By which I mean a coin toss. Drayton: heads it was.

but also much of our successes back in the day.

Still, it’s all his fault. What Bud did wasn’t cool, but he didn’t make the decisions three years ago that hurt the Astros.

the paradox is that he has been probably the best owner in Astros history as well. But I blame him most for Carlos Lee and his bloated contract and for choosing to go with old & busted in picking Ed Wade as the GM to replace Purpura as his primary sins. The list of lesser failures is much longer.

re: Bud
I thought the funniest thing about the WS snafu was that it illustrated one of the main points of the whole Ike games fiasco: that basically one team was going to get screwed more than the other and Bud decided that it would be the Astros. The reasons for this are 1) that MLB has no significant control over its schedule once it’s posted; it’s a slave to TV, and 2) Bud has pretty much unlimited powers as commissioner to do whatever he feels like (see his proclamation that game 5 would have been in a rain delay ‘until Thanksgiving’ if the Rays had not tied the score, in clear violation of MLB rules).

I’ve thought about it, and I’m not sure that the commissioner’s dictatorial control is terrible. This is still just a game, and things usually work most efficiently when the buck actually stops with someone. If there was a committee in charge of things, or every issue came down to a vote of the owners, things would be far more bollixed up than they are. The owners are running a business and to a certain extent, they can cut some corners. I think what they need to do is hire someone who isn’t a joke for the most part to handle such a big job. Bud doesn’t measure up.

I’m not sure what can be done about the enslavement to TV. The late start times, ridiculous scheduling during the early round of the playoffs, regular season blackout restrictions, no scheduled double-headers, are all things that are mostly due to the demands of TV. That said, I would be really upset if I didn’t have the option to watch almost every game the Astros play on TV. But MLB has reached the point where TV is too powerful and they have to be able to push back. I’d argue that the major bar to making up the Ike games after the season was the start of the playoffs one day after the season ended. There was no way Fox/TBS would allow a series to be delayed and their schedule screwed up. So the Astros got screwed.

the vote for drayton that tied it up at 9.

i know this is all in fun, but i’m just not a fan of this blame game.

Drayton has the slight lead.

Drayton himself takes the blame….

“A true champion takes responsibility for his own and his team’s performance…”

For one of the few times as the Astros owner, he is right on!

It’s his fault!

But after 30+ hours, Selig is the guy we’re gonna blame apparently.