Curse o’ Turf, not Bambino, is worst Cadaver that helped Schilling is dead pull hitterBy Scott Ostler NBCSports.com contributor Updated: 5:25 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2004On your feet fans! The count is 0-2 on the Answer Man, who hasn’t had a decent punch line since he was driving 90 mph to make happy hour at the Writers’ Block Bar & Tavern and crashed his Hummer into a baby deer, which suffered a dislocated ankle. Since then, has Answer Man been able to escape the Curse of the Bambi? No. advertisement Q: Do you believe in curses? A: Sure, but not that Curse of the Bambino silliness. Why would Babe Ruth be granted cursing privileges? Because he let God whiff him in the Afterworld Series? And the Curse of the Billygoat? Fantasy. If you could get kicked out of a game for bringing your smelly old goat in with you, half of the women at Wrigley Field would be tossed out before the first pitch. The only legit curse is one which is never mentioned—The Curse o’ the Turf. No Houston baseball team has ever won a World Series, an 0-for-43 run. It was Houston baseball that gave the world AstroTurf, launching the careers of a million knee surgeons and bastardizing 30 years of American sports. Fortunately, the only remaining AstroTurf in sports is on Marv Albert’s head. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3226091/
Turf does suck in baseball but I like seeing it in football. The Colts and Rams offense seem to take off on turf.
I would bet money that Ostler read the game thread during the playoffs when someone asked what the Stros' curse was, and I suggested that it was because we were the ones who invented Astroturf. Anyone else remember that thread?
Can anyone track down his e-mail address? I know he's at the SF Chronicle. I'll e-mail him with a link to the thread (and CC his editors) if someone can find an address...
Ah. Well, Ostler probably got it from there then. I find it hard to believe that Time reads this board, so I guess I'm off the warpath. It wasn't exactly brain surgery to come up with!
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108575/ Here's Sports Nut's list of the top five possible curses that might have befallen the Astros. 1. The Curse of the Bagbino (1990) Once upon a time, the Astros made a trade that was as much a bargain as getting Babe Ruth for $125,000. For nothing more than journeyman middle reliever Larry Andersen, the Astros netted minor league third-sacker and likely future Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell from the Red Sox. But instead of getting a player they could ride to the World Series every year, Houston got Boston's bad mojo. The Astros made the playoffs four times in Bagwell's first 11 seasons with the team (1991-2001). In 46 at-bats, he hit .174 with no home runs. 2. The Curse of the Sun (1965) Houston tried to thwart Mother Nature by becoming the first team in Major League Baseball to play in a giant bubble. While Johnny-come-lately indoor teams like the Twins and Blue Jays later would win the World Series, the Astrodome was always a house of horrors. In the stadium's first year, nobody could see the ball against the clear-pane roof panels. When the panels were painted an opaque white the next year to reduce glare, the grass died, forcing the club to further mock all things natural by installing plastic grass called Astroturf. Countless rug burns and torn knee ligaments later, the Astros tried to make amends by vacating the dome for a retro stadium. One problem: They sold the naming rights to Enron. 3. The Curse of the Republicans (1992) The city of Houston got some much-needed revenue and national attention by luring the 1992 Republican National Convention. The Astros got the shaft. Ordered to vacate the Astrodome for four weeks so it could be made over for the GOP, the Astros embarked on an eight-city, 26-game, 28-day road trip. The Astros survived the historic jaunt, going a respectable 12-14. But when they got back, the already sufficiently cursed Astrodome had been tainted by an even thicker stench of loserdom. The stinker: the Republican nominee, incumbent George H.W. Bush, who would go on to lose the presidency to Democrat Bill Clinton. 4. The Curse of George Steinbrenner (1979) John McMullen, a limited partner with the Yankees, buys the Astros, saying that "there's nothing more limited than being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner." McMullen opens with a Steinbrennerian flourish, signing Texas native Nolan Ryan to the first-ever million-dollar-a-year contract. Steinbrenner's largesse delivers pennants. McMullen's produces squat. Astros fans froth when, nine years later, McMullen lowballs Ryan, and the superstar chooses to finish his career with the Texas Rangers. If the Astros were heroically cursed like the Red Sox, this loss of a superstar to a nearby rival would have caused the Rangers to win a World Series. The Rangers remain mediocre. (Perhaps the Astros have infected the entire state with their low-level toxins. Consider: The Rangers have never won a playoff series.) 5. The Curse of the Blind Little Leaguer (1963) Back when the Astros were still the Colts, third-baseman Bob Aspromonte befriended an Arkansan Little Leaguer who had been blinded when struck by lightning while on the field. According to Astros Daily, the kid asked Aspromonte to hit him a home run on three separate occasions. The light-hitting Aspromonte came through all three times, even making two of the homers grand slams. (Listen to audio here.) So, what did the team do after being blessed with a home-run-conjuring child? Apparently, they let it fly away. I can't find any record of the team ever asking the kid to ask for more home runs, despite his 100 percent success rate. According to that audio clip, the kid's name is Bill Bradley, he's from El Dorado, Ark., and he eventually recovered his sight. He should be about 50 years old now. Perhaps the secret to ending the Astros' 43 years of futility is to put out an APB for their golden goose.
