Talking about favorites

Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio served as the cornerstones of the Houston Astros for many years and hopefully will again reunite in Cooperstown. Photo: Newscom

This week at b5media we are talking about our favorites; our favorite teams and our favorite players. Lucky for me, my favorite team happens to carry the colors of this blog. That’s right – the Houston Astros. It’s no coincidence that the colors were modeled after the Astros’ colors, since Hunter Pence was the previous author of this blog. But, since I’m a fan of Houston, you’ll never hear me complain about the colors on this site.

Houston has not always been my favorite team, however. Growing up, I always like the Minnesota Twins – back in the late 80s and early 90s when they had Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunansky, Kirby Puckett, Danny Gladden, Frank Viola and Scott Erickson. I’ll never forget being grounded during the 1991 playoffs, because of a bad progress report at school, so I couldn’t watch any of the playoffs that season. However, I was reinstated just in time to catch the World Series triumph over the Atlanta Braves.

As I went through high school I started becoming more interested in the Astros. Mainly because of Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio. These were two young guys that played so hard each game. I tried to do the exact same when I played on the diamond.

Then college time came. I was introduced to the Fox Sports channel, which meant daily Astros games! I really picked up on Houston when they were just exiting the Astrodome and entering Enron Field… err… Minute Maid Park. I watched intently as Chris Burke hit a game-winning 18th inning home run. I watched as the Astros finally made it to their first World Series in 2005, only to be swept by the Chicago White Sox. I watched the Killer B’s. I watched Derek Bell near the end of his great run with Houston. Then I watch a new Killer B, in Lance Berkman, bloom into a superstar. Through all of that, I’ll never forget how hard Biggio and Bagwell played. I’ll never forget the way that they never complained and always played the game the right way.

Still today, I watch Houston. I watch the Astros trying to fight their way back into contention this season, however, without Bagwell and Biggio. They still have Berkman, Roy Oswalt, and Brad Ausmus, but there’s a new group of Astros to watch. But, it doesn’t matter who’s on the field. If they are wearing an Astros jersey, I’ll be watching.