Plenty of options were thrown around but the decision basically rests in the hands of Selig. What could Drayton have done...refuse to play?
It's true. As bad as the NBA scandal is, there's no direct proof that the chief executive of the entire league was complicit in the fix. Here, Selig front and center making the call. Despicable. *
For those who haven't read this yet, please take a few minutes to see what the organization went through over the past 48 hours just to be able to arrive in Chicago in time for tonight's *: Transporting Astros no easy task Club manages to escape Ike's aftermath and land in Milwaukee By Alyson Footer / MLB.com HOUSTON -- Leaving a city that is largely lacking in electricity, water pressure and passable streets is no easy task, as the Astros -- and more specifically, traveling secretary Barry Waters -- painstakingly discovered this weekend. Once the decision was made by the Commissioner's Office to have the Astros-Cubs series played at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Waters was single-handedly responsible for taking care of all of the logistics involved with transporting the traveling party -- 80 strong -- from point A to point B on Sunday morning. Usually, this isn't much of an issue, seeing Waters does this 13 or 14 times a year for normal regular-season road trips. But Hurricane Ike changed everything after it whipped through Galveston and Houston in the wee hours on Saturday. Houston was, by all accounts, non-functional. That goes for all three airports, Intercontinental, Hobby and Ellington, all of which were closed for business until at least Monday. "I got a call from [club owner] Drayton [McLane] [on Saturday] morning, wanting to know if we could get a plane," Waters said. "I said, 'The airport's closed and Continental doesn't have one plane in town. Let me see what I can do.'" Waters made some phone calls and the answer was what he expected: "There's no way we're going to get a plane here." Waters took that back to his higher-ups. The response? "Get us a plane." So Waters continued to press, hoping the Astros' strong business relationship with Continental Airlines would eventually sway the airline to help. He also couldn't help but wonder, why are we doing this in the first place? "People don't have electricity, trees are down, houses are broken, and we're worried about playing this game?" Waters said. Few, if any, planes were sitting at Intercontinental Airport, so the airline had to locate one in another city, Eventually, arrangements were made for a plane in Newark, N.J., to leave at 6 a.m. ET and arrive to Houston sometime around 9. With that piece of the puzzle out of the way, Waters moved on to arranging for bus transportation. They needed two buses to take the traveling party from Minute Maid Park to the airport. Again, this is usually as easy as 1-2-3 under normal circumstances. Such was not the case in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Houston had become a virtual ghost town, with businesses shut down indefinitely, at least until power was restored to the nearly 2 million residents who lost it Saturday morning. Waters, working without electricity from his home and getting dangerously close to running out of battery life on his cell phone, frantically tried to contact the Houston bus company he works with, but to no avail. "All the buses were out of town," Water said. "They had a couple at the yard, but there was nobody to be found. I was panicking." At 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning, four hours before those buses were supposed to leave Minute Maid Park carrying 80 travelers, Waters finally located two. Getting those buses to the ballpark, however, presented another challenge. Four more inches of rain fell overnight, adding to the watery mess that had already inundated the city. The buses could only get so close to downtown before they were halted by feet of standing water. After taking several routes around the downtown area, the buses found a path to the ballpark, and at approximately 11 a.m, the Astros left Minute Maid Park. Intercontinental, one of the nation's largest airports, was empty and silent, occupied by only a handful of workers from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) who flew in from other cities to help out when the airport opens to the public on Monday. The Astros took off close to noon CT and arrived to Milwaukee -- where they were met with yet more rain -- just before 2 p.m. By a little after 4, everyone was assembled in the clubhouse at Miller Park ready for their 7 p.m. start time with the Cubs. From the outside, the process appeared to come off without a hitch. Inside, however, the feeling was much different. As Waters recounted the last 48 hours from a side room in the clubhouse, he shook his head in partial disbelief. "I was biting my nails," he said. "I didn't think any of this was going to happen." Link to article: http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/...t_id=3478104&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou
It NEVER should have happened - Selig is a jerk! I don't wish bad stuff on BAD people but it would be funny if hurricane Ike took his house away.
ESPN just showed the following message on their ticker: "First no-hitter at neutral site since 1900" You... have... got... to... be... kidding... Somebody f***ing shoot me. Seriously.
you knew this ****ing hurricane was going to screw up our run. we get jerked around to a chicago home game (thanks selig) and then end up sucking. now the run is pretty much over.
