wow- where'd you hear that? i would be extremely surprised... and pissed. that would be the very last straw for me.
They chose to do that, It their way of making a statement making it clear it wasn't by nay means a home game. They also wore their away jerseys if anyone noticed.
That proved nothing. As much as I hate Selig's poor and gutless decision making here, the Astros proved nothing at all in doing this.
Doug Brocail was on Baseball tonight...He made some valid points and I still dont' understand the rush to play the games...Professional or not, everyone is human and given the devestation, common sense should have prevailed...
except the game was scheduled for 7:05 not 8:05 - you can’t start rocking everyone’s boat, msn. and i doubt they snapped their fingers; milwaukee (unfortunately) fit predetermined, reasonable conditions: it was open both days and had a dome. what day, msn? the astros have one remaining off-day… and the cubs are playing the mets that day. and again, postponing the game – especially in progress – creates a host of other just as complicated issues, namely the cubs having to resume a game that was started BEFORE they clinched the division and home field advantage. it has nothing to do with the fans, msn. sorry, msn – it was a non-factor. i rode out the hurricane; i spent a hot, sleepless night with no power or connection to the outside world; i used 25 yard bags to clean just my front yard; i took in the devastation to my friends’ and family’s homes… and i can’t imagine having to go ANYWHERE to do ANYTHING, let alone play a baseball game at that point. my only guess, if you think milwaukee had any impact on the results, is that you don’t live in houston and didn’t go through it yourself, or you didn’t see either game and don’t realize how thoroughly apathetic the astros looked. i think we could have gotten a team together and beaten them at carlos lee’s ranch…. it wasn’t pretty, and understandably so. msn, i think you’re a genuinely smart, level-headed poster. and if someone – ANYONE – jumped up and down and screamed the same argument over and over again without considering anything other than their own emotional reaction… i’m certain you’d be among the leaders calling them out. the entire situation sucked; for me the, “the situation” is the category 3 hurricane blowing through our city; not having to travel somewhere and play a game. ike trumps every other piece of this. unfortunately, MLB can’t suspend its season; they can’t bend over backwards to accommodate one team. they have millions and millions of dollars invested in their schedule and it’s not something that’s easily amendable. everyone involved was up against it. it wasn’t a preferred solution, but i’m just not seeing viable alternatives, especially with mclane (reportedly) smack dab in the middle of all this, mucking up the muckety muck. and you know what? i don’t necessarily blame drayton, either. those were 3 guaranteed sell-outs he lost – that’s a lot of revenue, not to mention his suddenly contending team was losing three valuable home games against it's stiffest competition down the stretch. if the rangers played in a dome and were out of town sunday and monday, and selig still picked milwaukee, i think you’d be justified in your outrage, and i’d be right there with you, brutha. but there wasn’t a better, more viable option – there just wasn’t; especially if, as has been reported, drayton hand-cuffed everyone until they were all up against it. it’s not a precedent; reread it. one team hosted two other teams in their home park. the twins were already scheduled to play in cleveland that day, and they squeezed in the white sox, who had just finished a series in – yep, minnesota, making travel arrangements much easier. that’s not the same thing as a four-team doubleheader with three of the teams coming from three different parts of the country. i can’t find any evidence of a four-team doubleheader ever being held in the history of major league baseball.
what did you want them to do? bat first? forefit? I agree that it was a sh!tbag deal selig handed them. I also read that they did that becaue it was what they were used to when on the road, nothin to do with 'rebelling'
I don't mean to say what they did was terrible or something, just that it accomplished nothing... except for: ...now that makes sense. Thanks.
You just made the case why playing these games right now was a deplorable decision. The last time a disaster impacted games that mattered with potential playoff teams, the Yankees games were played at the end of the season. They could have done it again...they simply chose not to.
there're two apsects to this - the human one and the baseball one. brocail's right... from a human perspective - the astro players deserved a chance to recover, be with their families, etc. but within just the baseball universe - what were the alternatives? the astros and cubs shared one off-day down the stretch: monday. and then they're both off the day after the season ends. but asking the cubs - who are going to win their division and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs - to play 1, maybe even 2, perhaps 3 meaningful games AFTER the season - when their rotation is set, their line-up is healthy - is just as complicated as trying to find a place to play the games this past weekend. baseball doesn't have a built-in contigency plan for something like this: the schedule is set MONTHS in advance. it's just an all-around lose-lose situation and selig tried to minimize the impact to the game - which is his first and really only priority. i don't like it, but i just don't see how it could have been avoided... unless the astros had left town ahead of the storm. but even that's not perfect.
Yo, yo, yo...I hate this as much as you do, but I have to live here so please....please....please do not wish for blizzards...
i assume you're referring to 9/11?... the entire league suspended play; the entire MLB schedule was extended. there were no special concessions for the yankees (or mets).
what fans?! do you honestly think selig's intention was to grant the cubs two extra home games?.... that's silly. he did not make these arrangements to placate fans; he did it to minimize the logistical nightmare this scenario unfortunately created. argh! katrina happened in august during the preseason; it didn't impact the regular season at all - no games were rescheduled (other than their locations, and that wasn't handled well, either if you'll recall). the hornets temporarily relocated; otherwise, again, there was no impact on the regular season schedule.
I agree with you that it accoplished nothin, and they really didn't have many options to make a statement except bash in the Cubs brains, but how could they? the Cubs kicked the Astros when they were down. Congras Zambrano and Lilly for owning the weakest no-hitter and one hitter in the history of the game. another reason I will forever hate the Cubs, their fans and specifically Zambrano and Soriano..........Did anyone else notice that their was only one sign in the crowds about concern for Houston?(and I am pretty sure it was an Astros fan) not one poster or sign from the cubs fans saying 'thoughts and prayers' 'get well soon' etc.......one idiot fan even had the nerve to hold up a poster with this..... "we are on a mission from God' Zambrano never once made a mention of the Astros players, the city of Houston, or the aftermath of the hurricane. It was all 'me, me, me, I, I, I' in his post game interview. and Soriano, dude still has the nerve to showboat a homerun. Dude, could at least have the class to swallow his pride for one homerun. Nobody was showing him up when he made a bone-headed play on that foul ball.
Ric, you make a sound argument. I disagree. I'm sorry. That does not mean I'm "jumping up and down screaming and considering nothing beyond my own emotional reaction." Please do not presume that Ike did not affect me or my loved ones. Ultimately, baseball just doesn't matter. I *still* think Selig was *wrong*, but watching (again) footage from the Bolivar and the island last night, I just don't care anymore. Good luck to you, and the rest of us in our great city, in rebuilding.
what is so silly about it? he DID give them 2 extra home games. putting this game in ATL or FLA does nothing for MLB. what were they hoping for? 7,500-10k fans? Fla, barely brings that for their own team. no, lets put the game one hour from Chicago, we should get about 25k-30k fans. and they did. it was purley a business decision the benefited just about everyone except the Houston Astros. and I wouldn't put it past Selig to do everything he could to get the Cubs to the WS. I'm sure a Boston/Chicago WS would make Selig cream his pants. we all know Selig puts his own best interests before the game and the integrity of it.
I think this is the key part of all of this. If you come at it from the perspective that Selig's job should have been to minimize the impact on the Astros, the argument that Selig should have gone to some other more disruptive solutions makes sense. But if you look at it purely as "minimize the impact to the baseball season as a whole", this does seem like the easiest and most reasonable solution, unfortunately.
