I had hoped for the best and now have to accept the worst. This is like when you have a stomachache. Only it lasts more than a couple of weeks and you aren’t feeling right so you see the doc and she tells you – it’s nothing bad, it should go away. And it seems to, but it keeps coming back and you see another doc who says, well, we’ll get some tests, meanwhile, take this medicine. And you do, and you think you are getting better. But then they take an X-ray and you hear the technician say uh-oh. And you have this bad BAD feeling and finally the doc takes a look at everything and says – it’s malignant, it’s terminal and nothing can be done. Let me give you the number for hospice and a script for pain meds because you’re gonna need em.
I’m in the final stage of Astros fandom, ready for hospice.
I’ve already been through
1 – denial
2 – anger
3 – bargaining
4 – depression
5 -and now am fully into acceptance that the team has been sold to a person who I hope rots in hell, who has taken the baseball team from me and every last remaining Astros fan. Sorry, DH ball is NOT baseball and there is not now and will not be any rivalry with the Dallas Rangers except in Nolan Ryan’s revenge-filled head.
I started writing this entry a couple of weeks back when I got the grim news from several informants that Bud had informed Crane that he would approve him, war profitering, racism and all, if he agreed to move to the American League and Crane said – and you will pay me HOW much? The answer was 70 million bucks, which means that Crane has bought a major league baseball team for FIVE million dollars cold hard cash. You can’t beat it. And he’ll make his 50 mill a year by taking a dive year after year.
They say that you always think that everything was best when you were a child/teenager. I don’t know about that. I do know that I used to LOVE MTV when it did this weird thing called playing music videos and I quit watching it after they took Beavis and Butthead off and replaced them with people who all need to get hit by a train. I know I used to LOVE BBTN a long time ago when it actually used to not concentrate 90% of the show on ESPN top 5 faves.
But they both decided that they would market what is cheapest and sells best, and they lost me as a consumer, not that they care seeing as how I am not in the demographic they want to reach.
For years, we have been watching Bud Selig do, not what is best for the game of baseball, but what makes the owners the most money. He wants to try to make baseball approximate NFL as closely as possible, although he has given up on smashing the MLBPA, as he no longer needs to do that to defeat them. He wants to homogenize the Leagues and have simply MLB, not the NL or AL. He has already removed League presidents, blended the umpires and instituted multiple divisions and Wild Cards for the purpose of removing any importance of winning a Pennant. The regular season no longer means anything whatsoever with respect to team excellence. The Postseason is just an extraneous tournament in which, like football, any team can win any given Sunday. Makes it better to gamble with.
Bud wanted to increase the number of teams in the playoffs, to increase income, as playoff games produce more money. To do this, he instituted yet ANOTHER Wild Card, and in order to better serve this purpose, he wanted to move some crappy team with no fan base into the AL, to ensure that there would always be interleague games, a more unbalanced schedule and even give a cherry to Nolan Ryan, who now gets to kick the heck out of the team and city that refused to install him as King.
Rivalry my ass.
So Crane, looking at 50 mill a year income, which is what the owners all get, at absolute minimum, said – hey, no problem. You think a guy whose company engages in war profiteering and discrimination against b*****s, n*****s and s****s is gonna have ANY hesitation in destroying a team and its fanbase?
please
Jeffrey Loria made 50 million a year with the Marlins and their empty stadium.
Crane is not an Astros fan. He doesn’t give a good gooddarn about either the city of Houston or Astros fans, the few that are left. Why should he? He’s in this to make millions and to pump up his ego.
Richard Justice is all happy because now he gets to see his beloved Orioles every year. Larry Dierker says that Astros fans won’t care because they can’t tell the diference between real baseball and DH ball anyhow. Well, for the people who will still go to the ballpark, which won’t be me – I guess that is true. You get all KINDS of people who go to a ballpark who have not even remotely the faintest idea what on earth is going on out there, nor do they care. Don’t ask me why they bother to go – I wouldn’t take a free ticket to go see a soccer or hockey game. But Pam Gardner will still get those groups in, all right.
