The Pecan Park Eagle

Don’t Discount Babe Ruth Too Soon, AP Writer

June 16, 2015

On June 19, 1921, The Galveston Daily News reported the following on San Antonio’s Joe Connolly and his 3-HR Texas League game:

Galveston Daily News
June 19, 1921
Submitted by Darrell Pittman

It wasn’t really a case of minor leaguer Joe Connolly bragging upon himself for having done something that even the up and coming HR “phenom”, Babe Ruth, had done by this date in history. The Associated Press writer who flipped this quick thumb-to-nose salute to Babe Ruth for never having yet, as of that June 19, 1921 date, done what Joe Connolly had done that previous day for the Sa Antonio Bears in a losing cause to Shreveport. Left handed batting Connolly had pounded out 3 home runs is one game, albeit, in a losing 11-10 cause.

Joe Connolly
Major Leagues
1921-1924

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=connol002jos

Connolly would begin his brief, spotty major league career (1921-24) that same season, but he would never hit 3 home runs in a single big time game. In fact, “3” would be the total of his MLB homers over the face of a four-season big league career.

Meanwhile, as history notes, Babe Ruth would go on to have four “3-HR games” in the big leagues, with the first two of those momentous occasions occurring in the 1926 and 1928 Worlds Series actions against the same club, each time, the St. Louis Cardinals. The third 3-HR Ruthian game came least conspicuously of the four against the Philadelphia Athletics during the 1930 season and his fourth and last 3-HR splurge came as probably the most famous of them all for its place and timing in the career of baseball’s greatest historical figure.

Babe Ruth's 4th and Final 3-HR game came dramatically in 1935 at the tail end of his grea career as a slugger.

Babe Ruth’s 4th and Final 3-HR game came dramatically in 1935 at the tail end of his great and fabled MLB career as “THE” legendary slugger.

On May 25, 1935, and now playing out the last gate-attraction dregs of his fabled career briefly as a Boston Brave in the National League, Ruth his three home runs in a game at Forbes Field, with one being a prodigious shot, just days prior to his retirement for all time after a game at Cincinnati. The 3-HR game in Pittsburgh would have been the ideal time for the Babe’s cold turkey end as a big leaguer, but real life did not play out as it did in the 1948 movie, “The Babe Ruth Story”.

If you care to check out Babe Ruth among the others in the MLB 3-hr Games Club, check out this link:

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?103023-3-home-run-games

The Babe never had 4-HR big league game, but his Yankee teammate, Lou Gehrig, did reach that mark on one occasion.

It didn’t matter. Several players have broken some of Babe Ruth’s most iconic records. They simply couldn’t be Babe Ruth, even when they tried and beat his numbers on the field.

If there’s a “There Will Never Be Another Babe Ruth Club” out there, sign me up.

Tags: Babe Ruth's Four 3-HR Games
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Astrodome Abandoned to Skid Row in 2000

June 15, 2015

The Astrodome
Friday Morning
June 12, 2015

It’s not like the old days. of course, but the run of special times at the Astrodome plays on.

Last year, we were among those who purchased a pair of Astrodome seats in the 2014 first public sale. Then, on June 4, 2015, Bob Dorrill and I went to the Astrodome to pick up two special stadium seats for Jimmy Wynn. And earlier, at the April 9, 2015 50th Anniversary Party to celebrate the Houston Astros’ first game of all time in the then brand new Astrodome, and against Mickey Mantle and the New York Yankees, no less, we were among the approximate 30,000 fans who flocked to the Astrodome to see again and pay homage to the “old girl” we all know better as “The Eighth Wonder of the World.”

Front: Jimmy and Marie Wynn
Back: Steve Archer & Shawn Bouley
Astrodome Seat Stand Sale
June 12, 2015

June 12, 2015 was a special morning we spent with Jimmy and Marie Wynn at the Dome Seat Stand Sale conducted by Steve Archer of Philadelphia and ably assisted by NRG Properties Manager Shawn Bouley. Jimmy and I were even able to sell quite a few copies of our “Toy Cannon” book to a very appreciative audience – and Steve and Shawn did everything they could to make us all feel welcomed. It was great just watching the fans approaching Jimmy Wynn to say hello, thank him, and share their memories of him. – And almost all of the fans mentioned one of Jimmy’s most famous monster homers, especially the ball that he launched into the gold seat section in high left field so long ago.- No doubt about it. – Jimmy Wynn is one of the most loved figures in all of Houston’s sports history.

But there have been other memories in months – and some new ugly realizations.

April 9, 2015 was a bittersweet beautiful day. I got the impression from crowd chatter that most people who had come that day had brought with them every thought and emotion imaginable in the life space that exists between the portals of “hello” and “goodbye”. A good many of us, I think, or project, (take your pick), approached the party as a conveniently unexpected encounter opportunity to run into, one more time, that special young love that was lost to our reach so many years ago. How would it be to see the Astrodome up close again? We knew going in that her youthful electricity was now spent, but, let’s be fair. She’s fared no worse than many of us to the physical ravages of aging.

