My Year with the Houston Astros: Part 6 – Redux
The dialectic of fandom is something the spans a great deal of subjects. It envelops parts of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and even geography. The mixture of these can and will vary from person to person. Why are you a fan of the team that you root for? Do you even root for a team? If that team were to go the way of the dodo/Expo, would you pick another? Everyone has a different answer, a different thought process that would go into it.
The theme of the 2013 Astros — at least the theme that would surface if, say, an undergraduate were to study them like a text for an English class — would be that of renewal, of starting over. The Astros got as clean of a slate as a baseball team can get. They were not given this. They had to do the wiping themselves. That sounded grosser than I wanted it to. New ownership, new management, new uniforms — hell, even a new league — were all painted onto this team. Cream on this inside, clean on the outside. Was this part of the appeal? Certainly.
When this topic would come up in conversation — conversation I never initiated, yet always found me (I blame my hat)– the most common trope revolved around this general phrase:
“Oh, man. That must be depressing.” Read the rest of this entry »
