Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:47 am EDT
The Astros are not letting go of this beef with Bud Selig

By 'Duk

So Bud Selig tried to make things right with his constituency down in Astroland on Sunday, taking out a full page ad (read it here) in the Houston Chronicle to explain why he relocated two Cubs-Astros games to Milwaukee's Miller Park during Hurricane Ike.

The Astros, as you'll remember, were no-hit by Carlos Zambrano and one-hit by Ted Lilly and Co. in front of thousands of Cubs fans during their brief trip to Milwaukee, effectively changing their "home games" into decided road contests. Since that two-game trip, Houston has gone 2-4, seen their deficit in the NL Wild Card race go from 2.5 games to 4 and haven't stopped voicing their opposition to Selig's decision.

Selig says he "regret(s) the frustration the Astros and their fans felt about playing two games in Milwaukee" and explains the complications of squeezing the games into a shortened end-of-the-season schedule but stops short of apologizing or answering why the the games couldn't be played in non-MLB stadiums that were closer to the Houston area than at "Wrigley North."

Understandably, some of the Astros are still upset, even days after they donned black t-shirts that said "Bud Killed Us" over a picture of Selig. Meanwhile, some enterprising 'Stros fans have taken to selling shirts like the one above.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Lance Berkman: "Major League Baseball has always valued the dollar more than they do the individual, the players and their families. That's illustrated in things like playing through a lightning storm in Chicago (on Aug. 4).

"The most important thing is getting the game in so you don't lose the gate and you don't lose the revenue. That's A-No. 1. And then if in the course of that you can work it around where players aren't affected, that's a distant second. That's one reason why players try to exploit the system to the max because they know they're being treated the same way. That's a sad part of the game."

Doug Brocail: "The thing is we had days at the end of the season that we could have played a single game plus a doubleheader if need be. And to make us go up and play at North Wrigley like we had to on no sleep, it was absolutely ridiculous. If it was New York or Boston, it would have been played at the end of the season.

"I truly believe that, and I think 99.9 percent of our teammates believe that. But no, we're the Houston Astros."

Yikes. With all this acrimony still hanging in the air, Bud might have to move right past the chocolates and flowers and go straight to the new Mercedes in each players driveway as a means of extending an olive branch and making peace.

But even that won't make up for the problematic decision made by Selig. The Houston groundswell against playing in Milwaukee was started long before the two games were even moved there and Selig was plenty aware of it. He made the decision to hold the games there anyway, and now he's rightfully paying the price. Hopefully he'll know better next time.

As for the Astros, though, it's time for them to finally put this behind them, no matter how big they consider the injustice. With just a week left to play, they have some work to do if they're going to pass the Brewers and the Mets for a postseason berth that could help a struggling city.

The Astros had won 14 out of 15. Then a hurricane hits their home and their families dead-on. Two games are cancelled, and the team is flown out of the mess to a "home" stadium 1,000 miles away (and only 90 miles away from the "visiting" team).

This team, which had been destroying every pitcher that they saw, then proceeds to get one hit in two games.

Coincidence?

Yeah, sure.

Selig fucked the Astros. There's no denying it.

The Astros had won 14 out of 15. Then a hurricane hits their home and their families dead-on. Two games are cancelled, and the team is flown out of the mess to a "home" stadium 1,000 miles away (and only 90 miles away from the "visiting" team).

This team, which had been destroying every pitcher that they saw, then proceeds to get one hit in two games.

Coincidence?

Yeah, sure.

Selig fucked the Astros. There's no denying it.

RodeoSchro said:

Oh come on. Men who make obscene amounts of money to do jack shit are sure whiny pussies.

RodeoSchro said:

You're only half right in this case. A lot of the blame belongs to the Astros' owner Drayton McClane. He knew that the hurricane was coming towards the Houston area days in advance, and he should have made better preparations before the hurricane struck. He had the options of moving the games to Arlington, Texas (Texas Rangers home park), Seattle, Atlanta, Cincinnati, San Francisco, or even Los Angeles, but he insisted that he could play at least one game in Houston on the Friday afternoon before the hurricane struck land. Of course, by Thursday night the authorities had already called for a complete evacuation of Galveston and told the people of Houston that they should get out of town. By the time he finally made the decision to postpone the games, it was too late to get out of town because all airplane flights coming into Houston were canceled, and the flights getting out of Houston were ended at around noon that Friday. By waiting so long to postpone the games, MLB couldn't move the games to a more neutral site because the Astros players couldn't fly out of Houston any earlier than that Sunday, and by then all the teams who were on the road that weekend other than Seattle and Milwaukee were coming home to play games on Monday. That only left Seattle and Milwaukee as neutral sites, and Bud Selig didn't want to send the Astros all the way up the west coast to play three games in two days, so that pretty much left Milwaukee as the only option. As for waiting until the end of the season to play the series, that would have set up a possible nightmare scenario of the Astros playing to get into the wildcard spot and having a possible three way tie between the Astros, Brewers, and Phillies/Mets that would have delayed the National League playoffs for another week. The playoffs did start a week later than usual in 2001 after the attack on the World Trade Center, but that affected every baseball team. In this scenario, the NL eastern and western division champions would possibly have to wait out a week for the wild card games to play out while the Cubs would have to sit out a few days. And this would have affected the American League playoff teams as well.

So in the end this was a raw deal for the Astros, but their owner should take some of the blame for being greedy in the first place.