To make our experience with being around the Dome in the presence of so many others of good spirit, and that image especially includes all the parents of young children who were all trying to use the gathering as a time to try and teach their kids what “the great hall that changed the game of ball” once was like, the atmosphere was one of hello to an old love that never really went away. She simply got chewed up by the politics of abandonment that ensued from the gut-wounding demands for more seats by Bud Adams of the NFL Oilers.

Adams got his extra seats, unfortunately, but it cost the Astrodome its magical scoreboard – and it soured the inner sense of uniqueness that even the grand old Dome had over all the other multipurpose venues she prototyped in her first decade of life. And, even after all that concession to one man’s greed, Adams still abandoned Houston and the Dome, taking his cookies to Nashville – and, sadly, now leaving Drayton McLane with an aesthetic dislike for the boring new look of the Dome’s interior that now nicely leveraged our fear of also losing the MLB Astros to relocation too – unless public monies could be used to build a new retro-looking baseball park downtown.

McLane got his wish too, but he didn’t really do this to us. A lot us supported the idea of a venue that looked more like the baseball park of our nascent dreams. We too had become bored with the sameness look of the Dome, but that was bound to happen over time with age and familiarity. The stationary roof guaranteed that after thirty years of regular use, that all games would come to look alike, with controlled indoor lighting and no variable weather to break the haze of “same look/different day” that over time had gone from excitement to boredom – and with no option available for openness on good weather days to open up things to the sky because of the permanent roof, stirring the ambient excitement.of the now too drab interior could only have happened with an imaginative proactive plan for internal change. That never really happened on the scale it required – and people were simply unaware that just around the corner of the 21st century lay the makings of a digital technology explosion that could have provided the Astrodome with all the internal changes it needed to keep fans entertained by the uniqueness of varied visual touches that would help keep the interior exciting on a dynamic basis.

That’s right. The Astrodome didn’t need abandonment in the latter years of the 20th century. She needed the equivalent of a mid-life makeover. She had reached the age of needing a facelift beyond the flowers that Mr. McLane, to his credit, had tried to use as bright spots on the dull walls of a drab interior. It just wasn’t enough. And the loss of the great scoreboard for Mr. Adams’ extra seats most probably was the dagger to the heart of our aging beauty. After the big scoreboard was removed and the extra Oilers seats were installed, it was virtually all of us who acted in support of building what is now Minute Maid Park who became contributors also to the dire straits that are now the Astrodome’s current state of dilapidation. And that last sweep includes team owners, our local governing bodies, special business interest groups – and us fans too. Ugly, but true.

All of us – we allowed the construction of the new baseball park without insisting upon an Astros exit plan that would have spelled out a proactive business agenda for what then would become of the Astrdome. Never happened. We all jumped away to our new ballpark like kids dropping an old toy for the new and shiny one – or an old wife for a young one. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t remember a single article or community discussion of any consequence about the future of the Astrodome back in 1996-99. And we missed our best shot at a plan that could have given her an earlier, full to partial renewal – by either saying goodbye to Mr. Adams before we allowed him to force the loss of our scoreboard – or in conjunction with the Astros’ plan to move downtown, insisting upon an acceptable new business plan for the Dome as a condition for approving any public monies for a new baseball venue. We just didn’t do it. Nobody did.

Maybe this is what that one older stranger I heard muttering really meant when I passed him on the sidewalk beside the Dome back on April 9th. The man was just standing there, facing the Astrodome, with arms folded, as he stared intently at our mammoth architectural icon , shaking his head – and muttering to no one in particular beyond himself.

“This never should have happened,” the man spoke into the wind, without even so much as breaking the stillness of his concentration.

This time, if this really is a last ditch opportunity to get it done, we had better get it right. Otherwise, our “true love” for the Astrodome doesn’t go away. It just converts into an unrecoverable grief over our loss of this first-of–a-kind love to our collective misunderstanding of what all those abandonment symptoms and actions were really about back in the 1990s. And the loss of true love doesn’t really ever go away. It haunts the soul of the grieving survivor like the meanest demon from hell.

Tags: the astrodome on skid row
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Houston Babies Fall, 7-2, to Katy Combine (Again)

June 13, 2015

~ SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES ~ LIKE LIKE THE FATHER OF PLAY-BY PLAY RADIO DID BACK IN THE 1920S, IRA LIEBMAN OF THE SUGAR LAND SKEETERS BROADCAST THE BABIE-COMBINE GAME FROM FIELD LEVEL.

~ SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES ~
LIKE LIKE THE FATHER OF PLAY-BY PLAY RADIO DID BACK IN THE 1920S, IRA LIEBMAN OF THE SUGAR LAND SKEETERS BROADCAST THE BABIES-COMBINE GAME FROM FIELD LEVEL.

The Katy Combine played beautifully at Constellation Field yesterday, June 12, 2015, earning every sweet sip of bubble wine they took from the victory cup of having again bested, busted and otherwise pushed aside the Houston Babies, 7-2. The Babies fought the good fight, but they couldn’t resist hitting too many high floating one-bounce outs – and they suffered an excess number of foul tip one-bounce grabs by the Combine catcher for easy retirements at the plate to have much hope for a win of their own.

