The other day I took my Jeep in for a routine oil change and alignment check.
While I try to be good about coming in every 3,000 miles or so I am occasionally tardy in my duties as a car owner and stretch things out to four or five thousand miles between oil changes.
This was one of those times where I was closer to the five thousand mark than three thousand but I figured the car was no worse for it.
Since the mechanic is within walking distance of my house I will often drop off the Jeep and walk home as opposed to sitting in the waiting room watching the History Channel, which always seems to be on when I am there.
A recent surprise flat tire got me thinking about some surprises I would actually like to see this year. Photo R. Anderson
As the Houston Astros approach the 1oth anniversary of their last trip to the postseason two members of their 2005 World Series team have announced their retirement.
While Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman were each traded from the Astros years ago as the team entered a youth movement, both men will be given the chance to be Astros for at least one more day in a sign and retire ceremony on April 5.
Over the past few years it has been commonplace for teams to hold these ceremonial retirements as a way for players and teams to reunite and allow the player to officially retire as a member of the organization where they spent the bulk of their careers.
The ceremonies also give a chance for the fans of the players to say one final good bye to players that they used to root for. And as a special treat the Astros have announced that a commemorative item will be given out at the gate to recognize the event.
Over the years I attended many games that Oswalt and Berkman played in and of the two I was a bigger fan of Berkman’s.
Even after he was traded I would still cheer for Berkman when he would visit Minute Maid Park and bat for the opposing team. Of course there were fans that would boo him as well which I never really understood.
Lance Berkman, who spent last season with the Texas Rangers, will sign a one day contract to retire as a Houston Astro on April 5 along with former teammate Roy Oswalt. Photo R. Anderson
If you like a player it should not matter what color his jersey is since he is still the same player you once cheered for under it and many players do not get the choice of where they are traded to.
Speaking of trades, I was actually at Minute Maid Park on the day that Lance was traded to the New York Yankees.
This was the start of the Astros trading away all of their players to get younger but for some reason it felt like Berkman would be safe. After all he was a hometown player who went to the local university and had played his whole career with the Astros.
But on that day as the texts started rolling in, and the whispers that he had been traded turned to screams of disbelief it was apparent that the Astros were entering a new era where no player, no matter how popular, was safe.
It was also the day when the college kids who spent every game dressed up in their puma suits in honor of Berkman’s nickname, the “Big Puma,” took them off for the last time and tried to make sense of what had happened.
I had envisioned Berkamn getting to be like Cal Ripken Jr. who grew up in Maryland and played his entire career with the Baltimore Orioles before retiring on his own terms.
Of course, Ripken was a first ballot Hall of Famer from a generation of players that we just won’t see repeated.
In fact Derek Jeter, who has spent his entire career with the New York Yankees, very well could be the last player to spend his entire career with a single organization.
Baseball is a changed game and even players with dedicated fans who dress up in puma suits are not spared the trade deadline ax.
Of course on April 5 those puma suits can be dusted off as the “Big Puma” comes home for one last time.
They will be honoring a player in Berkman who after graduating from Rice University, played a dozen seasons in Houston before spending the final three years of his career with the New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers.
Of course getting traded away from the Astros was not a completely bad thing as Berkman earned a World Series ring during his time in St. Louis but something tells me he would have preferred winning it with the home town team.
Berkman was voted to the All-Star Game six-times and hit .296 with 326 home runs and 1,090 RBIs over his 12 seasons with the Astros. He led the National League in doubles in 2001 and again in ’08, while also leading the NL in RBIs in ’02, when he finished third in NL MVP voting.
As for the all-time Astros records Berkman ranks first in slugging percentage (.549), second in home runs, third in RBIs, walks and runs scored, and fourth in games played.
Sharing the retirement stage with Berkamn will be Roy Oswalt who was the ace of the pitching staff for the Astros for many years and had the honor of being the de facto Opening Day starter for most of his years with the club.
I never really followed Oswalt in the same way that I followed Berkman and will admit that his being traded did not affect me in the same way. But, I am sure that for many Astros fans at the time there was a great sadness felt when the announcement of Oswalt being shipped to the Phillies was made.
Of course the Phillies was not Oswalt’s last stop of his career. After spending his first 10 big league seasons with the Astros, Oswalt spent
The other day I learned some troubling news about an old friend.
When I was growing up, this friend and I shared many adventures during the spring and summer months with family and friends.
Sadly, time and neglect have finally taken their toll on my good friend, Tinker Field, and at the ripe age of 91 years old he is facing extinction.
Tinker Field, my good friend, is a ballpark in Orlando, FL that I have written about many times. In fact, one of the very first columns I ever wrote was related to Tinker Field.
It was at Tinker Field that I saw most of my professional baseball games during the 20th Century.
From Spring Training for Major League Baseball, to full seasons of Minor League Baseball, the quaint little ballpark in the shadow of the Citrus Bowl was a unique venue where a who
This past Saturday the Houston Astros hosted their annual Fan Fest.
Fan Fest is a time when fans can go to Minute Maid Park and take in the sights and sounds before the team heads off to Florida for the start of Spring Training.
There are games for the kids and opportunities to take batting practice or run around the bases like a Major League Baseball player.
