Why do I Care?

I didn't own my first Astros hat until I was in 9th grade. At least the first Astros hat that held some meaning.

I decided to stop buying the "cool" hat and I told my dad that I wanted an Astros hat. He bought me the navy blue one with the orange "H" on the white star - the best one they've had, in my opinion, before the new regime (i.e, Drayton McLane) scrapped that uniform for the "futuristic" gold open star.

I wore it with pride, through a few terrible seasons, until sweat and weather and a still-growing cranium left it dingy and tattered. Then the euphoria of a new era led to me to buy into the trendy gold-on-blue, and I tossed aside the cap of Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott, and settled in for Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio. (Brief aside: should I ever father a son, I would fight my girlfriend to name him Jeffrey Craig). I waited another few years, through a strike, Terry Collins, and September disappointment before the Astros won that elusive division championship.

In 1986 I was old enough to understand the magnitude of the NCLS against the Mets, but a nine year-old doesn't understand that seasons like that don't happen every year to the Houston Astros. So when the Braves swept the Good Guys in the 1997 NLDS it hurt. When the Padres, and Jim freaking Leyritz, took the 1998 NLDS in four games, it really hurt. And when Walt Weiss, for all intents and purposes, ended the 1999 NLDS in game three with a spear on a Tony Eusebio liner, I couldn't even enjoy the next day's Texas victory over Oklahoma (Texas: my alma mater).

Then came a terrible 2000, a 9/11-affected 2001 (who could get too upset with an NLDS exit that October?), a 2002 September swoon, and the berth of my present-day hatred of the Chicago Cubs, when Chicago won the division by one measley game in the season's last weekend. Damn.

2004. A four-game sweep in Chicago fueled a furious late-season rally to Put Houston back in the postseason. Beating the Braves in the NLDS exorcised demons and days later Jeff Kent led us to the doorstep of the World Series. It didn't didn't happen that year, but a 15-30 start in 2005 didn't hold my boys back from charging back to the playoffs.

Enter the Braves. (Game four: Berkman homers, Ausmus homers... 18 innings... Chris Burke homers!) Exit the Braves. Enter the Cardinals (Game Five: Pujols homers... ugh; Game Six: Oswalt dominates... turn out the lights on Busch Stadium!) Exit the Cardinals. So the World Series didn't go our way... my team made'em work... their best days are ahead of them!

Nope. We - Astros fans - have seen a steady decline since then. But even after Hurricane Ike forced a "home" series against the Cubs (Thanks for standing up for us then, too, Drayton! And Zambrano no-no: joke), Cecil Cooper proved to be the worst manager since... well, ever, and the team suffered through one of the worst seasons in MLB history, I knew our time would still come.

Nope. Drayton decided he had enough, and he bent over one last time for Bud Selig. New owner Jim Crane forgot where his spine was located, and the team I've loved for more than two decades decided history didn't matter.

Welcome to the American League.

It makes my blood boil. Five decades of NL tradition... Jimmy Wynn and Doug Rader, Billy Doran and Billy Hatcher, Bags and Bidge (and the rest of the Killer B's), six division champs, four NLCS appearances, and a heartbreaking World Series... all for naught. Another national League pennant will never happen. The next time Houston makes the playoffs they'll face Boston, or Cleveland, or some other team I couldn't care less about.

It's not a big deal to most, and I'm just a nobody with a closet full of Astros shirts and caps, so maybe it shouldn't matter to me. But it does. And it makes me sick.