The game was played in splendid good sportsmanship between the two stalwart and strongly committed 1860s vintage base ball clubs of the Greater Houston area – and the hope lives on that we shall continue to recruit others to a level of participatory appreciation for the soaring impact our hobby-game has upon the sandlot spirit that never died within any of us from earlly childhood to now – and from ere to eternity.

We remain dedicated to the plan of developing two more teams. With four teams, we will bring spring and autumn round robin schedule league play to Greater Houston Vintage Base Ball and be able to play our way into a championship game, perhaps at Constellation Field, between the two clubs that finish the year’s schedule with the best records.

That being said, here’s an often up-close-and-loaded-with character pictorial of the Houston Babies personnel who were able to participate in yesterday’s game. And these shots include pictures of our on-the-DL shortstop, Jimmy Disch, and the loyal daughter and courtesy runner for her father, Meghan McCroskey – without whom, her dear and often brash, but good natured father, Michael “Piano Legs” McCroskey, would never so much as get to first base – let alone get the double that later converted to only the Babies second run of the day when his surrogate runner daughter came in to score on his behalf.

The Pecan Park Eagle hopes you enjoy your individual, collective, and residually ambient visit with the 2015 Houston Babies in imagery!

FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2015
IT WAS A GREAT DAY FOR 1860 RULES BASE BALL AT BEAUTIFUL CONSTELLATION FIELD IN SUGAR LAND, TEXAS!

For the first time, the Babies-Combine game got big digital HD screen coverage at beautiful Constellation Fied.

For the first time, the Babies-Combine game got big digital HD screen coverage at beautiful Constellation Field.

BOB DORRILL
HOUSTON BABIES
MANAGER

ALEX SCHMELTER
HOUSTON BABIES
RIGHT FIELD
GRANDSON OF BOB DORRILL

MIKE McCROSKEY
HOUSTON BABIES
CATCHER-PITCHER

MEGHAN McCROSKEY
HOUSTON BABIES
COURTESY RUNNER
DAUGHTER OF MIKE McCROSKEY

ALEX HAJDUK
HOUSTON BABIES
LEFT FIELD
SON OF LARRY HAJDUK; BROTHER OF ZACH HAJDUK

LARRY HAJDUK
HOUSTON BABEIS
1ST BASE-PITCHER
FATHER OF ALEX AND ZACH HAJDUK

PHIL HOLLAND
HOUSTON BABIES
2ND BASE

BILL HALE HOUSTON BABIES PITCHER-3RD BAS-CATCHER

BILL HALE
HOUSTON BABIES
PITCHER-3RD BASE-CATCHER

BOB STEVENS
HOUSTON BABIES
RIGHT FIELD

BILL McCURDY
HOUSTON BABIES
GENERAL MANAGER

KYLE BURNS
HOUSTON BABIES
CENTER FIELD

ROBERT PiNA
HOUSTON BABIES
CATCHER-SHORTSTOP

ROBBIE MARTIN
HOUSTON BABIES
CENTER FIELD

BEAUTIFUL CONSTELLATION FIELD
HOME OF THE SKEETERS
SUGAR LAND, TEXAS

MARK HUDEC
HOUSTON BABIES
3RD BASE

TWP FOUL-TIP-BOUNCE-CATCH-OUTS FOR THE BABIES ARE CAPTURED ON THE BIG SCREEN PASSING EACH OTHER ON TRIPS TO AND FROM THE DUGOUT.

TWO FOUL-TIP-BOUNCE-CATCH-OUTS FOR THE BABIES ARE CAPTURED ON THE BIG SCREEN PASSING EACH OTHER ON TRIPS TO AND FROM THE HOUSTON BABIES DUGOUT.

JIMMY DISCH
HOUSTON BABIES
SHORTSTOP (DL)
TODAY’S “BLIND TOM”

HOUSTON BABIES
POST-GAME TEAM PICTURE
CONSTELLATION FIELD
JUNE 12, 2015

IRA LIEBMAN
PLAY-BY-PLAY MAN
FOR THE SUGAR LAND SKEETERS
AND
PLAY-BY-PLAY MAN AND OUTFIELDER
FOR THE HOUSTON BABIES

HOUSTON BABIES CELEBRATE SUNSHINE AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS ON A DAY IN WHICH THE ONLY BAD THING WAS A 7-2 LOSS TO A TEAM OF GOOD SPORTS, THE KATY COMBINE.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND, EVERYBODY!

Tags: 2015., HOUSTON BABIES LOSE 7-2 TO THEY KATY COMBINE ON JUNE 12
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Some Thoughts on Hitting in Winning Baseball

June 12, 2015

“Hit “Em Where They Ain’t.”
~ Wee Willie Keeler
Hall of Fame

1) If a team doesn’t hit, they don’t produce a whole lot of base runners.

2) Without base runners, a team will find it impossible to move them into scoring position. And unless a team scores more runs than their opponent, they cannot win. Yes. we know. It’s that basic.

3) If your club manages to get a number of runners into scoring position from 2nd and 3rd base, it’s still a lot harder scoring runs if you don’t have batters who can still hit under those circumstances.

