UPDATE: Traffic, a pitcher's duel, Astrodome memories ... and some cool music

Houston 1, Detroit 0
April 15, 2016
(Randy's Perspective)

I'd never thought about what an oxymoron this is: Don't drive during rush hour.
I'll add this: Especially in Houston.
Every city has heavy traffic, so Houston is not unique in that regard. But I've driven in a lot of cities - in fact, I think I've driven in every city east of the Mississippi with a metropolitan population of more than a million people. I've learned a few things. D.C. is rats in a maze; Suburban Chicago can be a parking lot - with toll booths; Atlanta is hell - on a bad day.
Granted, my opinion is anecdotal, reflecting a combination of what I experienced with stories I've heard. But, but, but... I have never, ever, ever seen so much traffic eat up so much time as I experienced in Houston, Texas. Rush hour is perpetual.
Our ambitious crew of three - Penny, Kelli and I - left Dallas shortly after 11 a.m. on Friday. We had plenty of time to drive the three and a half hours to Houston, check in at the downtown Residence Inn, chill for a while, then walk about nine blocks to the stadium for a 7:05 p.m. game.
HA!
We hit the first Interstate 45 jam - no fault of Houston traffic - about 30 miles south of the Palestine, Texas, exit. On a side note, Palestine is home of a good friend named Kelly Jordon, who happens to be a terrific professional angler.
Anyway, we creepy crawled for large sections of the trip to Houston. Again, no fault of Houston.
We even enjoyed a cool stop at a Texas-sized, Texas-themed convenience store call Buccees. If you ever want to stop at Buccess, you can't miss it. Just look for a huge beaver-head logo. Lots of stuff in a Buccees travel stop. I mention Buccees because Kelli told us they have interesting billboards. I looked this up. Here are some Buccees billboard slogans:

• Restrooms so clean we live mints on the urinals
• Ice, beer, jerky: the three food groups
• The top two reasons to stop at Buccees: #1 and #2
• Don't worry, P happy

You've got to love a place with a sense of humor. And a lot of specialty foods. And plenty of coffee.
After Buccees, we hit the road again.
The true, heavy Houston traffic started more than 70 miles outside the city. Ouch.
Fortunately, although it was slow, we never went into a full-scale stall. But, man, you have got to be paying attention. On another side note, as we killed time paying road games - such as 20 Questions and How Many cities and towns in Texas can you name? - passengers Penny and Kelli delicately suggested once or twice that I might be changing lanes more often than I should.
Fast forward. We eventually made it to Minute Maid Park with 45 minutes to spare.


Once inside Minute Maid, we discovered (once again) that two guys I'd like to meet and shake hands with - Josh Pahigian and Kevin O'Connell - had given us some sound advice. Pahigian and O'Connell wrote a book called The Ultimate Baseball Road Trip, subtitled A Fan's Guide to Major League Stadiums.

The day we decided we would visit every ballpark in America, Penny found this book. She consults it for the bars and restaurants and baseball-themed attractions inside and around the stadiums. The book has been a wealth of information.

While Penny looks for the baseball history and travel guide stuff, I consult Pahigian and O'Connell on finding the good and the bad seats. They haven't yet steered us wrong. They tell you when stadium sections have blind spots. They tell you when the chairs aren't angled toward the field. They tell you many rows back you can sit before an overhang becomes obnoxious. For this trip, they accurately suggested sitting in the lower deck in Arlington, because upper deck seats are too far away.

In Houston, they cued us in that lower deck rows rise at a low pitch, making it difficult for a short person to see over even a reasonably sized individual sitting a row closer to the field. As they say where I grew up: "Now that right there is some good sh..., uh, information." 

We sat in the club level down the right field line. The seats were terrific.

Our seats certainly had a Houston feel. We were almost directly across from home run alley in left field. Above a series of arches over the left field wall are high-dollar advertising signs. They include:

Maybe too small to read, but Conoco Phillips, OXY, etc. define the corporate scene

Conoco Phillips, National Oilwell Varco, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Calpine, Occidental Petroleum Corp. (aka OXY), Champion Energy Services, etc. Welcome to the world of oil and gas.

Well, back to baseball itself.

With all that energy on the wall. There was no energy coming from anyone's bats during our evening in Houston. We saw a bonified dinosaur of a game: a pitcher's duel.

Quite frankly, it was kind of refreshing. Final score: Houston 1, Detroit 0.

I knew early in the contest that we could be in for a different kind of evening. Houston stranded eight runners in the first three frames.

Dallas Keuchel, the American League's 2015 Cy Young winner, threw eight shutout innings. On the other side, Mike Pelfrey of the Tigers gave up one run in six innings, even when it appeared he didn't have great stuff. As I said, there a lot of Astros on the bases with just a run to show for it.
Relievers took care of the rest of the order.

As I sat watching the pitcher's duel, I thought how many times as a kid I had listened to Braves announcers, first Milo Hamilton then Ernie Johnson and Skip Carey all the others, call games from the Astrodome - a structure once call the "Eighth Wonder of the World." I always wanted to see it.

In reality, time gives perspective. The Astrodome, I'm told from folks who actually have been there, was actually just a big capsule that offered the unique perspective of being the first-ever indoor Major League Baseball and NFL stadium.

The Houston Astrodome was pretty famous for low-scoring games. It was a pitcher's park, as Hamilton and Johnson and Carey would point out again and again.

When it comes to Minute Maid, all I could think about as I stared at left field was the year the All-Star game was in Houston, and the balls kept pounding off the brick facing high above left field.
It looked like a great park to see some runs.

We got 1-0.

Another fast forward, after the game, we made our way to three downtown Houston bars, where we experienced, in order: 

• A sports bar called Live; it featured a band of old rockers (which is always a treat)
• A rooftop bar with a deejay, which technically was a separate bar but still part of Live; the bar projects tv shots on the sides of nearby buildings
• A trendy, craft beer bar called Flying Saucer; You'll have to look this one up; There are lots of club-member plates on the walls and ceilings, hence the flying saucer theme

We had a big-ole time, but we made it back to the hotel shortly after midnight, because we needed to be back to Dallas in time to get musician Kelli to a 4 p.m. gig. Actually the gig was not in Dallas, but in the town of Granbury, which is roughly 30 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

The Calamity Janes, three singing sisters, and their hip bassist, Kelli Coleman

The life of a local/regional musician - especially if you play with multiple other musicians - can be an odd mixture of venues and music styles. On this night, Kelli would be playing stand-up bass with a talented and popular local group of Texas/county singing sisters known as the Calamity Janes. These three singing sisters have a few local radio hits and seem on the cusp of bigger things. Some serious talent in those beautifully blended voices.
This Saturday gig was at a country club. The Janes were the entertainment for a club crawfish boil. The crowd was small but enthusiastic. We got to see some Texas two-stepping, which I enjoyed immensely. 
I'd also like to mention that bass player was outstanding.