There are a lot of stupid moments that have taken place in Major League Baseball history, but very few of them were able to make me cock my eyebrow as much as what took place on November 17, 2011. It’s one of those moments where I remember exactly where I was when “the news” broke. In fact, I was lying on my right side as my tattoo artist Felix the Tat was putting in the finishing touches on the National League side of my MLB tattoos as I was wishing my brother Adam a happy birthday via text message. The entire irony of what I was doing came to full fruition the second I got a text message from my friend Scott Landis (@ScottCLandis) who broke the word on the story that I had been dreading they’d make official since it was first announced earlier that year. “The Houston Astros will be playing their final season in the National league in 2012.”
In the months to follow, especially when my stock took off
in my MLB Fan Cave
campaign, I received a flurry of questions from fans and journalists in regard
to the Astros tattoo that I have on my left hip, “so now that the Astros are in
the American League, what does that mean for the tattoo you have? Are you going
to have it grafted over?”
The first time I heard these questions I laughed. Upon the
10th time I couldn’t help but tell people how stupid they are for
asking that question. It wasn’t my intention to be insulting when I said it. It
was all just a matter of a lack of research on their part. You see, one thing
that everyone seemed to forget in the whole League switch melee is that I had
designed my tattoos in the format that 1996 never ended. By this I mean I had
the Milwaukee Brewers on the AL
side to begin with as they never should have been moved in the first place.
And just like the Brewers, even if it was announced before I
got the ink done, I still would have put the Astros on the side in which they were first brought into the league. After all, it’s
MLB’s fault by screwing everything up in the first place by adding two NL
teams (Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins) in 1993 as opposed to an AL and
NL. What’s most interesting about the Astros move is that MLB could have fixed
the ever-growing problem easily by moving the Brewers to the AL Central, where
they belong, and the Kansas City Royals to the AL West and still have the three
divisions with five teams each format that they were trying to assemble. Why
the Royals you might ask? Well, since their inaugural season in 1969 the Royals
had always been members of the AL West. From then until 1994 the Royals won six
western division titles and a World Series in 1985. Since the divisional
realignment in 1994 they haven’t won a thing. Even more interesting is that the
Royals were the first team approached to switch to the NL at the end of the
1997 season, but they declined.
While my plan to correct everything back to the way things
originally were may seem incredibly selfish, the reality is that in the
long-run it would actually be financially beneficial to all parties involved.
For starters, the Brewers would be able to go back to putting out new product
and once again cash in on their 1982 AL Championship run without it looking
awkward as current members of the NL. The Royals can once again take heed of
the fact that their still, statistically, the second best team in the AL West,
and probably improve up their seasonal fortune on the field by not having to
face Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers so often throughout the season. But
the biggest reason comes in with less money spent in regard to travel for the
teams. I realize that’s kind of a frivolous thing to bring up, but with teams
like the Oakland Athletics and the Royals who love to stretch every penny.
Granted, in the case of the Athletics and Angels we’re literally talking about
a 100-200 mile difference. But still!
There is a reason why I brought all of this up and it has to
do with the date and the numbers I marked on my cap. MLB first started
interleague on June 12, 1997 as the Texas Rangers squared off against the San
Francisco Giants at The Ballpark in Arlington.
With interleague one of the for sure matchups that occur every season is for
every team to play their “rival” as assessed by MLB, not necessarily the fan
bases. This is why you get such classic “storied” matchups of the San Diego
Padres taking on the Mariners every season. When it came to the Astros, one
would think that the Rangers, their in-state counterpart, would have met this
standard. Nope! The Astros and Rangers wouldn’t face one another until four
seasons after interleague first started. On June 8, 2001 the Rangers hosted the
Astros for the first ever Lone Star Series (Lone Star Showdown sounds better)
which ended with a 5-4 victory for the Astros.
The Astros first introduced these caps at the start of the
2000 season as one of the accoutrements for their first season at their new
stadium, The Ballpark at Union Station. This of course was its first name
before becoming Enron Field (2000-2002), which then became Astros Field (2002)
until they sold the naming rights to Coca-Cola in July of 2002 in which it has
been Minute Maid Park ever since. The really weird thing about this cap is that
the Astros used at both home and only the road, it mostly depended on which
uniform they were wearing. From 2000-2012 they definitely wore it on the road
with their grey jerseys which said Houston
written across the chest; however, whenever they wore their black pinstriped
uniforms at home, they also donned this cap. In these cases it relied mostly
upon who was pitching that day.
