Introducing the Houston FRAstros - MLB Replacement Team

On August 30th, unless something along the lines of a labor miracle occurs, the ninth baseball work stoppage in thirty years will occur. Judging by the history of labor strife in baseball, it appears likely that the major league players will walk.

With the Houston Astros in contention for the NL Central title and/or the NL wild-card, it has been decided to form a replacement baseball team in order to protect the chances of the Houston Astros to finally capture post-season glory.

XenaLyte will bat leadoff and play CF. She featurs a quick bat and lightning speed. Clearly the biggest base stealing threat on the team.
HoustonCurmudgeon will bat second and play 3B. Strong arm and good contact man.
Bobbyd will bat third and normally play 1B. The closest thing to a five-star ballplayer on the team. Good bat, glove, arm, and baseball sense. Will also play some 3B.
PhiKap bats fourth and normally plays LF. The clean-up hitter. Most powerful bat in the line-up. Will also play some 1B.
Dix bats fifth and normally plays RF. He serves as player-manager, so will he ever order himself to bunt?
Eaker bats sixth and plays SS. Strong arm and terrific baseball sense. Second best base-stealing threat.
TheMom bats seventh and plays 2B. Excellent double-play teammate with Eaker, and blocks the bag well on steal attempts. Never try to steal with TheMom on the field.
Flyer bats eighth and play C. Don't try to run on this man. He will track you down.
This is a NL team. Therefore, the pitcher bats ninth.

Remember the phrase "no pitching - no pennant"? Since you can't win without pitching, the FRAstros made sure that they have the "arms" to get the job done.

Iamright is the ace of the staff. Overpowering fastball and excellent change-up. Close to the right-handed equivalent of a Randy Johnson.
PetroniDE is the classic complement to Iamright. The only lefthander on the staff is a cross between a 1970's Bill Lee (minus the beard and lefty political views) and Tim Wakefield. Any pitch at anytime from him. Can also play 1B in emergency situations.
Smartaleck is another hard throwing righthander with an excellent breaking pitch.
BurFred is the sinkerballer. Lots of groundballs and not many strikeouts, but very few walks and can always pitch deep into games.
RikaStrom is the fifth starter and long reliever, but don't mess with her. She will knock you down on one pitch and have you talking to yourself after she sends you back to your dugout with a K.

When the starters tire, pitchers are summoned from the bullpen for middle relief, set-up work, and to close the games.

AntiVenom is a "don't mess with me" pitcher with a mean fastball, which serves well during set-up efforts in relief of the finesse pitchers.
OllieMB is the other set-up pitcher, featuring a nasty curve ball and change-up to complement the power pitchers. In emergencies and extra inning games, can play 2B or SS.
Humblegunner is the closer. What better name for a baseball closer than one with the name "gun" in it. When he enters the game with a lead, you can almost book it.

Can't forget the bench. Injury, fatigue, and situation substitutions insure that their services are essential.

Gracey substitutes in the OF for defensive purposes.
DrewsDad substitues in the OF for defensive purposes, and provides a speed boost for the slower base runners.
T-agent is the back-up catcher. No catcher can play every game. A dependable bat and baseball smarts.
BushDude2000 is the utility infielder and the lone switch hitter. Available to substitute at 2B, SS, or 3B. Will serve as a valuable glove man and additional contact bat.

'Tis ok. For one thing, I'm thinking of pulling my own club together...the New York Mess. Oops! - they already have a New York Mess...and it plays in Shea Stadium with a meathead for a manager.

(I mean, come on, Bobby Valentine - if you need to blow a little steam up their you-know-whatses, close the damn clubhouse door and let 'em have it, don't go crowing to the newspapers that a guy who damn near pitched a perfect game against your boys "was tipping his pitches." Yeah, right - he was tipping his pitches and the Mets under your command still couldn't hit them even if they were swinging storm doors. And if I have to look at Mo Vaughn running like a cement truck with three flat tires one more time...get his five-pounds-of-baloney-in-a-one-pound-sack back to the American League where he belongs. I hear the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are always looking for old guys with big names and small playing dimensions...)