4) Hitting is important; hitting with runners in scoring position in a close game is essential.

5) If a club’s only 4 hits in a 10-4 loss are 4 homers hit by one player who only started getting them after the other team took a 10-0 lead in the top of the first inning, that mighty contribution was far less important than the dink single in the bottom of the 9th in another game in which the hitter of that lone puny bingle in the drove in runners from 2nd and 3rd for a 2-1 walk-off victory. Singles in that circumstance at a high rate are more important in baseball than a 40 homer year by ne player who only hits them like that in the late innings with no runners on base and his club hopelessly behind in the game.

6) If a batter can get hits in game-critical situations, coaches should leave his stance and style alone as long as it is producing the right results at a good rate.

7) Hitters who only seem to homer or strikeout most of the time, while still hitting .200, are an absolute luxury, unless the club has a large number of table-setter hitters who get on base in bunches often and that’s when the homers come from the “hit or sit” guy.

8) One “hit or sit” guy batter on a term is a luxury; two “hit or sits” is risky; three “hit or sits” is insanity; four “hit or sits” is a death wish for securing the No. One pick in next year’s amateur player draft; five or more “hit or sits” is a prescription for bankruptcy and either sale of the club or disenfranchisement.

9) As for the current vogue of shifting the defense for many batters as though these guys were Ted Williams, we say, leave the game alone, Mr. Commissioner. We don’t need rules that control where fielders may play on the field, The hitters have an answer, if they are smart enough and skilled enough to take it. Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler prescribed it over a century ago.

10) Hit ’em where they ain’t.

Tags: hitting that wins in baseball
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Great Lines from the Movie “Bull Durham”

June 11, 2015

“Bull Durham”
1988

After catching the classic 1988 movie “Bull Durham” on Direct TV sometime in the past week, I had planned to save the DVR in order to go back through it for the “best lines” from that wonderful script. Then I gave it a second thought:

“Come on, Dummy! Several somebodies have bound to have done that exercise a few hundred times over in the 27 years that have passed since the cult movie’s release. Go Google-find one that fits your own ideas for a good set of picks and then post it here, giving credit where credit is due!”

That turned out to be splendid self-advisory.

Here’s a list of classic quotes compiled by a savvy baseball move writer named Greg Pearson, whose list was published, with contextual explanation in the April 25, 2011 edition of the Milwaukee-Wisconsin JOURNAL SENTINEL:

“Who we play tomorrow?”

– Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), moments after telling the manager he’s quitting rather than being demoted to Class A ball.

“It feels out there. It’s a major rush. I mean, it just doesn’t feel out there, I mean it feels out there. It’s kind of radical in a kind of tubular way, you know.”

– Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), responding when asked how it feels to win his first professional game.

“I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter.”

– Crash Davis, when Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) asks what he believes in.

“You lollygag the ball around the infield. You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag in and out of the dugout. You know what that makes you? Lollygaggers.”

– Manager Joe Riggins (Trey Wilson), trying to inspire his sluggish team.

“I want you to breathe through your eyelids.”

– Annie Savoy, offering her unique pitching tips to LaLoosh.

“I want you to throw the next one at the mascot. Just throw it at the bull, all right. Trust me.”

– Crash Davis, offering his pitching advice to LaLoosh.

“Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. It’s more democratic.”

– Crash Davis, offering more pitching advice to LaLoosh.

“Why’s he always calling me Meat? I’m the guy driving a Porsche.”

– Nuke LaLoosh, after another mound visit from Davis.

“Candlesticks always make a nice gift. Maybe you find out where she’s registered and get a place setting or a silverware pattern. OK, let’s get two.”

– Coach Larry Hockett (Robert Wuhl), breaking up a mound meeting with half the team that involved topics ranging from pitching troubles to cursed gloves to wedding gifts.

Here the link to the original article:

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/etc/120667079.html

Tags: Bull Durham Lines, By Greg Pearson
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

The Sometimes Timeless Wisdom of Will Rogers

June 11, 2015

We’re back. And the beat goes on for The Pecan Park Eagle.

Today we’re simply going to take a look at the wit and wisdom of the late Will Rogers – and how it might fly apply or misfit in our world today.

“I can say that I never met a feminist I didn’t like because I met Kathryn Hepburn back in the early 1930s and she was a real nice lady.”
~ Will Rogers (maybe)

The Sometimes Timeless Wisdom of Will Rogers

1) Never slap a man who’s chewing tobacco.

TPPE Comment: Never crack a private joke in the face of a man who’s chewing tobacco. Nellie Fox of the Houston Astros was an avid tobacco chaw guy, through and beyond his last season as an MLB player and an old school fellow all the way. When he learned of the club’s plan to replace the green-painted dead natural grass in the sun-proofed Astrodome roof with a new non-biodegradable plastic field cover called AstroTurf in 1966, Nellie wasn’t joking when he asked, “Where will I spit?” The answer supplied itself. Nellie Fox retired after 1965 and never had to face that question as a player. But odds are high that his answer to that question would have been: He would have spat from wherever he happened to be standing. And it would have been pretty obvious on the field where he most often stood.

