Baseball fans

I was there last night, and I agree, as tired as I am, I was really just watching, cheering, and having a cold brew, poor players, poor phil, poor houston!!

2005 baseball is officially over.

Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox and their fans!

WHITE SOX WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!!

HOW *SWEEP* IT IS!!! YEAH BABY, SOUTH SIDE!!!

WOOOOHOOO!!!

And congratulations to the Houston Astros and their fans. You've ended a very long drought. You may not have made the big leap but you made some mighty fine strides.
Revel in your victories this year, they were quite an accomplishment!

Amen kathys999!! Although our guys didn't play as well as we would have liked these last few days, I'm nonetheless, very proud of them for winning the pennant and taking us to the World Series! Way to go Astros! It was a hoot!

It will be time for spring training before we know it!

Congrats to the SOX!! Poor Brad Lidge, I don't know if he will ever be the same! Hubby has changed his name from "lights out lidge" to "lift off lidge" Mean!!

Well, I always figure that the pitcher gets blamed, but everyone has a part in the win or the loss. Couldn't believe how many runners got stranded. I swear runners aren't in scoring position until they cross the plate. Geez!!

Although heartbroken, I am still thrilled with the progress we made this year and already starting the count down until Spring Training....

shuggins... This is off topic to baseball, but I notice you list your zone as 9b. I see DG members in our area list Houston as 9a and others list it as 9b. I live in Katy, south of I-10 off of Mason Road and list myself as 9b. Do you know if that is correct?

Thanks,
Pat

Pat, I don't know my zone is listed as correct or not. It just seems to depend on who is making the selection. I didn't even know that there were zones until about a year and a half ago. If you just buy stuff from the local nurseries, you hope that they are selling items that will grow in your area. I usually look at items zoned for 9A if I am concerned about cold and 9B if I am worried about heat (although most stuff I see if listed as just 9). You and I are actually very close to each other. I am on Barker Cypress just north of I-10. I work at Barker Cypress and I-10.

Maybe some one more informed than myself can better answer your question. My main concern tends to be the fact that Zone 9 has so many climate variations and a lot of the places also in Zone 9 don't have the high heat and humidity that we do.

Thanks,
Sheila

Pitchers and managers usually take the heap of the blame on a loss. The pitcher serves up the balls and the manager making the switches. I'm an armchair manager myself, but reality is these managers have a strategy, sometimes they work, sometimes they dont.

If they are to blame for the loss, then lets blame them for the wins too. LaRussa and the pitchers won 100 games this year for the St Louis Cardinals. Not too shabby in my book!

I'm excited about our new ballpark next year. Although it will be bittersweet to see the old Busch Stadium torn down, I think St Louis deserves an updated park like everyone else seems to have or be getting. I'm sure opening day tickets will be extremely hard to get, but I'll be in line in person, on the phone or on the internet, giving it my best shot.

I love baseball and I love my Cardinals!

You have come upon one of the limitations of USDA zones. All they take into account is the minumum temperature most years (something like 70% of the time). They don't take into account things like summer highs, cloudiness vs uncloudiness, humidity vs dryness, and probably other factors, too. Zone 9 is just a totally different animal if you're in the Gulf Coast region, or Arizona, or coastal California, or Washington. Out West, we have Sunset zones (called that because they were developed by Sunset publishing company). They aren't perfect, but they take into account things like winter lows (of course), summer highs, humidity vs dryness, and length of growing season. For example, I am USDA zone 10 and Sunset zone 19. Someone right on the coast of CA would still be USDA zone 10, but would be Sunset zone 24. Though we're both zone 10, I can't grow things like fuchsias and tuberous begonias because of the heat and someone on the coast can't grow good oranges or grapefruit because of the lack of heat. Sunset once wrote a book dividing the U.S. into 40-some climate zones but apparently it never caught on in the East and the book is out of print.

Also, USDA zones were revised in 1990, so if you knew you were zone 9a in the past or are looking at old literature, you might be zone 9b now. This web site may or may not be helpful to you. http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/#details

kathys999, So my question is....is the new stadium going to have a roof? Have to say that a roof certainly makes July games here much more bearable.

Kelli, Thanks for the info. I usually try to do a little research on what I buy, but have run into some problems when buying plants (I only seem to want things that no one else on my street has and sometimes I find out why no one else has them....).

Such good conversation! I'm sure glad I found DG!!

