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    Astros playing @ Tropicana Field?

    I know this subject pales in comparison to the devastation of property & loss of life that Harvey has brought to the Gulf area, but I think it helps explain a few questions and lots of misinformation floating around about the decision made for the Astros to play @ Tropicana Field instead of Arlington.


    From the Newberg Report:

    This landed overnight from the Sheehan Newsletter, regarding the shift of this week’s Astros/Rangers series from Houston to St Petersburg, a situation that generated some controversy after comments made late in the day yesterday by Astros management.

    Joe isn’t an Astros fan or a Rangers fan, and isn’t based in either market. I thought his perspective, as it often is on all things baseball, was worth reading.


    Jamey


    * * *


    Subject: The Rangers/Astros Series


    As you’ve probably heard by now, the Rangers/Astros series originally scheduled to be played at Minute Maid Park this week has been moved to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg due to the flooding in Houston. This isn’t all that rare an occurrence; every few years, a series ends up being relocated due to one incident or another.

    Back in 2015, civil unrest in Baltimore caused the Orioles and Rays to play a series scheduled for Camden Yards at Tropicana Field. The Orioles were the “home” team -- batted last and everything -- but the games were played at The Trop and were not “exchanged” for later home dates. Back in 2008, the Astros played a late-season series with the Cubs at Miller Park, due to Hurricane Ike’s effects on Houston. The year before that, the Indians and Angels dodged a snowstorm in Cleveland by playing up in Milwaukee as well.

    This particular bit of rescheduling seems obvious. While the ballpark in Houston is unscathed, the city itself is underwater. Traveling in and around it is challenging at best, and the city has no business assigning public-safety officers to a ballgame this week. Given the Orioles/Rays series as a recent example of a team sacrificing home games, and other examples of teams moving weather-challenged series to neutral sites with domes, playing these games in St. Pete shouldn’t have raised eyebrows.

    Enter Reid Ryan. Ryan, the Astros president, posted a version of events that threw the Rangers under the bus. “We went to the Rangers and said hey let’s switch series. ... They rejected that and didn’t want to do that. The Rangers wanted us to play the next 3 days at their place, but they did not want to trade series with us.”

    That’s all factually correct, but it leaves out a fairly important point: changing home dates on one day’s notice, and changing home dates on four weeks’ notice, are not equivalent burdens.

    Let’s work the problem. Start with this: all of what follows is in the framework of baseball and the concerns of these teams. I am well aware that there is a bigger picture, but presumably Reid Ryan was as well when he threw his tantrum. Let’s concede that these three games were going to be played, and they were absolutely not going to be played in Houston this week. That left three options.



    Swap Home Series

    This is one of those solutions that seems fair on the surface, but falls apart when you look at it just a little more closely. The Astros are scheduled to go to Arlington for three games September 25-27, during the season’s final week. Ryan, and presumably other members of the Astros’ braintrust, wanted to switch the two series, play at Arlington this week and have the Rangers come to Houston next month.

    The biggest problem with that is it takes the burden of the rescheduling and lays it entirely at the feet of Rangers ticket holders. Forget the logistics; the Rangers were prepared to host three baseball games this week, just as the staff at The Trop will. Their fans, however, would have had their September tickets turned into August ones on a day’s notice. Some may have been able to attend in any case, but no doubt many not only would not have, they also would not have been able to move their tickets on the secondary market. (As a practical matter, it would have fallen to the Rangers to refund or exchange the tickets of fans unable to make the earlier game dates.)

    This move would have benefited those with tickets to this week’s contests -- now rescheduled with plenty of notice -- and the Astros themselves, who would not lose three home dates. In the discussion, there’s some elision between “Houston” and “the Astros.” The vast majority of Astros fans are unaffected and would be unaffected by wherever the game was to be played: they’ll be watching on television or following on the radio.

    This would not have been an equal swap. It would have merely shifted the burdens and the costs from the Astros to the Rangers, from Astros ticket holders to Rangers ticket holders.



    Play At Arlington

    Once a series swap wasn’t in play, this was the most obvious solution. Per multiple reports, the Rangers were willing to host the games in the manner the Rays hosted the Orioles -- treating the visitors as the home team -- while giving the Astros all the revenue. This would have certainly generated more money for the Astros than moving the series to Florida will, and by Thursday could well have become an event that Texans could rally around, raising money for hurricane victims as the state’s two teams squared off in a pennant race.

    The Astros were unwilling to do this. Ryan cited “the integrity of the schedule,” which is a nice turn of phrase that apparently also includes “asking the Rangers to extend a long road trip by three games down the stretch” under its umbrella. It’s not as if these games are critical to the Astros, who have a 13-game lead in the AL West and entered the night with a six-game lead over the Red Sox for the #1 seed in the American League. They would even keep the single most important part of home-field advantage, batting last. Despite all of these concessions, the Astros -- who had to know they would be losing the three home games under any circumstance -- demurred.