2) Lettin’ the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier’n puttin’ it back.

TPPE Comment: The problem with this metaphor always has been the difference in outcomes from the perceived release of an actual frightened cat and the figurative release of secretive information. Let a real cat out of the bag and you are not likely to see that frightened cat again. Let a secret out of the bag and it’s going to bite and scratch several somebodies and – if you are the one who released it – you most probably will be high up on that kind of cat’s hit list.

3) There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.

TPPE Comment:Oh, Will! Will! Will! – This is 2015! Were you to rise from the dead tomorrow at the same age you were when you and Wiley Post died in that terrible Alaskan plane crash back in 1935, you would certainly have to clean up your act before you fell back into favor, if you ever did, as the iconic American humorists. This is an era in which some topics, unless you’re name in Chris Rock, are totally inappropriate. Your comment regarding women and their unequal capacities for fair and rational debate and disagreement is totally inappropriate for 2015. You could not only get into trouble for saying what you apparently did say long ago about the ineffectiveness of the two theories for arguing with women, you could probably be charged with sexual abuse for even thinking along those lines in the presence of a female mind-reader.

4) Never miss a good chance to shut up.

TPPE Comment: We just blew that opportunity when we signed up for an extension of The Pecan Park Eagle on WordPress.

5) Always drink upstream from the herd.

TPPE Comment: Hear that, Astros? That’s Will Rogers talking! – It means stop losing and hold on to first place in the AL West!

6) If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

TPPE Comment: You should have been with us in Houston a couple of weeks ago, Will. We could’ve used a lot more deep and wide holes than we had on hand for all the rainwater that invaded many of our homes during the flood because the water had no place else to go..

7) The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.

TPPE Comment: What money?

8) After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you’re full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

TPPE Comment: It’s on our bucket list, Will!

9) Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

TPPE Comment: If rookie shortstop Carlos Correa turns out to be the proof of the Astros’ recent “good judgment” in the 2012 amateur player draft, let’s hope that a lot of that good judgment karma comes from the fact that back in the 1992 amateur player draft, the Astros had a chance to draft shortstop Derek Jeter, but instead used their pick on a third baseman named Phil Nevin.

Tags: Wisdom of Will Rogers
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Bonehead Play by Villar Rings Bell for Correa Now

June 8, 2015

“CALLING CARLOS CORREA!
CALLING CARLOS CORREA!”

“READY OR NOT,
YOUR TIME HAS COME,
TOMORROW IS TODAY!”
(EVEN IF YOU NOW ARE, AT AGE 20,
THE YOUNGEST PLAYER IN THE BIG LEAGUES.)

It was going to happen soon, anyway. Jonathan Villar just helped Astros management ring the call-up for Carlos Correa from Fresno about a week earlier than many of us expected.

It happened, as you probably know, in that classic pre-2015 Astros pitching and defense meltdown that rescued the club yesterday from the joy of victory and delivered them to the agony of defeat. And Mr. Villar at shortstop made a primary contribution to something that last year was as predictable as the use of another tissue from the box extraction by someone with a Houston environmental sinus problem. – The Astros lost their fourth game in a row for the first time in 2015, incidentally completing their three-game sweep loss to the Blue Jays in Toronto.

Closer Luke Gregerson did his part by blowing his first save since April 24th. Luke just had one of those days in which his impression of “Mr. Hittable” simply served him up as bait-fish to the hungry Blue Jay batters. For every pitcher who loses his stuff in a game, and especially on the road, every town is “a town without pity”. Toronto just ate up Luke on Sunday, only stopping because a walk-off two run single by Chris Colabello in the bottom of the 9th had given the Jays a 7-6 lead for the win.

And that winning run could not have scored had not Astros shortstop Villar not given him the opportunity to be a base runner. earlier in the inning. With Jose Reyes running at second base, Jose Bautista popped a high infield fly that seemed to be coming down directly over second base. Based upon the body language of Jose Altuve, it appeared on TV that the ball was taking a downward path that was aiming slightly to the first base side of the bag. Altuve seemed to be calling for it and the fact he did was soon confirmed by the Alan Ashby-Geoff Blum broadcast team.

No matter. Villar was coming for the ball no matter what. You could see Altuve backing off at the last second. Fine, except for one thing. Villar was going to have to either go around or through base runner Reyes to reach the ball in time for a catch. Villar tried to go straight to the ball’s descent path, but he collided with runner Reyes on second. Villar tried to reach around Reyes for the catch, but the ball that Altuve could have easily caught, had he not been rhino-run out of the way, simply did what gravity had in mind for all the while. It dropped to earth. The eventual winning run in Jose Bautista was now safe at first.

And so the thing that was going to happen, probably has now happened a few days sooner. Carlos Correa, the poster child for all the club’s future talent is on the way. Tomorrow is today. The future is now. And the timing probably was aided by the loss that slipped up on the Astros yesterday. It was a loss aided considerably by Villar’s bonehead play at shortstop on Sunday.

Remember those concerns that some fans and writers were expressing about a month ago? They were along the lines of “what if the Astros don’t call up Correa in time – and the club goes on to miss the playoffs by one lousy game?”