If this game isn't called a mulligan & replayed somewhere in the great state of Texas or a "true" neutral site (not 90 minutes from Chicago) then I'm sorry I ever started watching baseball again after the strike of '94. It's bad enough baseball doesn't have a salary cap. Stop screwing the overachievers. My eyes are on Tampa now as they don't have a good fan base and I'll bet somehow Selig will find a way to have them eliminated. It's all about the benjamins! Selig screwed us with the roof in '05 and AGAIN with a "neutral site" in '08. Please, Bug (or whatever your name is) stop trying to manipulate the results, & just let 'em play!
That was a complete sham. MLB should be embarrassed. We even wore our freakin road jerseys!!!!!! I am so pissed off right now. I HATE the Cubs and their stupid, moronic, dumb, loser fans. Nothing will make me happier than if they choke in the playoffs again. A side note, dont you love how everyone one of those dumb idiotic Cubs fans blame Bartman for their 2003 NLCS loss. The real goat was Alex Gonzalez, but they are stupid to realize this.
complete bull**** game if u factor in the fans the travel and the stress the players have to deal with.
This has got me so pissed off. First in 2005 the Stros have to play a world series game in a freezing downpour in Chicago, then MLB dictates that we open our roof for our home games. Then earlier this year our team has to play in a lightning storm in Chicago, and now this? Everyone blames Selig and I don't like him much, but Drayton damn well could have refused to play there. The ball was entirely in his court. If he had simply refused to play in MIL, public opinion would have been entirely on his side due to what this city has gone through. These games ****ing should have been played in Texas. This is ****ing bull****. I hate cubs fans and drayton as well. 'Are you ready to be a champion?' This astros team may be ready but uncle drayton certainly ISN'T. I'm a season ticket holder and I don't want to give mclane one more penny of my money. This is such bull****
I'm not a big fan of Brian McTaggart but at least he makes a good argument here: Astros-Cubs should have been in Arlington It was disgusting watching the Astros play a home game in front of a throng of Cubs fans. I'm not sure what baseball had in mind, but moving the Astros games against the Cubs to Milwaukee, a.k.a. "Wrigley Field North," was a dumb idea. Was Wrigley Field not available? I'm not sure why playing at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington wasn't given serious consideration, but that should have been the first choice. The Rangers were in Oakland. It would have made the Astros' travel on the day of a game pretty light and would have given the opportunity for hundreds of Houstonians that evacuated from Hurricane Ike a chance to watch their team. Instead, it was the Cubs who had the easy travel. Oh, and don't tell me about the weather. I've been in Dallas since Thursday, and on Sunday it was 81 degrees and beautiful. Perfect for playing a doubleheader. Are you paying attention, baseball? Apparently, the Astros suggested playing in Round Rock, but were told by Major League Baseball that was not a major league stadium. Huh? Have they not been to Tropicana Field lately? Besides, isn't this the same MLB that has held a regular-season series at the Braves spring training home in Disney's Wide World of Sports the last two years? Perhaps the no-hitter Carlos Zambrano threw Sunday is just a road bump on the way to the Astros finishing off their playoff push, or perhaps it will be the beginning of the end. Either way, it should have not have happened within 90 miles of Chicago. Link: http://blogs.chron.com/gamedayastros/2008/09/astroscubs_should_have_been_in.html
i love the attempt to try and jinx it. that was ****ing awesome true stros fans its just one game guys, let em have their glory
People, I am outraged. I can't even sleep after what I witnessed tonight. Sure, if the Astros won, I would be ecstatic to see how they overcame all the obstacles in their way. Earlier, it was the whole "Wrigley North" thing that bothered me. But that wasn't the real issue. We swept them at Wrigley a couple of weeks ago. After learning what they had to go through today, it was obvious they were at a major disadvantage that nobody could see until the first pitch. I don't care how good people think Zambrano pitched, that was not the same Astros team we've seen during the last several weeks. Honestly, this isn't even the team we saw months ago when they were struggling in the 1st half of the season. In 40+ years of this club's history, an Astros team has never once traveled and played a game on the same day. It's not a coincidence that the Cubs threw their first no-hitter in 36 years tonight. The Astros were stressed, tired and they didn't even have the chance to get that little edge that a home crowd can give a team - to spark them or pump them up when they needed it more than ever. Instead, the Cubs were rested and got the real home field advantage. The fact that Bud Selig could make this decision, for whatever reason, is beyond me. He clearly had no sympathy for southern Texas after what we just went through and took one of the few positive things going for the city of Houston recently, the surging Astros, and basically hung them out to dry - along with tens of thousands of Astros fans. I apologize to those that may read this and disagree with me, thinking I'm just whining to no end. All I can say is that a win tomorrow is about the only thing that could really allow me to get over this. I am praying to the baseball gods to let the good guys pull this one out tomorrow. Today was a travesty.
