PopTop
06-03-2003, 10:33 AM
Howdy and welcome to Houston ... How y'all doin' these days?
We're just happier than a puppy with two peters to have all you fine folks from Baltimore who made the cyber trip to our little metropolis on the swamps ... I sure hope y'all brung plenty of sunsceren and rented a car with a really good AC in it
cause it's been hotter than a two-dollar pistol in these parts of late ... But donchu' worry your purdy little heads none 'cause we've got a roof and a real blaster of an air conditioner at our ballfield.
Now let me tell you a bit about our fair little city before I commence with the trash talkin' ... We used to be just a train stop heading north out of Galveston, a place to come to slap skeeters and survey the rice that grew in just about every direction a person could think to gaze ... I'm sure you know it was a pair of New York brothers, JK and AC Allen, who really started everything down in these parts ... See, they bought some land off Ol' Widow Austin back in the 1830s and just suckered a bunch of people into moving to the place, probably promising free whiskey, women, or both ... Anyways, they called this place Houston after General Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas ... Even though there wasn't a thing really in Houston, them Allen boys were a'hopin' that by naming it for General Sam, maybe Houston would get picked to be the new capital city ... But that didn't work out 'cause some of them lilly-livered liberals over in Austin won out.
Heck, if it weren't for that bad, bad salty blow that ripped through Galveston back in nineteen-double zero, well most folks think Houston would be the 2nd or 3rd largest city in the state, and not anything close to the size place it is now ... See, after that hurricane just flattened Galvez, well they found oil nearby and Houston just sort of 'sploded on the American map ... And there started to be lots of important people come to Houston like William Rice, William Hobby, the Hogg family, Jesse Jones, Walter Fondren, Odell Lovett, Monroe Dunaway Anderson, Hugh Roy Cullen, Howard Hughes and, oh, you get the picture, lots of important people with lots of important money either already in their bag or to be made down on the Houston bayous.
Now one of the most important Houston men ever was a fella' by the name of R.E. "Bob" Smith ... Everyone called him R.E. Bob, that's how he wanted it ... Anyhow, he came from a little money to start with, then back in the 1910s and 1920s, he made a lot more money working in the oil patch ... So R.E. Bob, he decided to place his company headquarters in Houston and that's when he really started to get rich ... 'Cause you see, even though R.E. Bob didn't have much book learning, he was still a real smart man ... Some rumors say they just passed him up in Humble High School only to be nice to the boy ... But he sure knew about the earth ... He could just look at the dirt and say where there was oil hiding underneath, he could indeed ... So he started buying up a lot of Houston land when it was real cheap, and then it got to be real expensive, and that made R.E. Bob a very rich man ... He was one of the first folks to build themself a mansion over in River Oaks, you know.
Now R.E. Bob was also a pretty fair country ballplayer ... He knocked around on some teams back in the early 1900s, and once he got himself a big ol' pile of cash he eventually bought into the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team ... So R.E. Bob, he's thinking to his self, "You know, it shore would be nice to have us a ballclub righ'cheer in Houston, it would" ... And you know what he did? ... Why, R.E. Bob went out and started throwing money around, and he got this man named Judge Roy Hofheinz, everyone called him just Judge, and the two of them talked enough old boys into letting Houston have a real live major league baseball team, I kid you not.
Now along about this time there was another convergence of import to discuss, and that was when Lyndon, you might have called him El-Bee-Jay or President Johnson, anyway Lyndon he got NASA to put its home just on the south side of Houston ... And the astronauts and space exploration sort of helped turn Houston from this little rough-and-tumble oilfield town and major seaport into more of a technological center and medical research town ... Don't fret none, Houston still has its share of oilfield trash and cowboy hicks ... But there's a more refined edge to 'em all now.
Anyway, that's how Houston came to be, got a big league team and decided to name 'em the Astros ... And that brings me to my whole point of this post and that is we're going to kick your little bird butts in this 3-game series!
:D
We're just happier than a puppy with two peters to have all you fine folks from Baltimore who made the cyber trip to our little metropolis on the swamps ... I sure hope y'all brung plenty of sunsceren and rented a car with a really good AC in it
cause it's been hotter than a two-dollar pistol in these parts of late ... But donchu' worry your purdy little heads none 'cause we've got a roof and a real blaster of an air conditioner at our ballfield.
Now let me tell you a bit about our fair little city before I commence with the trash talkin' ... We used to be just a train stop heading north out of Galveston, a place to come to slap skeeters and survey the rice that grew in just about every direction a person could think to gaze ... I'm sure you know it was a pair of New York brothers, JK and AC Allen, who really started everything down in these parts ... See, they bought some land off Ol' Widow Austin back in the 1830s and just suckered a bunch of people into moving to the place, probably promising free whiskey, women, or both ... Anyways, they called this place Houston after General Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas ... Even though there wasn't a thing really in Houston, them Allen boys were a'hopin' that by naming it for General Sam, maybe Houston would get picked to be the new capital city ... But that didn't work out 'cause some of them lilly-livered liberals over in Austin won out.
Heck, if it weren't for that bad, bad salty blow that ripped through Galveston back in nineteen-double zero, well most folks think Houston would be the 2nd or 3rd largest city in the state, and not anything close to the size place it is now ... See, after that hurricane just flattened Galvez, well they found oil nearby and Houston just sort of 'sploded on the American map ... And there started to be lots of important people come to Houston like William Rice, William Hobby, the Hogg family, Jesse Jones, Walter Fondren, Odell Lovett, Monroe Dunaway Anderson, Hugh Roy Cullen, Howard Hughes and, oh, you get the picture, lots of important people with lots of important money either already in their bag or to be made down on the Houston bayous.
Now one of the most important Houston men ever was a fella' by the name of R.E. "Bob" Smith ... Everyone called him R.E. Bob, that's how he wanted it ... Anyhow, he came from a little money to start with, then back in the 1910s and 1920s, he made a lot more money working in the oil patch ... So R.E. Bob, he decided to place his company headquarters in Houston and that's when he really started to get rich ... 'Cause you see, even though R.E. Bob didn't have much book learning, he was still a real smart man ... Some rumors say they just passed him up in Humble High School only to be nice to the boy ... But he sure knew about the earth ... He could just look at the dirt and say where there was oil hiding underneath, he could indeed ... So he started buying up a lot of Houston land when it was real cheap, and then it got to be real expensive, and that made R.E. Bob a very rich man ... He was one of the first folks to build themself a mansion over in River Oaks, you know.
Now R.E. Bob was also a pretty fair country ballplayer ... He knocked around on some teams back in the early 1900s, and once he got himself a big ol' pile of cash he eventually bought into the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team ... So R.E. Bob, he's thinking to his self, "You know, it shore would be nice to have us a ballclub righ'cheer in Houston, it would" ... And you know what he did? ... Why, R.E. Bob went out and started throwing money around, and he got this man named Judge Roy Hofheinz, everyone called him just Judge, and the two of them talked enough old boys into letting Houston have a real live major league baseball team, I kid you not.
Now along about this time there was another convergence of import to discuss, and that was when Lyndon, you might have called him El-Bee-Jay or President Johnson, anyway Lyndon he got NASA to put its home just on the south side of Houston ... And the astronauts and space exploration sort of helped turn Houston from this little rough-and-tumble oilfield town and major seaport into more of a technological center and medical research town ... Don't fret none, Houston still has its share of oilfield trash and cowboy hicks ... But there's a more refined edge to 'em all now.
Anyway, that's how Houston came to be, got a big league team and decided to name 'em the Astros ... And that brings me to my whole point of this post and that is we're going to kick your little bird butts in this 3-game series!
:D