If that happens, we, at least, now know when that “one lousy game” loss differential occurred. It happened yesterday in Toronto, Sunday, June 7. 2015, when the Astros blew a game to the Blue Jays, 7-6, that they should have won. And might have won, had Carlos Correa already been playing shortstop instead of Jonathan Villar.

Tags: Villar's Play Hurries Correa's Call
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Astros: How To Win the Battle and Lose the War

June 7, 2015

It’s 2015. The Astros have on of the best records in baseball. The 2014 AL batting champion is swinging away. – What’s missing in this picture?

Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative

How is it possible that the Houston Astros could be playing so well and yet still drawing game crowds so poorly?

Yes, we understand. From a marketing standpoint, there are some problems that the club may never acknowledge or own publicly – nor do we expect President Reid Ryan to do so. When your club has the biggest divisional lead and one of the best records in baseball after June 1st, it’s probably no time to say anything that could be interpreted by the media wags as either negative or an internal lack of confidence in the team and, in total candor, this whole, so-far, successful rebuilding process.

As a result, the public face of the Astros may be to publicly celebrate the 21,000 fans who show up to watch a weekend game against another contender, and to pass on addressing the 21,000 seats that remained empty.

Maybe not. But who could blame them, if they did. It’s human to hope that accentuating the positive will drive the negative away and sometimes it does. At others, as the case may be here, the negative will only go away once we accurately identify the problem(s) and explore what we may be able to do about them. And then, once our objectives for change are decided, we commit to doing those things in some calculated, totally relentless form as an organizational strategy.

What’s this column all about?

So, why does The Pecan Park Eagle think that the wonderful (thanks largely to faith in GM Greg Luhnow) 2015 Houston Astros club seem to be struggling in their campaign to use winning as the card that recaptures the big crowds?

We think the problems effecting mediocre game attendance for an exciting and young winning 2015 Astros ball club are several. Some have fairly clear answers. Others not.

We do not possess the audacity of thinking that we have all the answers about problems and solutions to the attendance issue wrapped up in a bow, nor do we presume that the Astros are not already aware of these things and working on them quietly.

We simply want to put them out here as though they are cards that need be kept in mind and somehow played to win the battle for support from a fan base that really cares about what happens to the Houston Astros.

Here are our cards and, for the sake of brevity, there will not be 52 cards in this pack. So, anyone who doesn’t like what we have to say, please feel free to fall back on the fact that we were not playing with a full deck from the start:

Card # !: Competition with Other Leisure Time and Money Diversions

Baseball is no longer our National Pastime in actuality. Competition from football, basketball, NASCAR, water sports, and other leisure time market activities have changed the landscape over the past forty years as to how Americans and, at least one Canadian city’s citizens use the disposable incomes.

Card # 2: The “Out of Sight/Out of Mind” Hangover

(a) Those two 60% cable TV blackout seasons (2013-14) in the Houston area hurt deeply, we think. They violated the first rule of marketing: “If you don’t want people to buy your product, don’t let them see it.” A number of people have told us that those two blackout seasons were the time they found “other things to do” and lost interest in returning to baseball when the ROOT network finally picked up the dropped ball in 2015.

(b) Even with ROOT, the fans in this state’s other major metro areas don’t get it. Time-Warner controls what cable fans in the Austin-San Antonio and Corpus Christi areas see. My brother lives in the Corpus Christi area. They, as is true in Austin, only get to see the Astros when they are playing that network’s “home” team, the Texas Rangers. About the same circumstance in Austin, Wayne Roberts has written us to express the following: “I still haven’t seen a game this season. Time Warner doesn’t carry Root. Once again, the Astros default the Central Texas market to the Rangers.”

My brother says that once he gets past Jose Altuve, he cannot name another single starter on the 2015 team. He admits also to not thinking about the Astros much as the time goes by.

Let’s expand this card title to include where it leads: “Out of Sight/Out of Mind/Out of Interest/ Out of My life.”

Now do the math. How many fans from the traditionally rich Astros fan bases in Corpus Christi and Austin are variably feeling the same things that John McCurdy of the Corpus Christi area and Wayne Roberts of the Austin area are now feeling.

These are the out-of-town fans, when they cared about the team, that used to fill many of those now empty seats on weekends and during summer vacations.

And what about the kids from those areas that are growing up with exclusive exposure to the Texas Rangers? If they keep their interests in baseball into adulthood, who do we expect them to go see any club? The Rangers are our guess.

The Astros brand needs to get out there statewide again through an expansion of the ROOTS sports network. Even Coca-Cola understands that they have t keep their name out there to avoid being forgotten.

Card No. 3: Sports Talk Radio in Houston

We’ve already beat this card to death at least twice in other columns. The Astros and baseball are pretty much an after thought to the mike jockeys who blab their ways through our ears in drive time about the Texans, the Rockets, and which broadcasters from their staff would have the best shot at dating actress Jessica Alba, if she weren’t already married and they were available too.

This is madness!

How about giving some serious thought to an entertaining radio talk show about baseball only?

