The 2023 season is underway, and the players receiving their rings means that the team will eventually make replica 2022 Champ rings available for fans to collect!
My quick thoughts, fwiw, when I probably should be working, even if they don't specifically address the main point of the article. Which was very good, as per usual, Brad.
1. Big fan of Pedro Grifol- big reason why I'm picking the Sox to surprise this year.
2. While I've long believed the whole sign-stealing scandal was incredibly overblown and more than a little hypocritical in a sport that prides itself on finding any competitive advantage possible, I can't imagine that the owner and his wife riding around the field in a horse-drawn carriage, waving WS trophies about, is going to do anything to increase the Astro's popularity outside Houston. Haha. Not that anyone there should lose any sleep over it. If you got it, flaunt it.
Thanks, Patrick, for the compliment, and for chiming in! As for Crane and the Missus, Job 1 for him and the team is not aimed at tending to others' perceptions of the team (which he's not able to control, anyway). You (and others) might find it interesting (inasmuch as I was covering the 'Stros at the time) to read my initial response, in real time, just days after Mike Fiers blew his whistle: https://therunnersports.com/a-time-of-the-signs-houston-astros-elite-toy-became-a-cheap-weapon/ on November 15, 2019.
It was the first of an eventual three articles on the event that I wrote (each with the "A Time of the Signs" pre-title), and before the investigation and everyone else (and their grandmothers) had chimed in, I managed to finger the ultimate responsible party. Now, get back to work (after you read my Scandal piece)!😁👍⚾
Oh yeah, I had a card collection, too, in the late '60s...even had Nolan Ryan's rookie card (but, we'll speak no more about that, and my sale of my collection later in the '70s, without knowing about the growing secondary market and rapidly-rising prices)!
But with my bro (who was older...by just 10 1/2 months, so we were more rivals than anything else), I was fortunate that baseball was the ONE thing over which we could commune!
I played Strat-o-Matic. Tried to get him interested in it during pandemic to keep his mind occupied, but he found it tedious. I played it as an adult when I was single and love it.
Forgot to mention we happily stood in rain for those rings....
Amazing Strat-O-Matic is still hanging in...especially on paper (I'm guessing), and hasn't transformed itself into a video game (again, I have no idea; just guessing). My bro and S-O-M helped teach me math (and I needed the help)! When I taught 4th and 5th grade math, I know I spent some time touting baseball as a great way to learn math in a real-life setting...of course, it helps if the kid is a sports/baseball fan in the first place (and most of my students at the time really weren't)!
I actually bought ('twas a Salvation Army fund-raiser), at a silent auction, a "juiced-up" replica at the Round Rock Culver's sometime in '19 or '20. I'm told these were made in the far-lower run of maybe a few thousand...for fund-raising opportunities like this.
I won it for $125, BUT it was a true identical replica to the players' rings (with about 4 elements added to this ring that weren't replicated on the fan ring)! Mine had Springer's name on it (fan rings had no name)---I've shown it off, and happily told people George gave his to me!!!!😱
It also has the 3 series' results on the underside, like the players' rings have, and it's slightly larger than the fans' rings, believe it or not (but, likely reflecting the actual size of the players'). There are a couple other perks, too, but it's still not gold or diamonds! But, an awfully cool souvenir I was really lucky to run into!
You betcha shurrrrre! One in N. Austin and one in its immediately north "bedroom city" of Round Rock (where the baby Astros were for a time in the early 2000s as the AA team, and again, around 2016-2020 or so, as the AAA Round Rock Express). I know they started in your neck of the woods, Kevin, but I think they're quite spread out now!
How did I not know this?! Yep the original and "world's largest" are each about :30 mins from my front door. Of course there's a boringly normal one close enough to ride my bike to.
And, as much as I've loved Culver's frozen custard, I've recently discovered Andy's, which has a couple locations near the various Panera's I find myself doing my writing! Andy's is nothing but a frozen custard place, and doesn't have the full food menu like Culver's. But, they're awfully yummy!🍨🍦😋
My son was 11 and we made a special trip just for a ring game, I think it was the second one. Only seats we could get were in third deck, but we saw back to back to back HR off Nathan Eovaldi... great father-son memory that we still talk about today.
Goose bumps, Marty! That's what it's all about! I never felt closer to my dad (and brother, for that matter) than when we went to the Dome! And, when we spent, literally, years in early '70s (when my bro and I were in the last coupla years in jr. hi, continuing thru high school) Strat-O-Matic Baseball, with the computer-generated (and updated annually) cards and dice! You're a lucky man, Marty....and, he's a lucky lad! PLAY BALL!