2001 was the beginning of what should have been the Astros
domination of the NL Central for well over a decade. They came close at times,
but alas, things have sadly gotten back to the way it used to be back when they
were the Houston
.45s. As much as people want to say that the 2000s Astros relied heavily upon
the Killer B’s and some solid pitching from Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt, there
are two guys who played a major impact in the team’s success. Two guys who
rarely get the credit they deserve… until now.
#14- Back in 1994 the Mariners selected a third baseman with
a lot of promise out of Redondo Beach High School in the 61st round
of the amateur draft. Being chosen that late he had a flurry of options, and
elected to take the smarter route by enrolling at USC to play for the Trojans. In
1998, his senior year, he and the Trojans won the NCAA National Championship
over then-PAC-10 rival Arizona
State. This particular
player is still the only Trojan to hit 20 home runs and steal 20 bases in a
season. With the championship and a few stellar seasons under his belt he
re-entered the draft in 1998 and was selected in the ninth round by the Astros.
On September 20, 2000 during 40-man roster call-ups, Morgan Ensberg made his
Major League debut wearing #2 as a pinch hitter for Chris Truby. Ensberg would
only play in four games that season and spend all of 2001 and half of 2002 in
AAA with the New Orleans Zephyrs of the Pacific Coast League.
With a new outlook and a new number (#14), Ensberg played in
49 games in 2002 and batted .242 with three home runs and 19 RBI. In 2003
Ensberg and regular third baseman Geoff Blum were alternated at the hot corner,
with Ensberg having the better offensive season. That year he hit .291 with 25
home runs and 60 RBI in 127 games, a fine breakout year. In 2004 Ensberg’s
numbers dipped a little bit, merely from the power output perspective, but by
2005 he was back on his game.
As I mentioned above with the Killer B's (Craig Biggio, Jeff
Bagwell and Lance Berkman), it’s pretty easy to see how a guy like Ensberg
wouldn’t get much attention for his accomplishments, All three of the other
guys had all ready had established careers and had been in the running for, or
won (Bagwell in 1994) a NL MVP award. In 2005, the only year the Astros had
ever made it to the World Series, Ensberg was the man. That season Ensberg
played in 150 games and hit a solid .283 on the year. He paired that with
career highs, and team high in home runs (36) and RBI (101). Seriously, the
next closest in home runs was 26 by Biggio and Jason Lane, and the closest in RBI was
Bagwell with 82. Bagwell missed the majority of the regular season and Ensberg
did what he could to fill in. Besides a trip to the World Series, Ensberg was
rewarded with his one and only Silver Slugger award, his only trip to the
All-Star Game and a respectable fourth place finish for the NL MVP award.
Ensberg would only play for three more seasons:
one-and-a-half more years with the Astros, a half season with the Padres after
being traded and a short tint with the New York Yankees. These days he works
for the Astros as a developmental specialist with the Lancaster Jethawks, the team’s
advanced-A affiliate in the California League.
#15- Despite being signed as a free agent by the Astros in
1991 at the age of 16, it wouldn’t be until September 1, 1997 that Venezuelan-born
outfielder Richard Hidalgo would make his MLB debut. Hidalgo was a powerful hitter, with good
instincts in the outfield and a strong throwing arm. He was supposed to be an
all around player in all areas, but a congenital knee defect changed those
plans. After hitting .306 and .303 in his first two seasons, Hidalgo had a disappointing 1999 campaign
with a .227 average, although he showed some power with 15 home runs in 383 at-bats.
He required season-ending kneecap surgery.
Hidalgo
blossomed in 2000, when he hit .314 with 44 home runs and 122 RBI. Despite the
solid numbers Hidalgo
only finished 20th for the NL MVP that season. His numbers dipped a
bit in 2001 (.275, 19, 80) and 2002 (.235, 15, 48), but in 2003 he returned to
good form both at the plate and in the field. He posted numbers of .309/28/88,
collected three homers in a game, and led the Majors in outfield assists with
22, while committing only four errors. Once again he got the short end of the
stick by only finishing 18th for the NL MVP that season, not even a
Gold Glove award.
Hidalgo
split the 2004 season between the Astros and the Mets, hitting .239 with 25
homers and 82 RBI. A highlight of the 2004 season was a Met record of home runs
in 5 consecutive games, 3 of them in interleague games against the Yankees. In
2006, he signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles, but left
the team before the season started, when his wife became ill. Hidalgo
requested to be released from his contract, allowing to him to go to Japan where he
would have a starting role. In the 2006 off-season, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago
Cubs reportedly showed interest in signing Hidalgo. In January 2007, the Astros signed
him again, this time to a minor league contract. This second tenure was
short-lived, as Hidalgo
was released by the Astros on March 25, 2007, after refusing a minor league
assignment. Despite being drafted so young, Hidalgo’s last game came at 30 years of age.
Wild.
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