00:00Jordan Alvarez hit a home run last night. Here's what it sounded like.
00:03Hits this ball down the line and right. You can forget about that one.
00:08Line drive. Home run for Air Jordan.
00:12A quick flight. And the Astros lead it 3-1.
00:15When he came back to the dugout, they placed an orange and blue Astros cowboy hat on his head.
00:22And then he proceeded to walk down the dugout high-fiving everybody.
00:25Here was Joe Espada on the cowboy hat.
00:28That's new, man. Yeah, you know, a little cowboy hat, a little Texas cowboy hat.
00:34I love it. I thought it was cool. I've been waiting for something like that here for a while.
00:39But again, you know, it's their team, right?
00:42And they get to celebrate home runs however they want to.
00:45And if it's 40 times where they put the hat on Jordan's head, I'm all for it, right?
00:50And the rest of the guys. But it was a nice night.
00:53You know, they had that Navy group in the right field.
00:57And Jordan mentioned that, you know, before he went to the plate, before he hit that home run,
01:01he actually said, if I hit a home run here, I'm going to kind of point at those guys.
01:05And he actually delivered the home run and he pointed at those.
01:09But it was a great atmosphere.
01:11It's a big win. We're rolling here.
01:12We just got to continue to do this.
01:14Play with intensity and focus and continue to put some good at-bats.
01:18And then the pitching will come around, and he's coming around, and we'll get on a roll here.
01:22Okay.
01:25The train conductor hat is an idea that somebody had instead of the cowboy hat.
01:30Oh, is it an homage to Bobby Dynamite out there?
01:33I guess the train itself out there, yeah?
01:35The biggest issue I have with that hat is that it's just a team store hat.
01:39And it feels to me like this is just some ploy by the marketing department.
01:44All these other teams have these huge, gaudy pimp coats or samurai helmets or whatever it might be.
01:51And it just doesn't feel goofy enough for me.
01:55This is like when the marketing person sits down for half an inning with Todd Callis and Jeff Blum kind
02:01of thing.
02:02It's another way to get some branding out there for the team.
02:05Like, hey, if you're going to have the worst record in baseball,
02:07you better move some of these cowboy hats that we've got in the team store.
02:11Yeah.
02:12Gotcha.
02:12Yeah, somebody earlier reminded us of one of the best Astros celebrations of all time
02:17was when they would put the batter in a wheelchair.
02:21Not a wheelchair, but like an office chair.
02:24Yeah.
02:24You know, one of those.
02:24With wheels.
02:25And then guys in front of them would sweep like they were curling.
02:29Yeah.
02:30So, like, the guy that hit the home run was the curling stone,
02:34and everybody else in front of them was sweeping furiously in front of them.
02:38And then you'd mean mug the camera.
02:39You were able to unearth some Bregman video of that.
02:42Yeah.
02:43Of that happening.
02:44That was back in 2018.
02:45I could tell by the commentary because that was Bregman's 28th home run of the year.
02:50And he rarely hit more than 28 home runs.
02:53He only did it twice.
02:54And the commentary on that was Callis saying he's going to try to become the first Astro or something,
03:00or maybe second, with 30 home runs and 50 doubles.
03:04And the only year he had 50 doubles was 2018.
03:07So, yeah, that was all the way back in 2018.
03:09That's what Spada said.
03:09He's like, man, been a while since we've had one of these types of fun celebrations.
03:14It is.
03:14Well, part of it is I think that the Astros were one of the first ones to really start the
03:19goofy dugout celebrations.
03:20And then they were awesome forever.
03:22And then I almost feel like it got to the point where they became the grumpy old men of like,
03:30well, listen, we're not performing the way we should and we shouldn't be celebrating this way.
03:34When back in the day, back when Club Astro started and everything, they did it before they were good.
03:40And they did it despite great criticism from grumpy old men in the fan base saying,
03:46why are these guys celebrating with a disco ball and everything?
03:49This is a bunch of nonsense.
03:49They didn't care.
03:50They're just a bunch of kids having fun.
03:52And somewhere along the way, they lost the goofiness and the frivolity of it all.
03:56They did.
03:57Now, they managed to win a couple World Series.
03:59So, I will trade the frivolity for a couple of championships.
04:01No, no, no, but they were still doing it when they were winning the World Series.
04:04It was that after I felt like they lost some of the fun celebrations back when they felt like they
04:10weren't living up to expectations.
04:11Oh, okay, yeah.
04:12And almost there was a point of like, man, this is a bad look.
04:14We're not playing the way we need to play.
04:16The key is that you do it whether you're winning or losing, whether you're winning or losing a game or
04:23no matter where you are in the standings.
04:25Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:26Well, admittedly, you're the one who observes this stuff more than I do on the show.
04:33Even though I think I'm a bigger fan of stupid stuff than you, the lanyop that comes with baseball, I'm
04:39more kind of like, okay, once I watch Jordan hit that home run, I would probably be staring back down
04:44at my iPad, you know, trying to type a couple bullet points about it or something like that.
04:48Yeah, yeah.
04:49So, I'll take your word for it that the frivolity has sustained through the golden era.
04:55Somebody's suggesting they should put him in a trash can and bang on the sides.
04:59See, I like that.
05:00I do too.
05:01I like owning that.
05:03Yes.
05:03I like when Altuve hit that walk-off against the Yankees in the regular season a couple years ago.
05:08Yeah.
05:09I tweeted out something like, look, we own NASA, you idiots.
05:14You're never going to get a, you're never going to beat us.
05:17Right.
05:17You're never, and people, I didn't get a single negative comment from Astros fans because they understand it.
05:22They get it.
05:23You want to, I lean into right now, if anybody wants to accuse Altuve of cheating and that's why he's
05:27been hanging the ball so well, go for it.
05:29Right.
05:30Yeah, we are.
05:31What are you going to do about it?
05:31He's going to be cheating until he's 78 years old and there's nothing you can do about it, baseball.
05:36He likes it when you boo him.
05:38Yeah.
05:38He likes it when you boo him.
05:40Yeah, I would, that would be funny as hell, man, if they had a garbage can on wheels and the
05:45home run guy hops right in and, you know.
05:48Somebody else is pointing out, this is a good point.
05:50We'd have to go back and do a deep dive into this.
05:53That the being better than everybody else scandal seems to be when it turned and things changed.
06:00But I don't know about that.
06:02From 2020, it felt like there were still goofy celebrations for a couple years.
06:07And like on through the 2022 World Series.
06:10I'll let you do the research on that one.
06:12I'll let you figure that one out.
06:13That's a lot of going back.
06:14Yeah, yeah.
06:15I just felt like they got a little more serious through the years.
06:17It wouldn't shock me if it would shock me at all in 2017 when they won it because that was
06:21still adjacent to the club Astros era and whatnot.
06:25But I feel like by 2022, especially, you know, it's a new manager with Dusty Baker.
06:30You know, is Dusty somebody who's who likes all the the, you know, the extra that comes with the, you
06:36know, clubhouse and celebrations?
06:37So, yeah, I don't know.
Comments