2 out, Lineout to the pitcher

With one hundred and sixty two games played by 30 teams, there's a lot of baseball to watch. After a certain date, let's say September first, there are certain teams who play just as much baseball as they did in the other months, but there isn't much of a reason to watch it. When the words 'mathematically eliminated' come up all the time after the name of your favourite team, it isn't easy to know why you are watching. The twilight of the season makes us look for justifications to keep watching the also-rans.

The first reason I often hear to compel me to watch a late season game of a poor team is that they can play 'spoiler'. 'Spoiler' resembles baseball, but with the emphasis on helping out a team that isn't even in the building by beating up on their competition for them. Which is all well and good, but I don't often enjoy it. Why? Well, often the only reason my team gets to wear the coveted 'spoiler' hat and jacket, is because their lack of success has led to them having to take off their 'contender' hat and jacket and put them in the closet for next year. 'Contender' is just so much more fashionable than 'Spoiler' brand. The other thing that strikes me is that the teams that don't play well are not likely to spoil anything with any regularity. Often they get schooled by the better teams as to why they weren't on the list of better teams earlier in the year. Bad teams do not improve because the leaves change colour.

Totally Astrotious

It has been a rough four years for the Houston baseball fan. Four losing years, and then the announcement that the team would be changing leagues, which will remove all of the team's traditional rivals from its schedule. That can't help to sell tickets, can it?

I was hanging around at NotGraphs the other day and the Astros were the subject of a recent post.  If you are a baseball fan, and haven't hung out at NotGraphs, you are definitely missing out. If you are in the mood for a little baseball related bric-a-brac, it is a one stop shop. It's also a free shop, where you can take home the memory of a .gif or unedited tweet, or even enjoy a little Dick Allen in great works of literature, for no initiation or membership fees.

The Astro's post in question was this one. And someone in the comments thought it might be helpful, perhaps even enlightening, to find all the other instances of the Astro's that were .gif-able, and to put them in one spot. I don't thing this was suggested with the Houston Astros fanbase in mind, because I would have to believe that putting all of the Astro's moments together like this, is a form of torture any real fan. Especially one who is watching and hoping that they suddenly turn it around. If you are one of those fans, this is your chance to avoid the train wreck. The rest of you can join me after the jump.