The Pecan Park Eagle

“Game of Baseball like ancient Chinese Monkey Puzzle. … Impossible to ignore. … Impossible to resist.  … Impossible to master.”  ~ Charlie Chan

There already has been a lot of early talk about what the Astros need to do to resolve the mysteries of their missing roster pieces. As Astros fans, we talk about little things like: Where’s the starting pitching going to come from? How come our relievers can’t get anybody out? Why do we strike out so much? Why can’t we find a catcher who can both hit and catch? Where are all the good high average batters who can hit from the left side? For that matter, where are all the average hitting batters who can hit from the left side?

In response to these questions, and as a matter of fantasy and merriment, The Pecan Park Eagle is proud to present our list of “2017 Free Agent Spring Training Mystery Invitees” – a list of 18 recruited and recreated ballplayers that we scouted this morning as potential mystery solvers to some of the questions that are already beginning to water log on our “River of No Return Into the Further Reaching Hinterlands of the Territory We All Have Come Know as a Place Called ‘Wait’ll Next Year’!”

To find these potential answers, we scouted Baseball Almanac for the surnames of all MLB players who share their last names with those of famous fictional detectives from literature, movies, or tv. Then we selected 18 of them to reincarnate in 2017 by the full name of their fictional detective identity doppelgänger for possible mystery solvers for next year’s Houston Astros, if any of them perform well enough next spring to make the team. The following is a tabular presentation of our magical mystery reincarnation talent list we signed today for the Astros consideration in 2017. Sorry we didn’t get around to advising Reid Ryan or Jeff Luhnow before we took this bold step, but those of us who who work as digital Google bird dog scouts don’t have time to stop and get club approval before we take action in behalf of our favorite teams.

The list:

2017 ASTROS ST MYSTERY INVITEES: Original MLB Names/Transformational New Famous Detective, Now MLB Player Identities

We regret that we could not find any MLB players in history who may have carried the family names of Chan or Columbo into this prospectus. Both would have been great mentors to Astros Manager A.J. Hinch as bench managers. With Charlie Chan sitting by his side through a full season, can we even imagine the amount of wise sayings Manager Hinch could have piled up in a single season. Can you imagine what Chan may have said to 1986 Boston Red Sox Manager John McNamara when that World Series grounder found its game-losing way through the legs of BoSox first baseman Bill Buckner?

How about a touch of Charlie Chan-ese: “Some times ground ball like bar of soap dropped in shower. By time hand reaches ground to retrieve, soap already slips by. Even worse outcome when soap bar dropped in locker room shower after losing game by slippery error on ground ball”

And Columbo! – In Columbo, Hinch would have been helped to see that “one thing” he hadn’t thought of in tense game times and made a better decision.

A Columbo to Hinch Example: “Oh sure, Chief, you can leave Gregerson in there to pitch to Robinson Cano with the winning run on third and nobody out. …. There’s just one thing. …. Make that two. …. He just peed in his pants and … his right arm just fell off.”

Enjoy the Dodgers at Nationals game today, folks. – Let’s get this one decided and start the 2016 World Series!

____________________

 Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

Tags: 2017 ASTROS ST MYSTERY INVITEES

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