Well, it WAS Opening Day, and it has become a family tradition, so there Susan and I were, up in the proletarian seats with more than 43,000 of our closest friends. It was an absolutely perfect night for baseball, which is not something you can say often in Houston. The temperature was comfortable (upper 60s), the humidity was low, and the roof at Minute Maid Park was open. It doesn't get much better than that for an early April evening in south Texas.
It may have been a perfect night for baseball but it certainly wasn't for the Astros. Thanks to Barry Bonds, the Astros succeeded in turning a 4-1 late-inning lead into a 5-4 loss. It was the sort of game that would have been easier to follow on television. There were a couple of strange calls made by the home plate umpire for which those of us at the ballpark were given no explanation. I suspect the ESPN2 audience knew exactly what had happened as soon as it occurred, but 43,000 of us were left to wondering just what in the hell was going on.
I would be remiss were I not to genuflect in the direction of one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. Let me just state for the record that Barry Bonds is THE MAN. Three at-bats, three hits. Two doubles, one home run, three RBI's. Not a bad start to a season- and let us not forget that Bonds is 39 years old. Susan and I were in the stands at Minute Maid Park (then Enron Field) the night Bonds hit his 70th home run. It doesn't look as if he has lost a step since then. There were those at the game who screamed "CHEATER!!" every time Bonds came up to bat, but I have a hard time believing that the consistently high level that Bonds plays at (especially for someone staring 40 in the face) comes out of a bottle. The man can hit. Period. THAT doesn't come out of a bottle, y'all.
It was a fun evening, except for the final score. It's OK, though; no one has ever wrapped a division title on Opening Day. That's the beautiful thing about baseball- there's always tomorrow.
Hey, at least the Twins won....
