The Pecan Park Eagle

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.