However, if someone does dump a manager - or believe in a veteran pitcher who believes in keeping a few tricks (and anything else he can get away with! Dial 1-800-GAYLORD!) up his sleeve for a little lights-out work (yes, I learned how to throw a spitter when I was a kid and I threw it a few times...wanna make something of it?)...have spitball will travel! (Actually, all I have to do is take a page from the book of Phil "The Vulture" Regan: he sweat heavily enough on his arms that, pitching bare-armed, he'd just let some sweat get onto the meat of the horsehide and bam! he had three new pitches anytime he needed them. You guessed it: I am all in favour of bringing back the wet one. Every last canard anyone has ever heard - usually, the one that the pitch is dangerous if not deadly, based on the [unfounded] speculation that the pitch Carl Mays threw which hit and killed Ray Chapman was a doctored ball, when in fact is was merely a badly game-worn ball difficult to pick up, aside from which Chapman, God rest his soul, was known to crowd the plate and in reality the pitch merely got away from Mays, a hard thrower as it was - is utterly false. But you know the press: why let the truth get in the way of a good scare?)

Let's see...the Cincinnati FReds? The Anaheim FRangels? The San FRancisco Giants? (I have a feeling the third has been claimed already...)...ah, well. Besides, I hate to spoil a good party but the owners, as usual, are three things in the current brouhaha: wrong, wrong, and wrong. But that's just me...

Blanchard! Do you see them white lines? Do you know what they are for? They are there to hit the ball on! An' them fellas in the middle are called fielders - Casey Stengel, manager of the 1962 New York Mets, to first baseman Jim Marshall - whom he confused with Yankee reserve catcher Johnny Blanchard (whom Marshall resembled a bit) - before Marshall took his first at-bat in the Mets' first ever home game. (It must have taken: Marshall ripped a double and subsequently scored the Mets' first-ever run at home.)

Some spitball stories I love to tell....

Lew Burdette - Burdette's technique is said to have been tobacco juice; a known fidgeter on the mound and an equally known tobacco chewer, Burdette would spit the juice into a certain spot astride the pitching rubber and, whenever he bent down to adjust his shoelaces (a habit he had had since his minor league days), he would scoop up a small bit of the moist mud his tobacco juice would make. (Jay Johnstone: You could see that stuff flying off the ball when it came to the plate, and you'd be walking back to the dugout having to change your shirt. But that was the trouble - you'd be walking back to the dugout!). Sportswriter Red Smith nicknamed the Milwaukee Braves righthander "Chief Slobber on Stitches." Burdette, by the way, was a playful sort who actually used the famous Harvey Haddix perfect-game-that-wasn't - Haddix's twelve perfect innings busted up in the thirteenth; Burdette pitched against him and went the distance to get the win, finally - to try getting a raise in his contract for the following season: That guy pitched the greatest game in baseball history and he still couldn't beat me, so I must be the greatest pitcher of all time! (Reportedly, Burdette got his raise anyway...)

Gaylord Perry - Umpires frisked the KY Kid more often than New York police frisk suspected Mafiosi. But then there was the time Perry bumped into one of his would-be arresting officers in town on an off-day, and the ump told the future Hall of Famer his son pitched in the Little League but the kid's team was usually getting their jocks knocked off, especially when his son was pitching. "Gaylord," said the ump, "would you do me a favour? Would you come with me over to their field and teach my son how you do it?"

Rick Honeycutt - Talk about a petty criminal! Honeycutt, then with the Seattle Mariners (who, at the time, could have been tried by jury for attempted murder of baseball as it was), got caught red-handed with a thumbtack taped to his glove hand with a flesh-coloured bandage. Honeycutt was so embarrassed that, when he walked toward the dugout upon being given the ho-heave, he forgot about the tack...and wiped sweat off his forehead with the same hand...causing a side-to-side gash in the skin from the tack!

