“Texans All The Way” … All the Time …. 24/7 … 12 Months a Year.
A Tongue of the Times
“This is the worst part of the football season,” a Houston Subway sandwich shop customer offered to his buddy in the line behind me recently. “With no games to play, all we’ve got to talk about is whether or not the Texans are taking Johnny Manziei with their first pick in the NFL draft.”
In a way, the hungry man says it all for a ton of Houston football fans who view the world along those same lines. In second and third real other “seasons” in which 60% of the fans can neither view the NBA Rockets or the MLB Astros on cable television, and in another year in which the Astros aren’t worth seeing all that much, anyway, an innocent voice of the local culture speaks up to remind us of the fact that the football-town fans of Houston live in a season which never ends – in a 24/7, 12 months a year season in which football is all that matters – in their minds, in the papers, on the Internet, over the ESPN-styled radio and television airways, and in the custom sandwich order line at Subway.
In The Neighborhood
Congratulations and good luck to the Sugar Land Skeeters over the course of their 2014 third season of existence as an independent Atlantic League member. Coming off a league record 95 win season in 2013, the Skeeters are back. with new hopes for another great season under manager Gary Gaetti. Also interesting to watch is the fact that they have signed former NBA star Tracy McGrady as 6′ 8″ right-handed starting pitcher. – Good luck to Tracy too. The fact that the Skeeters sold out their 7,500 seat Constellation Field Opening Game this past week is testimony too to a lot of good things, Tal Smith, Deacon Jones, MJ Burns, and Ira Liebman, and all the Skeeter people I don’t know personally are due tons of credit for a job well done. – And, with their new TV deal with ESPN, the Skeeters may be on TV in 2014 far more often than the Astros.
Minute Maid Park: It’s easier to be revered when you are part of your neighbors’ everyday landscape.
Speaking of Neighborhoods
As all Houstonians know, or soon discover upon their arrival in our great city. Due to our geographic spread and the miles of congested freeways we depend upon to get around, almost all of us have to decide how we are going to live, based on just those aforementioned facts – and not everybody has a good choice: (If you have a choice, you may want to live near where you work and just use the shopping, medical, educational, and entertainment choices that exist in your smaller geographic area – and only leave the region on special occasions, like going downtown to an Astros game. (2) You suck it up and accept the fact that Houston is about driving great distances on a daily basis and spending much of your day in a car,
I don’t really know the demographics of the Sugar Land Skeeters fan base, but I’m betting they have far more season ticket holders from the Fort Bend County area than they do from the Woodlands or inside the 610 Loop neighborhoods, Makes me think that the Astros would be a lot better off if we could ever develop a downtown, midtown, Height, or near East Houston family neighborhood population support base for the club. People who live near a ballpark may be more likely to attend games in talent-challenged years, if the era is brief, whereas, people in the hinterland suburbs might be more inclined to being bandwagon supporters and only come downtown for games during championship competition years.
Houston supports winners. If the Astros don’t win again soon, tell your great-grandchildren not to hold their collective breath in 2114, as they trudge on down to venerable old Minute Maid Park wearing their “2005” tee shirts as a sentimental reminder of the last time that the Astros were even in a World Series.
In The Big Inning
In The Big Inning
Question: What makes baseball more special than any other sport?
Answer: (Hints Only): Open your heart. And use your eyes.
Tags: random baseball thoughts
The Pecan Park Eagle 
April 27, 2014 at 3:21 am |
George Carlin said it best: Because in baseball, you play in a Park, on a Diamond, and everything is about being “up – who’s up? Are you up? Oh, I’m up. Ed is warming up. They’re playing pick-up. We need to move the runner up. It’s a pop-up. He had a notion, but he held up.” And the way to win is by getting home – to be safe at home! No other sport has such imagery.