Card No. 4: The Operant Conditioning Factor in Being a Baseball Fan

Operant conditioning is a behavioral psychological process that has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th century work of Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov proved with rats that they could be taught to take a certain path in a maze over time and repetition, if they were always rewarded with cheese at the end of that route after being released into the maze each time at the same entry point.

Pavlov also discovered that if the rats were sometimes denied that cheese reward at the end of their run through the maze that they would start making mistakes about the route again. If the reward was removed totally, the rats would totally stop trying.

As much as we hate to admit it, we humans, and maybe in some particular way, we baseball humans are a lot like Pavlov’s rats on the operant behavioral level. – We are stimulated to go ball games because we enjoy the fun. There’s also cheese for us too. We get it on the nachos.

If we our team is a winner, we probably will have more fun and come even more often.

If we start running into too many inconveniences, like traffic, or parking, etc., we may not come as often, but we will still be there because we care about the Astros – and we still believe the Astros care about us.

On the more extreme side, if you take away our way home cable TV for a couple of years, or baseball goes on strike, or, because of others’ work, we can no longer follow the Astros in our outlying communities, we start thinking the cheese is gone – and start looking for it elsewhere.

Once people find another comfort zone with a pattern that meets their reward needs with something other than baseball, it may be hard to impossible getting these people back – especially, if their last thoughts upon closing the door on the Astros were, “why should I care about the Astros? They didn’t seem to care about me.”

Card No. 5: The Bud Selig American League Squeeze Play on Jim Crane and the Astros

Many longtime fans will no longer attend Astros games because of both the club’s shift to the American League in 2013 and also, because of the way they got there. My own grown son has not been to a single Astros game with me since they moved to the AL because of the way I raised him to feel about the DH. Unfortunately, at my age, I still love the team and any kind of baseball more than I once detested the DH, but I’ve sort of come around to not minding the DH so much after all. (That’s another subject for another day.)

The other big thing with many stayaways from this category is the Bud Selig Factor. Some feel that Selig simply leveraged Jim Crane during the final stages of the deal. Much the way car dealers like Selig must have done in his previous career, he knew he had his buyer on the hook and that the “deal” was the perfect place for hm to get what he wanted – a team that move to the American League to even the AL/NL team alignment at 15 teams each, with three 5-team divisions in each league. With the Astros in this vulnerable spot, Selig would not have to waste further time searching for a fully enfranchised club that could say “NO” to him.

The stayways, as do many of us still attend games because we still care about the Astros, recognize that Selig showed no concern for Houston’s long-time association with the NL, even prior to actual NL membership – and absolutely no interest in the opinions of Houston Astros fans in this matter of transferring the club to the AL.

The irony? In 1997, acting commissioner Selig talked Brewers owner Selig into moving his club from the AL to the NL for the sake of making sure that both leagues could maintain an even number of clubs in each circuit. The result was 16 teams in the NL and 14 teams in the AL. Then, in his pre-2013 move on the Astros, Commissioner Selig mad Huston leave the NL and take Milwaukee’s place n the AL so that both leagues would each have 15 teams.

Very interesting, but very damaging to the fan base that has been alienated by Selig and the way he pulled this stunt on our National League team.

Card No. 6 (and it’s no Joker): Don’t Count 100% on “They’ll get over it. All we have to do is win.”

If what we’ve tried to convey in these few thoughts isn’t clear enough as a call to action on all possible repairs to the Astros brand and statewide TV coverage, we will be wasting your time and ours writing more,

Enough said.

Tags: factors now hurting the Astros fan base
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

The Night Dickie Thon Went Down

June 6, 2015

April 8, 1984: Dickie Thon collapses at home plate in the Astrodome after getting ht in the head with a pitch by Mets hurler Mike Torrez.

April 8, 1984: Dickie Thon collapses at home plate in the Astrodome after getting ht in the head in the 3rd inning with a pitch by Mets hurler Mike Torrez.

It was Sunday night, April 8, 1984. My wife and I had gone to the Astrodome to watch our Houston Astros take on the New York Mets. The club had gotten off to a 1-3 start going into that game, but we had Joe Niekro starting for us that night and the season was still young and hopeful. Unfortunately, before this evening was done, our Astros hopes for the season would be dimmed from any real chance at finally winning it all – and the talented future of shortstop Dickie Thon would be ruined forever. Sadly, the beaning by Mets pitcher Mike Torrez created serious permanent damage to Dickie Thon’s sight in his left eye. The eyesight loss and psychological trauma would work together to keep him from being the hitter he once had been on his way to reaching even greater possible levels of accomplishment.

None of us who were present at the game that night, and our seats were in the purple loge level, but way down the right field line, will ever forget the sickening loud thud sound we heard when the ball struck Dickie Thon’s head. As his body limply collapsed at home plate, I’ve always imagined that everyone else’s first apprehensions probably were akin to ours. We feared that he was dead. Thank God he wasn’t, but here’s how the AP people covered the tragedy:

Wish again that I had the Post and Chronicle coverages, but I don’t have those accesses in my News Archives digital files.