But I won’t be there. I won’t do anything whatsoever to support Jim Crane – I pray every day that he gets some terrible debilitating disease, like fibromyalgia, which is unresponsive to any pain therapy and spends years in endless excruciating agony. Same for his little pal Bud Selig, who I hope rots in the afterlife under Satan’s heel.
My mother, who has had Astros season tickets since 1970, is not renewing. Neither are most of her friends, a few of whom have extremely expensive tickets. She’s going back to the Cardinals, the team of her girlhood. Much easier now that TLR is gone.
My inbox is filled with emails from Astros fans I have corresponded with over the years, telling me that they are saying good-bye to the Astros right now – why wait.
But this is the last year, I’m not committing suicide, I’m gonna live out the last year of the Astros – I sure wish that Crane crap-head would do at least ONE decent thing and change the name of the team so we Astros fans can have our memories of what was. Like Expos fans do. Bitter memories, but their own team, just the same.
amusement
I bet every other owner in MLB wonders how on earth he could get such unquestioning compliance, such obeisance from THEIR local media. Ours has done exactly zero to defeat Crane and this hellish move. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that they were all blackmailed into silence, rather than simply not caring.
Well, my few remaining readers, I’m going to get myself together and go over the crapitude that has been the reign of Ed Wade – the unspeakable lousiness of his drafts and the vast majority of his trades. I hope the racist war profiteereer keeps him forever, in case I decide I want to root for the Phillies.
I hear tell that a certain media person thinks he is gonna go after Andrew Friedman and actually get him, as if he wouldn’t mind working for the man who defeated his father. Or my favorite – get Gerry Hunsicker back, as if Gerry wants to work for a loser who wants to make money keeping a lousy team.
Well, youneverknow.
But truth is that I don’t really care. This team is on death row, has terminal inoperable cancer and the end is closing fast.
I remember Larry King, whose mother was a rabid Brooklyn Dodgers fan, telling the story of how when THE GIANTS WON THE PENNANT!!!! she shut the radio off, went into her room and closed the door. Her husband went in there, hoping to get her to come out and prepare dinner, and left rather quickly, telling his son, let’s see if we can find some cans. At least Mrs. King was able to think about waiting until next year. For us Astros fans, there IS no next year.
My mama told me that she isn’t going to Opening Day. And she isn’t kidding. The only year I have missed Opeining Day was in 02 when I was too pregnant and too sick to go. Husband asked me, a little carefully, if I felt the same way (notice that he was not unspeakably stupid enough to remark that that I can watch DH ball as well as real baseball because what’s the difference, really). I don’t know, I really don’t know. It’s a death sentence, and it’s the last year I will be able to watch baseball in my lifetime – I mean, in a stadium, and I’m torn between wanting to watch it while I still can, terrible team and all, or saying that I might as well start withdrawal now, why postpone the inevitable?
I have a long time to decide – I assure all yall there will be PLENTY of free tickets, and I will not spend ONE penny on tickets or anything inside that stadium that could possibly go into the the RWP’s pocket.
sigh
Maybe I’m still at Stage 3. It’s gonna be a long LONG time before I no longer start to cry when I hear Take Me Out To The Ballgame.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
I am really sorry, Lisa.
It’s horrible to watch Bud Selig destroy baseball, but his taking away the Astros is gut-wrenching. I still feel sad when I see highlights of the football team with the oil derricks on their helmets, and I’ll always be sad and nostalgic when I see the old rainbow uniforms. That’s how I’m going to remember them.
IL play is really, really stupid. Wildcards are pathetic. All-Star game for WS home field???
Ugh. Think I’ll start following tennis. Or cricket. Maybe field hockey.
