View from the Couch

BY BILL LEEMAN

Those darned Astros!   Here they had a chance to break a serious record, and they blew it after only eight games.   Bummer!   They had a perfect record until their ninth game.  They were 0 and 8.   Then they had to go and beat the Cardinals.   And spoil the fun.  

Only a very few teams since the turn of the Century have started the season with 7 losses in a row.  So the Astros had lost seven, then eight, and had a chance to go all the way, but muffed it in game number nine.   Oh, well.

I heard "Your Giants Broadcasters"John Miller and Dave Fleming talking about losses to start a season.   John Miller said he was broadcasting the Baltimore Orioles of 1988 and they started the season with, amazingly, twenty-one losses in a row.    Is that incredible, or what?

Further, he said that in the first game played that year, the Orioles got shut out, 12 to nothing.   And of course, after a drubbing like that, they all felt like at least it couldn't get worse.

So the next day they were dealt a no-hitter! 

And it was downhill from there!

They said that after six games, they fired the manager.   Then, the new manager went on to lose 15 in a row!   OOH, what fun!

Streaks are wonderful, even the dubious ones like 21 losses in a row.   You begin to think it'll never end.

The Detroit Tigers won 35 out of their first 40 games in 1984.   Never looked back; won the World Series.

I remember the Atlanta Braves winning 13 in a row to start the season one year.   They weren't the powerhouse and perennial playoff team then, so we all jumped on the bandwagon.   i mean, it was great fun!

When the A's went on their American League record 20 game winning streak in 2002, there was such a buzz in the air!   All baseball fans were really excited.  Everyone was talking about it.  I went to the 18th game and the 20th.   The park was electric!   In the 18th game, we were playing Kansas City, and they were ahead 5 to 4 in the eighth.  I can still see Miguel Tejada's three run shot into the bleachers in the bottom of the eighth to finish them off.  We went crazy!

And then, on the 20th win, Kansas City again, the Royals started chipping away, and by about the fifth or sixth inning they were ahead 11 to nothing.   Of course we knew the streak was over.   But then the A's started scoring runs left and right.   And I remember we were all laughing in the stands, looking at each other and saying "This isn't going to happen, is it?"    And sure enough, after tying the game at 11, Scott Hatteburg, in the bottom of the ninth, with two out, crushed one into the second deck in right field to win the game 12 to 11.  Talk about exciting!

We walked out of there in total disbelief of what we had just seen.

Of course we went back the next night (look, you can't NOT go, can you?) and they got beaten soundly, and it was over.  

But what fun it was while it lasted.