My philosophy on buying plants is this: The plants I buy must be able to survive frosts, drought, flooding, extreme heat and humidity! If it can't take what our area dishes out, I don't want it in my yard. That being said, my yard is thriving and blooming with very little help from me! Since I have a butterfly garden, I use next to no chemicals and very little fertilizer. I believe the key is to choose as many native plants as you can and let nature take care of the rest, within reason of course.

Sheila, you're not going to believe this, but I work in the Park Ten area too! I'm about 1/2 block from the new Park Ten overpass.

Pat

No roof. If you notice the shape of the old stadium you'll see why its so hot in there. On opening day of that old stadium, someone was quoted as saying, "I'll have to say this much, it sure holds the heat good." The new stadium will be open on one end, the northern end where the arch is. Hopefully this will bring a little more air movement into the stadium. I flat out refuse to go to games in July and August, way too hot for me. I do prefer no roof though, as all of St Louis seems to agree. I went to the Astrodome one time and it just did not thrill me at all, the closed in baseball atmosphere. Thats why it befuddled me that the Astros said they needed the roof closed for noise, I found the Astrodome to be uncommingly quiet with the roof closed.

IMO, the Astrodome was no place for baseball. They used it for too many things for it to be very good at anything. Minute Maid is a great stadium. I have been with the roof open and with the roof closed. It is just great either way. I went to one of the NLCS games last year. It roof was closed and it was so incredibly loud. I can't imagine what it would have been like for the series. As much as anything else, I think they wanted the roof closed because of superstitions (we have won more games with the roof closed). You know how baseball is with all their quirky beliefs. I also think the other big gripe here (and I tend to agree) is what's it to MLB if we keep our roof closed. Never did hear a good reason why they felt that they should make that decision. Doesn't mean that they might not have given one, but I didn't hear it.

Anyway, I understand why people like the open stadiums and especially if that is what you are accustomed to. Us, we went from the Dome to Minute Maid. It was such an improvement and really a beautiful park. All the windows kind of give you the feeling of being open, but without the rain delays, cold (okay, not so much), hot, humidity, mosquitos, etc.

I am anxious to see your new stadium. I would really like to get to go see games at some of the more unusual parks some time. Have that on my list of things to do when I have all this other stuff done...

I went to one game at the Diamondbacks stadium. They have a roof that they close during the day to keep the place cooler and then open after the sun goes down. They still run the air conditioning when the roof is open. Since cold air sinks, it isn't as stupid as it sounds. I heard that "Baseball" ordered the roof be open for the Diamondbacks' World Series games a few years back. I've never heard that they have a preference for open or closed.

"My" teams do not have roofs, so I would never go to a day game. Even if it isn't all that hot, you fry out in the direct sun at just about any time during baseball season, at least if you are melanin-challenged, like I am.

I've said before I'd take any chance I got to go to a different stadium no matter who was playing. I've only been to Busch and to the Astrodome. I've been outside Jacob's Field when the season was over, looking through the bars, looks like a cool stadium to experience a game in.

Never ever wear black jeans into Busch Stadium even when its 55 degrees. The direct sunlight will absolutely fry your thighs. Been there, did that, not going back. LOL

When we went to the Diamondbacks game, it was D-backs vs Royals - a meaningless interleague game. The fans were really dead, but it still was interesting to see another stadium. I chose that particular game because it was before it would be consistantly above 100F in Phoenix (I knew there was the roof but didn't know anything else about the setup), the D-backs should win (they didn't), and I liked the promotional item they were giving away - team playing cards. Aren't they cute? ;-)

I got some of those when I went to the Astrodome. How funny!

Do you still have them?

Yes, they are stashed away in one of my baseball memorabilia boxes.

You gave me an idea. What are we all gonna do in this 6 month drought? We could show pictures of our memorbilia, tell where we got it, about the players. Sort of a show and tell thing. I'd enjoy seeing other peoples stuff and hearing the stories, and get more acquainted with the players its attached to. I don't have alot of memorbilia, but I got some. Sound like fun you guys? If a person doesn't have any memorbilia, they surely have a baseball story. ??? I'm betting georgiaredclay has some good stories too.

Sounds good to me. I have very little memorabilia, but I'd like to see what other people have and would like to hear other people's stories.

Ok, I've started us a new thread... having mercy on the dial up people. Hope everyone comes over and still talks about baseball, baseball memories, etc.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/553868/