Lisa-Everything you said is how we *ALL* feel, but to quote Ed Wade….”At the end of the day” we had no say. You’re 100% right about Nolan Ryan. He’s had Bud Seligs phone# on “speed” dial, just licking his chops to screw the Houston Astros to the wall. Mission accomplished. I’m going to watch my guys in 2012, but after that…….I’m going to find another team to support. The players don’t deserve
to be treated bad by the Houston fans. At least they do is TRY to play the best they can. Crane’s investors will be the ones losing money, not him. Drayton quietly left town today, with not so much of a “kiss my ass”. It’s a damn shame we
have had to see this nightmare come true, but it has and baseball will go on………
We had *NO* say. Becky:(
“We are the Texas Rangers’ Astros.”
Yes… this sad sad time for this long time astros fan. I am torn between withdrawing my support or just accepting this.
Why the astros? why not the brewers? (they used to be in th AL anyway) why does Crane say the fans come first when apparently we don’t.
This does not sit well with most fans of our great city. Yet our gripes fall on deaf ears. There is nothing Crane or Bud can do or say that convince me other wise.
Whats in it for baseball….$$$$ & Cents
Whats in it for me………..##*&@+#*@##*
Lisa, Becky and the rest. I FEEL YOUR PAIN.
w-a-g-s, “We are the Texas Rangers *HOOKERS*. Nolan Ryan will *pimp* us ’till
( 
the doors of MM Park are CLOSED PERMANENTLY. You can take THAT to the bank. He has sooooo much bitterness towards the Astros, he will do anything, and everything to make sure the Astros will finally be gone. That’s just the facts people. Becky:(
Danny,
Why not the Brewers? Let me refer you to my comment in yesterthread. http://www.theastrosdugout.com/?p=6466&cpage=1#comment-21125
Do you remember the look on Nolan’s face after the Rangers were one strike away TWICE from winning it all? It looked like he had just dined on a rancid rat.
Priceless!
That’s called karma, buddy.
Yes, Harry, but Nolan was There!
I have been(was) a fan of Astros baseball for 50yrs, I will never bother to watch them again now that they have defected to the junior league. No more tickets, no more souvenirs, no more anything to do with them. It will a AAAA team with no prospects of anything but regular drubbings by the likes of the Rangers, Athletics, Angels, et.al. The new owner will collect his $50million every year from revenue sharing and he just got a few mill. from Selig to make the move. Face it he succumbed to extortion from Herr Selig (der Fuhrer of der MLB). He won’t be able to buy any players worth a damn. It will be years of disappointment for the few fans left. Thank God for MLB package online and satellite. I will not have to watch Designated Hitter Ball which is all that will be available in the second largest state in the country. I will go back to the team of my youth,like your Mama, the St. Louis Cardinals. Not likely der Fuhrer will try to make them move and if the Lastros come to play them in interleague play, I will get the satisfaction of watching them struggle with trying to play REAL BASEBALL. Of course they have been doing that since 2006 anyways.
Now that Tony LaRussa is gone, I’ll be pulling for the Cards. Becky:(
i am with you 100 % on this deal, I am no longer an Astros fan, Baseball FAN YES, i will go to Sugarland and watch the Skeeters and go to Austin and watch the Longhorns, go over to Reckling and watch Rice and see the Coogs play, I will play my fantasy leagues, six last year, and continue to wear my Colt .45 hat, i will no longer wear anything with the Astros logo on it.
Crane is a scumbag and a scumbag will not win in my eyes and in my efforts. So long ENRON FIELD. Drayton your an ass! (I had to throw that in there.)
NastyDog……..Drayton McLane quietly left town yesterday. Oh how I *WISH*
I could have been there……I would be in jail right now, if I could have done to him what I wanted to do. Selig would have *NEVER* made Drayton switch to the AL.
BUT…….he sure made the bed for Crane to look like a “victim”. Yeah Riiiiiiiight.
Baseball is dead in Houston, so why even bother talking about it.
and larry dierker says that nobody will notice/care and all the astros fans will all be going as if nothing happened
unbelieveable how many people are saying this
but sceptor is right and baseball is oficially dying/dead in Houston. my Mama has gone back to the cards, the team of her childhood – KMOX came in loud and clear in Dallas. She’s wearing her Ozzie Smith cards shirt around. I asked her – no Lance Berkman? and she said – no, it hurts too much…
That’s because Lance is fit and trim, and his shirts are so tight they bind.
I hate it, too. Don’t even bother to follow the American League.
But what if, after a respectable amount of protesting, boycotting, shunning, forgetting about them, who cares about them, jerk calling, and just general all-around P.O.’dness, they start winning?
I’m all for shoeing Crane, Selig and to a lesser degree, McLane. It’s a sign of enormous disrespect in the Muslim world.
/flings EVERY single last one of his shoes, boots, sandals and Crane and Selig. Especially Selig. ESPECIALLY ole’ Weasel Face.
Eric
Watching MLB channel the other day, and it was interesting to see Der Fuhrer, bud selig, talking about the move to the AL for the Lastros. His lips were moving, so he was obviously lying, as he stated that drayton mcclane had already agreed to the deal before the sale was finalized. In my opinion, that was a belated effort to get the racist war profiteer off of the hook. All he wants is his guaranteed $50million in revenue sharing every year. I will take great pleasure in hearing of the lastros getting their @sses handed to them on a regular basis in the 2013 season. If no one shows up for the games and quits supporting them, crane will go the way of the owners in L.A., but it will be too late for team to survive. I now have a team to despise in the N.L. like I hate the yankees, and that is the brewers, I used to find it tough to choose between them and St. Louis. Now that der Furhers’ daughters team has displaced us from our league they are on my shait list forever too with buddy boy selig, drayton mcclane and jim crane
I dunno…it hurts a lot, but I’m going to try not to hold on to the hate and resentment. I’m just going to try to quietly move on.
Go Giants! (Wife’s from SF.)
Still…I’d rather they also left town and changed their name.
Baseball’s going to be so stupid with the extra playoff teams (already pretty stupid to have wild cards after 162 games) that I’m not even sure I can continue to care.
I’m so sorry, Lisa. Was hoping against odds that it wouldn’t happen. This is part of a big plot to make baseball the same in both leagues. I can’t believe there’ll be interleague games just about everyday. It sucks.
I can’t believe MLB just paid an owner to switch league & there’s no uproar from the media about it. What about the fans? This makes me sick.
I’m sorry, as a baseball fan (NL), that there’ll be one fewer team to compete against. I hope you’ll find another NL team to root for one day.
didi,
i will definitely root for a different NL team. my mama has already gone back to her girlhood team, the cardinals – and this is after 30+ years of rabin astros fan-hood and season tickets
no uproar from the media is the understatement of the year. it’s too bad that crane didn’t have an affair with one of the kardashians or britney spears, or something
I won’t stop watching the Astros just because they move to the American League. I’m not happy about it, but baseball’s too good for me to just quit.
I keep hoping that one day they’ll undertake a true realignment more similar to the NBA, where there are no leagues, just divisions, and they’d be geographically better, so the Astros wouldn’t have to play against 3 teams that are 2 time zones away from them all the time. One league with, say, 6 divisons of 5 teams. And do away with the DH; play baseball as God intended. That, I think I could be happy with.
It won’t happen under Selig, but maybe the next commish won’t be a clueless moron and will try to fix some of the problems baseball has instead of creating more. I didn’t like having a division with 6 teams and 1 with 4, but moving the Astros to the AL West was not the right move, as we all know.
I’m with you on this one. Amazing the lack of fight from the fans and the Houston media. Maybe we were picked because we were the easiest to ignore.
guy
yep – you best believe that if we had just won the pennant and looked to be a powerhouse for years this wouldn’t have happened.