...the Tigers are nine under -- and only one team in the wild-card era has been more than seven under heading into June and made it to the postseason...I thought for about 2 seconds and decided that the team he was referring to was the Houston Astros of 2005. I did a little fact checking and sure enough, it was the 2005 Astros. Now, I am not an Astros fan. I am a Cubs fan. So why did I know that bit of inconsequential baseball trivia?
~ Jason Stark
The Cubs and Astros are in the same division, but the Cubs were decidedly mediocre in 2005 (big surprise, I know) so it's not like the Astros kept the Cubs out of the postseason or anything. I am a Texan (Dear Lord, thank you for the blessing You have bestowed upon me), but again, not an Astros fan. I have attended many Astros games in my lifetime and have proudly rooted against them in every game. I went to a Phillies game in Philadelphia where they happened to be playing the Astros. I rooted for the Phillies. That was a pretty cool game actually. It featured an around the horn triple play, performed by the Astros, with help from an incredibly slow catcher for the Phillies. That's not as rare as an unassisted triple play, but it's not exactly common either.
Speaking of unassisted triple plays and the Phillies, Mickey Morandini once pulled off the feat while playing for the Phillies. Morandini also played for the Cubs for a couple seasons and even finished 24th in MVP voting in 1998. And, no, I did not actually know about Morandini's MVP finish, I just happened to see it on baseballreference.com (great website). The Astros actually won that game in Philadelphia, despite being down big. The Phillies had a pretty bad bullpen. But seriously, who gave Morandini an MVP vote? He was a serviceable 2nd baseman, but I'm pretty sure there were more than 23 players who were more valuable to their teams' success than Mickey.
No, there was no good reason for me to know this factoid about the Astros coming back from an abysmal start to make the postseason. There is no reason for me to know that Mickey Morandini performed an unassisted triple play. I'm wondering if maybe I have too much baseball in my life. I know, I know. That's lunacy. It can't be true. After all, I did have to look up the information about how Morandini finished in the MVP voting in '98. If I had too much baseball in my life, then I would've known that bit of information without needing baseball reference. Hmmm. Sounds like I need more baseball in my life.