My quick thoughts, fwiw, when I probably should be working, even if they don't specifically address the main point of the article. Which was very good, as per usual, Brad.
1. Big fan of Pedro Grifol- big reason why I'm picking the Sox to surprise this year.
2. While I've long believed the whole sign-stealing scandal was incredibly overblown and more than a little hypocritical in a sport that prides itself on finding any competitive advantage possible, I can't imagine that the owner and his wife riding around the field in a horse-drawn carriage, waving WS trophies about, is going to do anything to increase the Astro's popularity outside Houston. Haha. Not that anyone there should lose any sleep over it. If you got it, flaunt it.
Thanks, Patrick, for the compliment, and for chiming in! As for Crane and the Missus, Job 1 for him and the team is not aimed at tending to others' perceptions of the team (which he's not able to control, anyway). You (and others) might find it interesting (inasmuch as I was covering the 'Stros at the time) to read my initial response, in real time, just days after Mike Fiers blew his whistle: https://therunnersports.com/a-time-of-the-signs-houston-astros-elite-toy-became-a-cheap-weapon/ on November 15, 2019.
It was the first of an eventual three articles on the event that I wrote (each with the "A Time of the Signs" pre-title), and before the investigation and everyone else (and their grandmothers) had chimed in, I managed to finger the ultimate responsible party. Now, get back to work (after you read my Scandal piece)!😁👍⚾
The SOM I bought him was computerized. I can see it being tedious to a kid born in ‘06.
Baseball taught me math, too... the back of baseball cards, specifically...
Oh yeah, I had a card collection, too, in the late '60s...even had Nolan Ryan's rookie card (but, we'll speak no more about that, and my sale of my collection later in the '70s, without knowing about the growing secondary market and rapidly-rising prices)!
But with my bro (who was older...by just 10 1/2 months, so we were more rivals than anything else), I was fortunate that baseball was the ONE thing over which we could commune!
I played Strat-o-Matic. Tried to get him interested in it during pandemic to keep his mind occupied, but he found it tedious. I played it as an adult when I was single and love it.
Forgot to mention we happily stood in rain for those rings....
Amazing Strat-O-Matic is still hanging in...especially on paper (I'm guessing), and hasn't transformed itself into a video game (again, I have no idea; just guessing). My bro and S-O-M helped teach me math (and I needed the help)! When I taught 4th and 5th grade math, I know I spent some time touting baseball as a great way to learn math in a real-life setting...of course, it helps if the kid is a sports/baseball fan in the first place (and most of my students at the time really weren't)!
I actually bought ('twas a Salvation Army fund-raiser), at a silent auction, a "juiced-up" replica at the Round Rock Culver's sometime in '19 or '20. I'm told these were made in the far-lower run of maybe a few thousand...for fund-raising opportunities like this.
I won it for $125, BUT it was a true identical replica to the players' rings (with about 4 elements added to this ring that weren't replicated on the fan ring)! Mine had Springer's name on it (fan rings had no name)---I've shown it off, and happily told people George gave his to me!!!!😱
It also has the 3 series' results on the underside, like the players' rings have, and it's slightly larger than the fans' rings, believe it or not (but, likely reflecting the actual size of the players'). There are a couple other perks, too, but it's still not gold or diamonds! But, an awfully cool souvenir I was really lucky to run into!
Sidebar: There are Culver's in Texas?!
You betcha shurrrrre! One in N. Austin and one in its immediately north "bedroom city" of Round Rock (where the baby Astros were for a time in the early 2000s as the AA team, and again, around 2016-2020 or so, as the AAA Round Rock Express). I know they started in your neck of the woods, Kevin, but I think they're quite spread out now!
How did I not know this?! Yep the original and "world's largest" are each about :30 mins from my front door. Of course there's a boringly normal one close enough to ride my bike to.
And, as much as I've loved Culver's frozen custard, I've recently discovered Andy's, which has a couple locations near the various Panera's I find myself doing my writing! Andy's is nothing but a frozen custard place, and doesn't have the full food menu like Culver's. But, they're awfully yummy!🍨🍦😋
My son was 11 and we made a special trip just for a ring game, I think it was the second one. Only seats we could get were in third deck, but we saw back to back to back HR off Nathan Eovaldi... great father-son memory that we still talk about today.
Goose bumps, Marty! That's what it's all about! I never felt closer to my dad (and brother, for that matter) than when we went to the Dome! And, when we spent, literally, years in early '70s (when my bro and I were in the last coupla years in jr. hi, continuing thru high school) Strat-O-Matic Baseball, with the computer-generated (and updated annually) cards and dice! You're a lucky man, Marty....and, he's a lucky lad! PLAY BALL!