George Frazier - Known best as the last man to lose three games in one World Series, Frazier was a Chicago Cub when, responding to comments from league officials about cracking down on "foreign substances" on pitches, he couldn't resist: I don't use foreign substances. Everything I use is from the good ol' U.S. of A.

Mike Flanagan - He once drew sportswriter Thomas Boswell aside in spring training, held up a fresh baseball, then took an unraveled coathanger and cut three straight gashes across the meat of the hide. Any time I need five new pitches, I got 'em. Boswell quoted him that way in an article about spitballers, "Salvation By Salivation," and Flanagan never complained. (Ray Miller, Baltimore Oriole pitching coach, to a pitcher who fumed when Miller, supposedly, let it drop that he had a pretty good spitter: What's the problem? I just took two points off your ERA!)

Ross (Scuzz) Grimsley - Toiling for the Orioles one season, Grimsley was mildly surprised when manager Earl Weaver came to the mound and told the pitcher - famous enough for his oil-slick long hair - If you know how to cheat, now's the time to do it.

Whitey Ford - Toward the end of his career, Ford had a few cute tricks of his own, especially his wedding ring, which had a rasp in it enough that, in his words, It was like having my own tool bench out there. In fact, even after he retired, Whitey was liable to cut a ball in Old Timers' Games...because the first one he appeared in after he retired, he got lit and was a little embarrassed. After the umps got wise to his ring, Ford had catcher Elston Howard scrape the ball against his shin guard buckles before returning it to Ford. The buckle ball, Jim Bouton has said, sang two choruses of "Aida".

Phil (The Vulture) Regan - Regan had his career year in 1966, as the new Los Angeles Dodgers' go-to guy in the bullpen if a starter got into trouble deep in the game. Regan apparently had such an instinct for knowing when to start warming up, before manager Walter Alston called for him directly, that Sandy Koufax hung the nickname "The Vulture" on him. (It's said that the nickname became so popular, as was Regan with Dodger fans that season, that when a fan sent him a live vulture as a pet, Regan named the bird Sandy in return...) Ironically, the Chicago Cubs were able to pick up the Vulture from the Dodgers in a trade because Regan developed a rare and temporary form of rheumatoid arthritis as the 1968 season began. Not even the Dodgers' renowned Dr. Robert Kerlan could have guessed that was Regan's strain (understandable, considering Sandy Koufax's troubles with traumatic arthritis), and the club made the deal. Regan recovered and the Cubs were thought to have robbed the Dodgers blind in that deal. His propensity to sweat heavily enabled him to load his spitter and, because the umpires were so attuned to tricks and gimmicks and substances, they never figured out that his arm sweat was Regan's technique - even though they knew on sight that his ball was doing the spitter's dance...until the day in August 1968 that umpire Chris Pelekoudas searched him, including his cap, claiming there was Vaseline on the cap - which was never proven. It provoked a garbage shower from Wrigley Field fans and ejections for manager Leo Durocher, catcher Randy Hundley, and outfielder Al Spangler, while Regan's concentration was rattled as Pelekoudas's search provoked more managers to demand searches whenever Regan pitched against them.

Bob Purkey - Thomas Boswell has said no one suspected the early-1960s Cincinnati pitcher of throwing the wet one "until his catcher went out to warm him up wearing a bib."
Eddie Lopat and Preacher Roe - Roe admitted after he retired that he threw the spitter and did it the old fashioned way: spitting right into his glove, which the umpires (looking as usual for little tricks and deceptions) never saw. Lopat was often enough suspected. Casey Stengel, admiring the guile and wiles of the two pitchers when they went against each other in a World Series game, marveled to the press: Those two fellas certainly make baseball seem like fun and easy, don't they?...They just give 'em a little of this and a little of that and swindle 'em!

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