How’s THAT for a covering just about anything entry title???!!!

Sorry I haven’t written a new entry for a week or 2, but between work, kids being sick, Dog being sick, bad weather and lack of new Astros news, well, these things happen.

Richard Justice says that Ed Wade is not going to sign anyone else, which means that there may be a few NRIs to ST, or perhaps trades during ST which don’t cost the Astros any money, but basically, what you see is what you get. Merry Sunn-Shynne is still on vacation, so her cheery guest entry about how great the Astros will be is still pending.

I wanted to link to Morgan Ensberg’s latest entry, on women. That is, women baseball fans – and he is the exact opposite of the Tiger Woods/Ben Rothlisfool/Brett Farverite type of athlete who respects only a female’s ability to remove clothes and assume the appropriate reproductive function position. Morgan is unique in my experience of chatting with all KINDS of males or every age and color since I first started posting/commenting on the internet in 2002. He says that his reason for writing his column is to teach/explain baseball to fans. He answers every single comment AND he talks to female fans the same way that he talks to male fans.

Yes, I am serious. He talks to us as human beings (who cares wbout what they look like) who like/love baseball and really WANT to learn more. There is absolutely no, and I mean NO undercurrent of patiently patronizing all the maroon females who for some reason don’t happen to know the intracacies of positioning third basemen with each pitch. Or even ask why lefties can’t play second base. Or, why doesn’t the infield fly rule apply to foul popups? Or how can a batter interfere with a catcher if he swings at a pitch and hits it? None of the usual – let’s call it – exasperation (ahem) answering what may be to him, elementary sorts of questions. And this is a guy who played major league baseball and was an All-Star.

I would say that the most important thing that Morgan has taught me is – people are like baseball – youneverknow – and you might could guess, based on “best information” what they are like, but so many times you are just flat out dead wrong.

And speaking of guesses on best information, I’ve never understood the whole fantasy baseball writing obsession. The guys (I can’t find even ONE female who writes fantasy ball formulas) who write these difficult, intricate formulas, which require an extraordinary capacity for math and computers are, well, by definition stat geeks. So why are they obsessed with a gambling game whose 5 categories are comprised by 5 statistical categories – old ones, such as ERA, Wins, Saves, RBI, BA – which they think are outmoded and insignificant? An absolutely AMAZING amount of work and time is dedicated to predicting what player X is supposed to do this year, or what he is “worth.”

Once, I asked a brilliant (well, he is) stat geek to try to explain to me how he arrived at the numbers he did. He told me it would be a waste of his time (and mine) because I am incapable of understanding even the simplest part of the formula (which is true) but made me feel even stupider than I already am. Morgan would have at least tried.

And speaking of trying,

I have no idea how close Drayton is to selling the club. Thing I worry about is that most likely, within this or next year, 2 marquee franchises, the Dodgers (the McCourts never should have been allowed to buy it in the first place because of the fact that they lacked any solid financing) and the Mets (due to the fact that it looks as if the Wilpons are up to the tips of their noses in the cesspool of Bernie Madoff’s swindles and will be unable to extricate themselves, let alone with enough money (after the lawsuits) to run the franchise) and I would guess, that unless Drayton lowers his price enough to attract mid-market type investors, that he is going to be waiting until after those two sell. Yes, I’m just guessing, based on my observation that in general, hot and glamorous gets more attention than the average.

I have also heard tell that season ticket sales are not exactly moving themselves, and I wonder how much attendance is going to drop.

In other news, Andy Pettitte retired today – for real, I mean, not just his yearly thinking about it. Made me remember the 03/04 offseason, how much excitement his signing, then the possibility of Roger signing, created. Filled the news – seriously. And during stupor bowl season, too. Remember? Seems like yesterday.

Now, basically nothing. The only “news” is waiting to see if Hunter Pence is going to beat Tal Smith at arb (and I bet he doesn’t, based on what other similar guys have been getting, and based on the fact that Tal Smith loses about as often as I get phone calls from Grady Sizemore), and betting on how fat Clank is gonna be when he finally gets around to bother to go to Spring Training.

Only a few more weeks until Pitchers and Catchers report and I am counting the seconds. It always seems like THAT is the real beginning of the year – a new hope, even when you don’t have any substantial reason to have any. There’s just something about baseball makes you feel right when you see players trotting out on that beautiful, impossibly green grass to throw and catch balls. You can never stop thinking – I could do that – or – I wish I could do that. The end of winter, drab, cold, boring stuff like football. The start of something timeless, all over again.

Tags: Houston Astros, MLB

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Morgan Ensberg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.