____________________

THON AFRAID OF NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY AGAIN AFTER BEING HIT BY PITCH TO HEAD

HOUSTON (AP) – Houston Astro shortstop Dickie Thon says he saw an entire spring training of work – and possibly his career – flash before him when he was struck in the head by a pitch from New York Mets pitcher Mike Torrez.

“I was afraid I wouldn’t play again,” Thon told Dale Robertson of the Houston Post. “That’s all I could think about. I thought I was hurt bad.”

Thon was scheduled to undergo minor surgery today to “facilitate his recovery.”

Doctors earlier had said surgery would not be necessary after tests showed Thon suffered a broken bone above his left eye in Sunday’s game against the Mets.

“I hope the good Lord will help me recover quickly,” Thon (said) to the Post Tuesday. “It’s tough to work hard in spring training to get ready, then have something like this happen. But I’ll be back.”

Thon said he recalled that prior to the pitch, “I wanted him to pitch me inside, but not that inside. The ball sailed in on me. When I saw I was going to be hit, it was too late to get out of the way.”

Torrez telephoned the Astros shortstop Tuesday, Thon said.

“He told me he was real sorry,” Thon said. “Ii believe him. It’s one of those things. It’s part of the game.”

The Astros placed their 1983 All-Star infielder on the 15-day disabled list on Monday, but team physician Dr. Bill Bryan said Thon could be sidelined for three weeks.

Dickie Thon: In the days following his bean ball injury of April 8, 1984

Tests conducted by Dr. Richard Harper on Monday revealed no brain damage from the blow to Thon’s head, but Bryan said he was concerned about decreased vision in Thon’s left eye resulting from tissue swelling in back of the eye.

Craig Reynolds replaced Thon in the starting lineup for a two-game road trip to Philadelphia.

~ Associated Press, Big Spring (TX) Herald, Wednesday, April 11, 1984, Page 10

____________________

Link to the Baseball Almanac Box Score of Dickie Thon’s Career Changing Game of April 8, 1984:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=198404080HOU

Tags: 1984, Dickie Thon's Bean Ball Head Injury of April 8
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

How About a Baseball-Only Radio Talk Show?

June 5, 2015

“YUM!!! – THIS BASEBALL TALK RADIO TASTES GOOD!”
– Thousands of Main Line, Car-Driving Houston Baseball Fans

If you are a “Cheerio” or “Wheaties” particle, you can only think outside the box for a very short time before you get eaten.

The Pecan Park Eagle is hardly a cereal particle, although one could argue that the depth of our columns sometimes places us in that category. We like to think the generally wading pool depth we deliver on the subjects we embrace is our matter of choice, and not a manifestation of our limitations. We subscribe to the philosophy that column-writing over the Internet manifests from the complex needs of both the writer and the reader, but that in the end, it remains all about communication, and that communication is always about contact for the purpose of dispensing or sharing information that is either educational, entertaining, and/or worthy of interaction on some question of action or change that seems needed.

That mouthful being said, the subject today again is the disappointing state of sports talk radio and the possibility of one suggested remedy that could work, if it is done right by the right savvy people.

Yesterday we had some business out at the Astrodome and the car radio came on tuned to 790 AM where the two former NFL players were already in deep rapture over a football discussion. I punched the button for a change to 610 AM, but all fell into there were two guys doing a rather expansive post-mortem of the Rockets loss in the NBA basketball finals of a week ago.

As I quickly switched to my big band music station on Sirius Satellite radio, I was also reminded of how pleasant it was to hear Larry Dierker back on the air last weekend in conjunction with the Astros broadcast. Then the thought burst through, again, in just-out-of-the-box cereal form: “Why can’t we have an All Baseball Talk Radio Station – or, at least, a station which does all baseball talk material during the primary rush hour times when people are listening to talk radio. We have no specific data on how many listeners tune in to sports talk radio at home, but our guess is that those folks are about 1% tops. It’s the “out-and-about” driver that keeps radio alive.

Yeah, we know it’s all about market share and the value that programs add to the price of advertising, but we do have a lot baseball fans in this town too. Who among us would not prefer listening to people like Larry Dierker, Bill Brown, Greg Lucas, Jimmy Wynn, Art Howe, just to name a few, along with a baseball-deep knowledgeable guy like Charlie Pallilo, Craig Roberts or Mike Vance thrown into the mix somewhere, over what we have now?

I’m not sure of the actual prime hour ranges such programming would embrace, but the people I’ve just named could figure that out – along with the kind of programming that would work best in sating the appetites of Astros fans and people who really care about the history and rich story lore of the game. The baseball call-in fans, certainly, a smaller number of the baseball fan listening audience, would then have a program choice that spared them long waits on the phone behind football knee injury callers at all of the other places. We think that such a program could attract the thousands of primary baseball fans like the old “bears to honey” metaphor has suggested forever. And the listening needs of these baseball bear fans have been in hibernation on the programming schedules of all other local broadcasters for a very long time.

How about it? Do we simply eat this idea with all the usual dismissive sauce from the “can’t-be-done” company – or does anyone out there have the guts to take this on? The Pecan Park Eagle believes that thousands of Houston area daily car-driving baseball fans would be ecstatic, if you did.

Tags: All Baseball Talk Radio
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »