Light Side: Sports

Nine Armchair Quarterbacks

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:45:00 GMT

Before the NFL playoffs began, I thought it would be fun for all of us to make our own picks for the Super Bowl, and see who ends up right (and wins a very small prize). I managed to get all the kids except our oldest daughter to participate, but after I thought of this title I wished I had gotten her and Susan in on it too, since that would make it a football team, instead of baseball size.

Anyway, after the kind of season the Texans had, we were looking for something to have fun over, but the Rose Bowl pretty much made up for it, and maybe the Texans' season will end up a "success" if they go ahead and pick Vince Young.

In the mean time, we have been watching our picks fall by the wayside. The first week wasn't bad at all, with only two of my sons picking the Giants for the NFC, but this past week has left only one son, our second, still with both picks. He's the one who is always talking about sports to me and certainly knows the most about football and baseball. Anyway, he picked the Steelers and Seahawks for the big game, so we'll see if he ends up right.

The main reason six more of us saw one of our picks go down to defeat was the Steelers' (not so pretty) defeat of the Colts. The Manning contingent, i.e. the two who picked the Giants, also picked the Colts, along with me and two others. My other, more sentimental pick, the Redskins (because I like Joe Gibbs and, besides, it's Lamar High School's team name) also went down, though they had a better season than some expected.

I was really expecting more folks to still be in the running the third week; maybe I'll have to give that treat to Susan if no one wins ...

As Seen on TV

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 16:27:00 GMT

Some thoughts from last night's World Series game 3 and elsewhere, since the kids kept flipping the channels during each half-inning break:

- While the Rockets now have Yao, who would have believed in 1962 that the first hit played in a World Series game in Texas would be by a player from Japan (the White Sox' Tadahito Iguchi).

- I always find it interesting when they interview someone and ask what they would do if they weren't in the field they're in. Astros pitcher (and NLCS MVP) Roy Oswalt's answer seemed fitting: NASCAR driver.

- Best sign:

  To Do List
  Stop the Chop  X
  Clip the Birds  X
  Wash the Sox

  "the Chop" refers to the Atlanta Braves fans' tomahawk chop gesture, which gets old really fast.

- While this "everything is bigger in Texas" thing can get out of hand, it's at least ironic that the first World Series game played in the state also ends up being the longest ever played, one in which 43 players took part, also a record.

- Best commercial: Bank of America

- Sign, Honorable Mention: B G O
Okay, it's 3 signs, but that apparently wasn't enough for my 5 year old daughter, who has taken phonics for a year now. She looked perplexed when they showed that one on TV. Later, she came in my home office (I hardly ever have time to watch a whole game) and asked, "Daddy, how do you spell 'Biggio'?" I guess even she could tell that "BGO" couldn't be right. I told her they only used some of the letters. She said, "Well, maybe they just had a small family."

- I went and watched the bottoms of the ninth and tenth innings, but it was starting to seem "like deja vu all over again", as I recalled the recent 18-inning game in which they eliminated the Braves, and I went on to bed. The boys stayed up till the end, and one told me this morning that it was obviously getting late when instead of saying tomorrow night, Fox started announcing game 4 with "Later today on Fox ..."!

- The Astros still lost, but it's clear they're getting closer every game to winning, so in a way the Series is mirroring their steady improvement all year, where their big weakness has been (and continues to be) an inability to knock in runners in scoring position.

- While the Chronicle is full of despair at how the Astros are now sure to lose the Series, I'm just glad they finally made it. I think we'd all be better off just enjoying the fact they've finally made it to the World Series, rather than worrying about winning it.

... And besides baseball:

- OK, so say you do build your 30-foot crocodile cage and manage to catch the thing (I didn't see that far), exactly how do you stuff him in the cage?

- After all these years, Linus is still out there in that pumpkin patch!

Ba-se-ball has been very good ...

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:40:27 GMT

Well, the Astros will shortly begin their first World Series game. I'm not a "passionate" sports fan, really, but it's nice to see them finally make the Series. It's been a long roller coaster ride, for Astros fans in general and for me personally.

For some unknown reason, I suddenly developed an interest in the Astros at the beginning of the 1972 season, at age 9. I soon became more of a hockey fan, nevertheless, which was a good thing since the WHA Aeros in the mid-70s, with Gordie Howe and crew, were a winning combination. It wasn't until I was a senior in high school that the Astros finally made the playoffs for the first time.

