Manny Acta. Brad Mills. Phil Garner. Dave Clark. ย
These four, uninspiring names are supposedly the Four. The Four out of which the Astros will choose a new manager. And I’ve got to admit. I’m pretty damn uninspired.
Here’s a brief rundown of why these guys probably won’t be any good. Garner has a proven record of sucking as a manager of any team that doesn’t have Roger Clemens in the starting rotation. Clark has a proven record of sucking as a third base coach, and he was pretty damn unimpressive in his stint as the team’s interim manager. Manny Acta has already shown that he’s a bad manager of bad teams. And Brad Mills? Well, he’s a coach for the Boston Red Sox, but unless he’s bringing along Jason Bay, Dustin Pedoria, and the Red Sox pitching staff, then the Astros will more closely resemble the Baltimore Orioles than they will the Boston Red Sox.
But I think I’ve reached that point where I just don’t care anymore. And that’s because it’s just not going to matter who the manager is.
No matter what, Carlos Lee is still going to lumber around left field every night. Lance Berkman’s going to continue with his half-hearted efforts. Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence will give it the good effort every night, but it’s not going to matter when the rest of the club comes around to grounding into double plays with one out and runners in scoring position.
The team is bad, and not fun bad. This Astros team isn’t like that 1991
squad which was bad but featured Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Luis
Gonzalez, Steve Finley, and Ken Caminiti — you could see the promise
in that team. You could see the talent all over the field. What we fans
are going to be stuck with next year is two guys in the regular lineup
who really seem to give a damn, and then a bunch of guys like Carlos
Lee who are collecting a paycheck.
So maybe it won’t matter who
the manager is. The team will suck. And the fools will still turn up in
their stupid puma costumes and cheer on a bunch of slackers who just
don’t care. And Drayton will still charge too much for tickets and
concessions and people will still stupidly buy the tickets because the
choo-choo train looks nice and Tal’s Hill is really cool.
The
Astros haven’t cared about us real baseball fans in years now. So why
should I bother caring about them anymore? So go ahead, Drayton. Give
the job to Phil Garner or Manny Acta or Dave Clark or Brad Mills. Keep
showing that you don’t care. But at some point you’re going to discover
that the baseball fans want decent baseball games, not trains and hills.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2009.
