate IQ of major league club ownership. I sense that we may have slipped away from genius and closer to idiocy than at any other point in recent years.
We don’t think that Astros owner Jim Crane had a clear idea of what he was buying into on the TV contract when he purchased the club and we do applaud what he’s doing to push this issue with Comcast to settlement or dissolution, but we do hope it comes soon. Fans that can’t see the games are going elsewhere – and they cannot be counted on to simply return when the TV light goes back on. Also, long-term, there are thousands of little 8 to 10 year old kids out there in Houston who normally discover the Astros on TV at these ages. Many of them have nothing to watch locally. So, it isn’t happening. And if baseball misses the ripest time to bond, it may never happen again.
Let’s get it done. ASAP.
Ron Necciai Was No Fluke
As a strikeout artist, Ron Necciai was no fluke. In the game that followed Necciai’s May 13, 1952 27K no-hitter, he pitched a 24K 2-hitter, one that included 5k’s in one inning. It more than earned him a promotion to Burlington. Ron left Bristol with an ERA of 0.42 for the Twins. In 42.2 innings at Bristol, Ron Necciai struck out 109. Nothing fluky about the kid they came to call “The Rocket.”
Field of Dreams Was on TCM Last Night
Turner Classic Movies made it impossible for me to watch the NCAA March Madness Basketball Semi-Finals last night. They did so by showing “Field of Dreams, Angels in the Outfield (the original version), and It Happens Ever Spring.” I love ’em all. The smell of freshly cut grass, the scent of a horsehide baseball, and the homey leathered air of a battered old Rawlings Playmaker glove are forever my portals to the happiest days of my life. – Knowing what we soon enough get to learn about life beyond the white baselines, how could they not have been the happiest days of forever?
Have a peaceful Sunday, everybody!
Tags: baseball miscellany
The Pecan Park Eagle 
April 6, 2014 at 3:32 pm |
Bill: On April Fools’ Day, I watched the Astros Opening Day game against the Yankees on Comcast–here in Denver. I say this not to taunt but to point out the absurdity of the situation in Houston. The Colorado Rockies games are on Root Sports, which I get through Comcast. Do the majority of people in the Houston area have some other cable provider? I don’t fully understand the problem.
April 6, 2014 at 3:47 pm |
Tom – Comcast is the base company TV carrier, but other large companies, like my Direct TV satellite company, have yet to sign up due to what they say is the prohibitive cost. The Houston Chronicle estimates that only 40% of the market in Houston now get the games. This has been going on for two seasons of NBA play by the Rockets and now entering the second blackout season for the MLB Astros. Club owner Jim Crane has pressed the issue with a law suit, but nothing has happened – and there is no apparent end in sight. A lot of damage has already been done. I think many of the older fans who now say they are through with Astros baseball are telling the truth.
April 6, 2014 at 10:24 pm |
Interesting question by Tom. He, and others need to understand that cable TV does not dominate in Houston. Though Comcast has the local cable contract only 40% of the city is subscribed. The other 60% either has DirecTV, DISH, ATT U-Verse or nothing. Similar in LA. Time Warner has the contract for the city of LA but not for many of the close-in suburbs. Plus they too have other options. The mistake is the rights are being sold for such high rates that the operation that buys them (Comcast or Time-Warner) can’t find other outlets willing to pay what they want to charge them to carry the games. In Houston the promises of a bright future cannot overcome the “now” which has featured a poor product for the dollars that is being sought. There is also a side problem that is rarely spoken of, but while cable companies are not direct competitors since they have exclusive contracts with specific cities or regions they in reality ARE competitors. And the other forms of distribution, satellite, etc. are DIRECT competitors.
When sports networks were all run by Fox or Madison Square Garden or SportsNet or MASN or NESN they were not owned by one of the major distributors. They were independent sports producers and providing product for all distributors and neither of the competitors were gaining an advantage. With Comcast and now Time-Warner in the production of sports plus distribution agreements will likely always be much more troublesome.
Comcast, for instance, had a “favored nation clause” in what rights fees they would pay the Astros and Rockets. How does that make DirecTV, Dish or ATT-Uverse feel when they have to negotiate carriage deals? Or what about Time-Warner or other cable companies when negotiating when they know Comcast will always get to play less per sub?
April 7, 2014 at 1:22 am |
Little 8-to-10 year old boys who discover MLB baseball will be able to see it regularly – as fans of the Texas Rangers. THEY are carried on virtually every provider throughout the state and show the lions’ share of Rangers games.
So little Johnny and Jimmy will grow up to be Rangers fans instead of Astros fans because of which team they can watch regularly from their living rooms. Or, just maybe, they will follow Jim Deshaies and turn into Cubs fans by watching WGN. Oh, pity them.