The funny thing is that when a team finally makes the playoffs, it's easy to assume they've steadily improved and so will be back the next year. With all the dealing in sports nowadays, a team can change radically in just a year, but back then I really didn't expect I'd already be out of college before the Astros got another chance to go to the World Series, in 1986, when they came very close.

I followed them somewhat for a few years more, but was really, really, REALLY upset when talk of a second strike emerged, and as the rhetoric grew increasingly self-righteous. It was such a turn-off that I totally lost interest in the game for most all the 90s, when the Astros were starting to make the playoffs again, though still never winning. I was so tuned out, in fact, that one time I ran into a couple of them in a store and didn't recognize them at all, which seemed to kind of put them out of sorts. I recognized the names from listening to the radio news, but that was it. I'm sure it was good for them; every celebrity should have that happen to them every so often!

Over the years, I have gradually gotten desensitized to the outrageous salaries; I suppose nowadays I'm more amazed that shareholders haven't put the hammer down on CEOs (such as in that ridiculous Gillette deal). CEOs seem to have "levelled the playing field" vs. entertainers in recent years (since Jay Leno's boss Jack Welch, GE's outstanding former CEO, went on the Tonight Show and laughed about how Leno made more than him).

A second big peeve I had with baseball came later in the 90s, when Houston leaders were pushing to build a new ballpark. The problem I had was not with the need, but rather the way a baseball stadium was presented as a "very deserving" charity. The Astrodome is a neat building which will hopefully succeed in finding a new life, but it was never very good for baseball, football or any other event, really (e.g. the acoustics were terrible). Minute Maid Park (originally Enron Field) is a huge improvement which you can see as soon as you walk in the door (in itself a huge departure from the Dome architecture).

With the outrageous salaries being doled out in baseball, and the astronomical prices sports teams were commanding, I just couldn't, and still don't, see pro sports as some sort of charity. The idea of pro teams with all their media exposure trying to nudge out deserving, struggling charities for a handout still totally turns me off (in Houston there was actually a big controversy between the ball park and a new homeless shelter being built nearby, by an outstanding local ministry).

Despite all that background from the 90s, I figured I would probably get over it eventually and re-develop a mild interest in the sport. This did in fact come about in several steps. The first came when I turned on the radio one afternoon and realized the Astros were playing what could be their last game in the Dome. This was a nostalgic moment even for me, and I went and turned the game on TV to see the last couple of innings.

I really wasn't prepared for what happened next. The kids were pretty shocked. They had heard me remark (and perhaps even gripe) for pretty much their whole lifetime about baseball, and I guess to them it was as if I had turned on a Communist Party convention or something. I don't think they could grasp how ending baseball at the Dome would affect someone old enough to remember it as a kid, which is I guess similar to how the St. Louis fans are feeling right now (sorry, Ben. OK, sorry two times!).

While our boys began learning how to play baseball in the neighborhood around that time (we don't have anywhere near enough time to be involved in organized sports), it wasn't until the beginning of 2004 that they suddenly developed an interest in pro baseball, in a way that reminded me of my own experience. Nevertheless, once interested, all 6 seem to have become VERY interested. Most have baseball card collections, and in no time at all learned way more about the game than I ever knew.

Amazingly, they seem to have had the singular fortune of becoming fans at just the right time. After 43 years, the Astros finally won a playoff series last fall, but managed for the third and fourth times to fail to win a game that would have advanced them to the World Series. For the fifth straight time Monday, they failed to win, even more spectacularly, an NLCS clinching game. As one journalist commented, the loss was so ghastly that they just had to win in St. Louis.

Thankfully, they did win, so that loss has become just a blip in the record books. Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder if it served its purpose. Despite watching them for just two years, after Monday's loss my kids are already grizzled Astros fans! If it ever starts to wear off, I'll have to get a tape from 1986.

Despite my mixed feelings about pro baseball, the Astros do seem to be one of the classier teams today. Roger Clemens has been an amazing example of sportsmanship and team spirit this year, always staying positive despite many frustrating losses. I don't think there's any way they would be where they are now without that. The Astros have managed to play their best and to maintain confidence in many young players this year. It would be great if they could pull together that winning combination four more times this fall.