Is it strange to feel sorry for the Astros?

the Astros situation is tough. However, it is unlikely that they feel too sorry for the number of day games the Cubs play throughout. There weren’t too many viable options that played out well for Houston, so perhaps the Cubs caught a break…

and then took advantage of it.

for me at least, I feel bad for the Astros players and coaches for being put into this situation. I put at minimum 85% of the blame for this on their owner Drayton McLane and 15% on MLB/Selig for not twisting his arm and thinking ahead. McLane put his teams finances ahead of success and got just that. Full gate receipts from a ticket gouging one-day sale but no win to gain on the Brewers/Phillies.

That said, the Astros just swept the Cubs at the REAL Wrigley so it’s not unheard of with home or away status.

If their playoff chances come down to one game it won’t be the one where Zambrano was so dominant he could’ve pitched like that anywhere but the games they lost in April, May, June, July, and most of August before they decided to go on a hot streak to put them into contention with a freefalling Brewers club.

To say they lost simply because the game was in Milwaukee makes it seem like they would have won if the game was anywhere else. The “their minds were elsewhere” line is bogus as well because if they were playing in ATL or TAM wouldn’t their minds still be elsewhere?

I live here in Texas and the devastation is emmense, players homes without power and water, friends and relatives not none about. All that said, they could up lift the community with their play, instead of getting their but kicked. Just another example of why this is something special for us.

i feel bad for the huskers

go Tigers!

i think my main issue is where the ire is and isn’t being focused. This rests simply with Drayton McLane. If he wasn’t such a stubborn SOB he could have put things in motion a week ago when everyone knew this storm was heading towards Houston. He and MLB could have decided to move the series to St. Louis, Atlanta, or Tampa (which would have fit well with the Astros next stop, Miami). But McLane told everyone to hunker down with their families. He could have told all of his players to empty their fridges, pack bags for their families and themselves, and get the heck out of town.

Again, I take some issue with the “with all that the Astros have been through…” Yes, some players on the team live in Houston and their families have been through a lot. There are also players on other teams whose families live in Houston. There are players who had families who live in New Orleans and saw the devastation of Katrina. No one seems to care about these players. The fact of the matter is that the piss poor planning/decision making of McLane and others put the team in the position that it now finds itself in.

DmL

I feel BAD for the people that have had areas affected by the bad weather that has caused issues over the last few years.

I feel BAD for people who will lose everything they’ve owned because of Ike.

I feel BAD for the people who will have to struggle just to make ends meet because of the bad weather.

I dont feel bad for the Astros. They had ample opportunity to leave the city and their ownership decided they should stay. Where they play the game shouldnt matter, because as professionals I’d expect them to play as well as they can REGARDLESS of venue. These players are getting paid very well to play a game that any number of us would gladly do for free. If their houses are lost, its a shame, but I will not feel sorry for them. They’ll be just fine in the long run.

I have a special hatred for them as it is, so anytime we kick their butts it warms the cockles of my heart. Besides, it’s their own fault- as a previous poster wrote, if they don’t make the playoffs, they have no one but themselves to blame for their piss-poor play earlier in the year. They do this every stinking year- suck the joint up the first half of the season, then come out of nowhere white hot in the second half. Perhaps that’ll learn em that games in May and June actually do matter.
From a cub perspective though, I sure wish a team from the central would win that wild card and spare us a first round date with Philly…

but I don’t feel bad for them from a baseball perspective. They had a chance to do the right thing and they stubbornly tried to keep these games in Houston.

It is sad to go through the Houston Chronicle thread and see all the anger and despair and
then to go back to BCB from Thursday through Sat and see all the anger there. We just wanted someone to GET IT DONE. We ALL assumed it would end up some place like Atlanta which seemed about as fair as you could get but because McLane wanted his money and would not agree to ANYTHING until it was too late, Cub fans got a wet dream come true and two games in Milwaukee. I don’t think this effected the out outcome of either game as Z and Lilly were just ON and would have been wherever they pitched though hard to assume both would go THAT well.
The ONLY thing the Cub players ever said was we won’t go to Houston in a hurricane beyond that , they had NO control, the Astro players could have pushed EARLY for an acceptable alternate site and told their owner to JUST DO IT, but there is no sign that they did..
So much sympathy for Astro fans , but little for the players and NONE for the ownership.

watch pti today and tell me if the die-hard cubs fan wilbon is wrong

he echo’ed what i’ve been saying all day long…..whether or not the astros handled the situation correctly is not the point, the point is that the astros lost home field advantage during a crucial part of the year for them and that simply is not fair to them

so yes you should feel bad for them, bc if the situation was reversed, the homers in us would be freaking out at how unfair the situation was

if only there were some way we could have made it easier for them.

Shut up about feeling sorry for professional sports teams/players. They are on the BOTTOM on any list of things to pity.

The End.

Personally when I get my one or two sets end of feb/beginning of march I really look forward to seeing the game for months. To not only have the days I’ve been looking forward to not have a game but a hurricane… must be pretty rotton.

He just put down the bucket of Original Recipe long enough to spout and spew about how “ridiculous” the situation is and that if it was the Yankees, Mets, et al who were displaced by a natural disaster then MLB would bend over backwards to placate them. Not once did Meat Loaf mention the greed and selfishness of Drayton McLaine, which IMO was the reason why the Astros were displaced so suddenly. Instead, like the lazy national commentator he is, he reaches for easy targets and knee-jerk rhetoric.

I dont at all feel for the Astros, In fact I could really care less. McLaine dragged his feet for 2 days and actually thought that Houston would be okay following Ike. That was sheer stupidity on his part. I dont care about the home field advantage that the Cubs had either, In fact Im glad the Cubs played in Milwaukee.

All in all I could give a damn about The Astros, I didnt/dont think they’ll make the playoffs anyway and really think that after Oswalt,Berkman and Tejada the team kinda…well Sucks.

but that doesn’t mean that anything should have been done differently. Once the Astros players decided to ride the storm out in Houston, there was no other option.

It’s a bad break for them. What happened wasn’t good. But MLB actually made the right call—in fact, the only call—they could when they moved the games to Milwaukee. And crying about how unfair the world is doesn’t change matters.