RodeoSchro said:

Oh come on. Men who make obscene amounts of money to do jack shit are sure whiny pussies.

Stymie said:

This isn't about doing jack shit, it's about taking care of families.

You know, Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium weren't affected by 9/11 but I didn't see anyone calling the Yankees or Mets pussies because they postponed (NOT MOVED) games.

Tales from Ike: Astros tell storm stories
09/16/2008 11:18 AM ET
By Alyson Footer / MLB.com

MILWAUKEE -- By September, most of the Astros players' families are already back at their year-round homes, especially when the kids are of school age.

So when Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area on Saturday night, many Astros players were on their own -- a blessing, considering the city is largely without power and the streets are impassible.

Following the Astros' game on Thursday at Minute Maid Park, four players without families in town decided to ride out the storm together.

"Four of the five wise men," Geoff Blum said, referring to himself, Brad Ausmus, David Newhan and Mark Loretta. The fifth -- Darin Erstad -- still has his family with him in Houston and remained home.

The other four spent three nights at Ausmus' house in West University. The "hunkering down" process was similar to that of a lot of Houstonians: Eat. Talk. Watch TV until the cable goes out. Eat and talk some more.

"We played guitar hero after the cable went out," Blum said. "We were trying to entertain ourselves."

The overall experience was tolerable, even when they lost power twice. But the good times took a decided turn for the worse the next day, after the players found out they were heading to Milwaukee in the morning to play the Cubs.

Ausmus drove Blum and Newhan to the ballpark to retrieve their cars, a task that appeared to be simple enough. No more than five miles separated Ausmus' house and Minute Maid Park. But while Blum and Newhan attempted to snake their way around closed roads and flooded intersections back to Ausmus' house, caravan-style, they were slowed by flat tires -- two. One each. At different times.

"We get to an intersection -- filled with glass," Blum said. "Cars going over it. I'm like, 'What do we do?' I crept through the intersection, fine. [Newhan] gets a flat tire."

The two pulled into a mini-mart, one of the few functional dwellings in the city. "No gas, but hordes of people all over the place," Blum recalled.

Out of nowhere, a good samaritan with Tennessee plates pulls up with a jack and a "magic crowbar that takes lugnuts off in 30 seconds," as Blum described, and put on the spare tire.

With that problem solved, Newhan and Blum resumed their journey. While traveling on Interstate 59, Blum heard a noise coming from the back of the rear tire. He pulled over into a flooded lane on the highway, turned on his hazards and discovered a large piece of metal resembling a thick wire hanger stuck in the tire. Flat tire No. 2.

He pulled into a parking lot and hit the emergency response button in his car. They were no help -- A city-wide curfew was in place, supposedly barring emergency response crews from reaching people in need.

Blum changed the tire himself and he and Newhan continued on toward Ausmus' house, this time with no interruptions.

"We had to," Blum said. "We were completely out of spare tires."

Color Blind?
Television announcer Jim Deshaies, like most everyone in the Astros' traveling party who had no power after Hurricane Ike, packed for the Astros' road trip in the dark. He thought nothing of it until he went through security at Intercontinental Aiport and discovered he was wearing two different shoes.

On his right foot was, in Deshaies' words, an "old scuffed up black loafer." On his left, he wore another black loafer, but with a brown design across the top.

"The irony is when I was packing, I was doing the sock thing, saying, 'I better check to make sure these are black and not blue,'" Deshaies said. "I walked into the better light and I looked at my closet and found my shoes strewn about, so I just jammed my feet into them."

The Astros stopped at the team hotel to drop off their luggage before heading to Miller Park, but Deshaies decided to stick with the same mismatched pair of shoes for the rest of the day.

"I'm selling it as a fashion trend, so you can't give up on it that quickly," Deshaies said.

Brothers in Arms
Justin Cassel, the youngest of the three Cassel brothers, ended up on the Astros traveling roster Sunday morning when his plans to fly to New York were unceremoniously scrapped.

Justin, a White Sox pitching prospect, was visiting Jack, the Astros reliever, before flying to New York to watch Matt, the now starting quarterback of the New England Patriots, play the Jets.

Anticipating a massive city-wide shutdown in the wake of Hurricane Ike, Justin made arrangements to fly out of Houston Friday morning. That flight was overbooked, and Justin was inexplicably bumped off, with no other alternatives.

His luggage, on the other hand, made it to New York right on time.

Jack and Justin "hunkered down," as they say in Texas, at the Four Seasons Hotel to wait out the storm. On Sunday, Justin traveled with Jack to Milwaukee with the Astros and later headed to a sports bar to first watch Matt's game, followed by the Astros' game with the Cubs a bit later.

"The first flight we were going to be able to get him out [in Houston] was Wednesday," Jack said. "He was going to be stuck in Houston with just the clothes on his back. The Astros were unbelievably understanding and allowed families to travel with us."

This is from the Astro's website.



According to this article, the greatest hardship of the storm was facing the Cubs. I would feel differently if there were real horror stories of storm survival, but from their accounts, they lost power. Some could not finish their game of Guitar Hero, 2 had flat tires, and possibly the Four Seasons had sub standard room service.

The biggest complaint, and the reason for the article, is that Major League players had to face other Major League players on the road for two games. According to them, that was Bud Selig sabotaging their season.
[Edited 9/23/08 10:55am]

Why don't you two get yourselves down to Houston and see for yourself what a grand time we're all having?

You have NO idea. NONE.