I turn on my television to catch some baseball these days, and I get to watch some friendly old faces.  I say to myself that my Astros were so good that the rest of MLB had to take as many players as it could and spread out their buttery goodness over the rest of the league.  It's as if the Astros were so great that they stopped playing other teams and started an inner-squad playoffs.  Berkman batting against Oswalt... Pence driving in runs...Brad Lidge...being in the general vicinity...Valverde finishing off the Yankees.  At least the Giants and Keppinger didn't make it or Bourn and the Braves.  I suppose both of those guys will end up on the Cardinals next season.  These are not good times for Astros fans, Mr. Selig.

What do I have to look forward to?  I am an Astros fan.  My current owner has lost interest corralling in my business.  He could care less if I spend my money on baseball tickets now that he has an agreement to sell the team, so what little influence I had is mostly moot now.  Hello, boring off season.

Then we have the this Jim Crane specimen.  When I first heard that the team was up for sale I was excited.  It was going to be a new era.  The Astros were going to turn into the Tampa Bay Rays with a larger payroll.  What more could a boy ask for?  Then all the "information" about this new owner started to come out.  Let's see if I can remember everything that has been associated with this character: racial discrimination (I learned that white people are easier to fire! So don't hire blacks), sexual discrimination (nobody likes a flirty, chatty, gossiping, soon to be pregnant broad at the water cooler), war profiteering (if JP Morgan can sell faulty guns to Union troops Crane can...what did he do?  Over charge on shipping costs like an ebay seller?), soliciting prostitutes for business associates (it's probably cheaper to ship business associates in bulk to Thailand for their prostitution needs (as long as Crane uses UPS)), and he's unable to afford a DH (I don't know how he is going to afford guys that have to play defense and hit).  So that is the future leadership of my Houston Astros.   

Now we hear that after we have Crane in charge, the other fat-cat, top-hat wearing, robber-baron, champagne-quaffing, serf-purchasing owners are going to put him in an arm-bar and kick him into the AL West when teams like the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies sit poised and ready to go.  Do tradition and seniority count for nothing?  Who's been around longer?  Let's face it, the only thing Coors Field is missing is a DH; the Rockies would fit nicely into the AL, and the Diamondbacks will be riding a playoff surge in popularity to soften the transition.  

Astros fans are already dangling from ceiling fans in hopes of a better afterlife.  There's not enough Prozac on Earth to get the fan-base through these times.  Give us a break, Bud Selig!  Unless compensation is something like an expansion draft and compensation picks for my beloved Astros (not extra cash in a rich man's wallet!), I want to stay in the NL.  I'll even concede my timezone concerns and move to the NL West if we really must have balanced leagues (which could have been taken into account when the curent alignment was first drawn up, or when Arizona and Tampa were conceived).

Oh and Mr. Selig, of most Astros fans, I think I mind a move to the AL the least.  Do the right thing and save us further humiliation.  Maybe you can move the Brewers...don't they have an AL tradition already?