The Boys of Summer
April 12, 2006
March 31st marked the start of the Major League Baseball season. April 3rd marked the start of the Houston Astros regular season and they marked this with a Win against the Florida Marlins. Despite all the drama between Jeff Bagwell and the team’s owner Drayton McLane, game 1 marked the debut of the Astros lone African-American player, Preston Wilson. 
and it wasn’t until game 3 that he showed Houston what he came to do.
He hit his first home run in the Astros third Game against the Florida Marlins helping the team win the game and take the series 2 -1. So far from what I’ve seen of his play the dude got some skills, he has a total of 4 homeruns and some pretty outstanding defensive plays in the outfield. Maybe the Astros will take his positives and add some more Black players to the team because having on 1 is just plain pathetic.
Soapbox: And no, just because the Hispanic players look black doesn’t make them black. They are of Hispanic descent (yes I heard this argument on the radio sports shows here. Folks were referring the Beltran and Tavares as Black Hispanics. When if fact these fellas are from countries in south America.). So far so good Mr. Preston Wilson I will be watching to see how the team progresses with your bat being added to line up since we didn’t manage to bring back the Rocket Roger Clemmons, it’s going to be interesting to see how this baseball season will progress.
but you can be black and hispanic at the same time, what you referring to is having no african american players. and no i dont think beltran black
Yes this is exactly what I am talking. None African-American players. They were saying that because we had Richard Hidalgo we had black players when in fact he was from Venzuela or Cuba. So the Astros didn’t have one African American player for at least two years. Until now.
Comment by jdid — April 13, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
oh and on another note here in Toronto I find that the GM has in the last 10 years kind of limited the number of black players. they dish out long contracts to the white dudes at the drop of a dime but every black player they pay suddenly they claim is overpaid. they have to play twice as well as any white guy to not get bad press. we had delgado, escobar, batista and some other black hispanics and they all got moved and we had Vernon Wells and Hudson as african americans, only Wells remains even though Hudson was a gold glover they always complained about him. thats why i stopped supporting the Jays.
Comment by jdid — April 13, 2006 @ 2:30 pm
This post makes me long for days of old when I would attend Astros games with my crazy friend and her drunken co-workers. *sigh* I miss Houston, miss the sports, miss the south…
I’m glad to see Preston Wilson is doing well in H-town. I’ll have to make a point of catching a game (via cable TV) and check him out (& you’re right, only one brother on the team is sad).
Comment by Saniyya — April 13, 2006 @ 4:10 pm
The number of African-Americans in major league baseball is sad. The economic divide is definitely emerging. Nobody in the hood wants to play baseball. Either that or they can’t afford it. It is so much cheaper to play basketball.
As far as Preston Wilson. For every homerun he hits, he will strike out 3 times. He’s an all or nothing type of player.
Wow, now why did you have burst my bubble
Well maybe a change of scenary will help his numbers.
Comment by Organized Noise — April 13, 2006 @ 8:30 pm
When are we going to a game?
Comment by Docmump — April 17, 2006 @ 5:44 pm