It is also a time when fans can purchase player autographs, past promotional items and other things with the proceeds all going to the team
The other day it was announced that three players had been selected as 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame inductees and one other player missed induction by the narrowest of margins.
The inducted players are Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas.
And if the trio felt like partying like it is 1999 one could not really blame them since it was the first time since 1999 that three players appearing on their first ballot were voted in for induction by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BWAA).
Long time Atlanta Braves teammates Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine were named to the 2014 Baseball Hall of Fame class along with Frank Thomas. Photo R. Anderson
Maddox received 97.2% of the votes, followed by Glavine with 91.9% and Thomas with 83.7%.
Craig Biggio, who spent his entire two decade career with the Houston Astros, fell just short of the 75% threshold required for induction. Biggio, in his second year of eligibility, garnered 74.8% of the votes to fall two votes shy of Cooperstown.
And while Biggio fell painfully close to admission and will likely get elected next year, others were not so lucky.
Once again players who were deemed tainted by the steroid era in baseball were left on the outside looking in.
In fact several of the roughly 500 men and women who comprise the voting members of the BWAA have gone so far as to say that they will not vote for any players who spent their careers in the steroid era regardless of whether or not they ever failed a drug test.
By all accounts through their careers Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were locks for first ballot induction to the Hall of Fame.
Both men had lengthy careers and put up the type of numbers that made a statistician blush and opposing players and fans curse.
Unfortunately late in their careers both Bonds and Clemens were caught up in the net of suspicion regarding performance enhancing drugs and were brought in front of a congressional subcommittee to face charges that they lied about their use of PEDs.
Despite both men being acquitted and with Hall of Fame caliber numbers they still are not in the Hall of Fame despite calls from more than 75 percent of fans to let them in.
Barry Bonds, shown in plastic figurine form, was once again passed over for the Hall of Fame along with several other players were were believed to have used banned substances. Although known of the players were shown to be dirty some voting members of the BWAA refuse to vote for anyone who played during the so called steroid era regardless of what was or was not proven against them. Photo R. Anderson
And therein in lies the rub and the disconnect related to Hall of Fame voting.
The Hall of Fame is decided by around 500 people who have been BWAA members for at least 10 years.
There is no requirement that they ever played the game but merely that they have covered the game as members of the media who have paid their club dues for 10 years.
Another wrinkle in the BWAA rules is that only 10 people can be included on any given ballot despite there being more than 10 eligible players each year.
At least one BWAA writer determined that the process of leaving the public out of the process was flawed so he crowd sourced his vote to a website that conducted a poll to determine who should be included on the ballot.
As can be expected the BWAA did not take too kindly to the news that one of its votes had been given to someone who had not paid the 10-years of membership fees.
Once the member revealed himself the BWAA acted swiftly and banned this particular member from ever casting a Hall of Fame vote again and also suspended him for a year. One can only hope that he was refunded his membership dues as well for the year that he will not be allowed to be a member.
This crowd sourcing of a Hall of Fame vote garnered reaction on both sides with some people agreeing with the BWAA postion that it was cheapening the Hall of Fame to let not tenured people decide who was worthy while others have felt that it was about time for a fresh look at what constitutes a hall of famer.
I have mentioned before how I do not like the ballot stuffing that occurs during the All-Star voting which allows a single fan to submit as many ballots as they can get their hands on so I am not necessarily thinking that a fan internet vote for the Hall of Fame can be a good thing.
I am also not suggesting that the Hall of Fame turn into a sort of American Idol situation where fans can call in their votes for their favorite players.
But, I am also not sure that allowing 500 members of the media who have different philosophies on what constitutes a tainted player should be the only people guarding the gate and determining who is in and who is out.
In all likelihood I will never be a member of the BWAA with enough tenure to ever cast a Hall of Fame ballot.
But if I were able to ever cast a ballot I would be sure to do my homework on the players and consider their numbers as a whole and not in a vacuum. I would also not use my vote as some sort of political platform.
For example if steroids were as widespread as Jose Canseco and others would have us believe than the playing field was level in a certain way in that the numbers put up by players during that era were against other
For some people this means nothing more than the fact that yesterday was the 12th and tomorrow is the 14th.
For others it means that there will soon be less than 10 shopping days left until Christmas.
For the superstitious among us today means all of the things above in addition to it being an unlucky day all the way around.
While many may think that the Friday the 13th craze started with a certain movie character named Freddy the roots of Friday the 13th actually run much deeper than late 20th Century cinema.
Since the 19th Century Friday the 13th has been considered an unlucky day in Western and Eastern superstition.
Friday and the number 13 were considered unlucky by some on their own so it was only logical that both occurring at the same time would be even unluckier.
In fact fear of Friday the 13th even has a name; friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom Friday is named in English and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen).
Personally I have never feared Friday the 13th although I do fear not finishing my Christmas shopping in time.
Baseball players can be some of the most superstitious in all of sports. Players on a hot streak will keep wearing the same clothes or eating the same food just to keep the streak alive. Photo R. Anderson
But the arrival of Friday the 13th made me think about sports and the superstitious rituals that many players seem to follow.
There are players who will eat the same pregame meal because they feel that to eat anything else would risk certain disaster on the field.
Hitters on a hot streak in baseball are notorious for continuing whatever
Observations from the cheap seats, the beach seats and everywhere in between