    Play At Tropicana Field

    It’s hard to see choosing Tropicana Field over Globe Life Stadium as anything other than spiteful. On short notice, more money would have been made in Arlington than will be made in St. Pete. I guess there’s always the possibility of curious looky-loos drawn to a spectacle, but this market doesn’t show up for its own successful team, I doubt it’s going to knock down the doors for two visitors passing through.

    This was the worst of all possible options, maximizing inconvenience for everyone while minimizing revenue and passing up an opportunity to galvanize the state. It’s a shame the Astros felt the need to end up here. I understand being frustrated over not getting the series swap you wanted, but with that off the table, choose the next-best option. Don’t run off to Florida and cite “the integrity of the schedule.”



    I recognize that emotions are high, but to me, the Rangers didn’t do anything wrong here. There was a hurricane in Houston in August that rendered the city unable to host baseball games. That the solution to that should have fallen on Rangers fans holding tickets to September games strikes me as random. The Rangers offered their stadium and the money they’d make opening it for three days; what they weren’t willing to do was stiff their own fans by changing the schedule on short notice. The Astros, or at least Reid Ryan, seem to think Rangers fans should have carried that weight. I can’t say I see the argument.

    This isn’t about the thousands of Houstonians suffering tonight, fearful, lost, shocked. This is about two businesses having a fight, each protecting their self-interest. The city of Houston isn’t being ravaged by Jon Daniels. Adrian Beltre isn’t traipsing through H-Town gleefully tearing open sandbags. This is a dispute between spectacularly rich business entities. Let’s not create gods and monsters of them.

    There is no right and wrong here, and looking for it -- stirring up animus to win a public-relations war -- is the only immorality I see.

    #2
    I don't understand all of the ins and outs at play here, but it seems to me that they should have done whatever was necessary to get these games played in Texas and not miss a chance to raise a whole truckload of money for relief efforts, and generally just provide a cool moment for all involved and maybe a brief escape for those in a bad way down 45.

    I understand it's a business, but do the right thing 1st, and the business will take care of itself.
    Last edited by Dale Moser; 08-29-2017, 09:42 AM.

    Comment


      #3
      Bad radio reported yesterday that is was the decision of MLB, and not the teams to move the series to a neutral site. Either way, both MLb teams, both NFL teams and all 3 NBA teams have a world of opportunity to raise truck loads of cash for relief efforts. And outside of a few Houston athletes, they have all been silent.

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        #4
        Yep, Rangers come out looking very bad in this situation. How hard is it to trade home series?? Now both teams have to go to Florida and play in front of nobody. Stay classy Rangers.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Tx.Fisher View Post
          Yep, Rangers come out looking very bad in this situation. How hard is it to trade home series?? Now both teams have to go to Florida and play in front of nobody. Stay classy Rangers.
          Home series in late August vs home series in late September IS a big deal and a big difference.

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            #6
            Originally posted by Tx.Fisher View Post
            Yep, Rangers come out looking very bad in this situation. How hard is it to trade home series?? Now both teams have to go to Florida and play in front of nobody. Stay classy Rangers.
            The way that article reads, it is more Houston (specifically Ryan) being unwilling to make some necessary changes. Not the rangers.

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              #7
              I can see both sides, and if you read that article it lines it out. The thing is, the rangers offered to give all them money made over this series to the Astros. But they were unwilling to make all the fans that had bought tickets for the later series change their plans on a 24 hour notice. That would affect Ranger and Astro fans.

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                #8
                Evan grant wrote a good article on it explaining all of the details. The Rangers got a bad wrap on this one. Not that it really matters.
                It all sounded so easy: Just swap out the series.Houston, inundated with historic flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey and facing the possibility of...

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                  #9
                  The rangers offered last at bat and all revenue and still are bad guys? Sounds like they tried to make it work to me. For a series that doesn't mean crap to the Astros.


                  Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Dale Moser View Post
                    I don't understand all of the ins and outs at play here, but it seems to me that the Rangers should have done whatever was necessary to get these games played in Texas and not miss a chance to raise a whole truckload of money for relief efforts, and generally just provide a cool moment for all involved and maybe a brief escape for those in a bad way down 45.

                    I understand it's a business, but do the right thing 1st, and the business will take care of itself.
                    Sounds to me like the Rangers we willing to make lots of concessions to make this happen, except to turn their last 2-1/2 weeks of the season into a complete road trip and screw their fans out of games that they'd already sold 'em tickets to. The Astros are the ones that decided that Florida was a better play destination than Arlington....when they already were ALREADY there trying to decide what to do.

                    Originally posted by Tx.Fisher View Post
                    Yep, Rangers come out looking very bad in this situation. How hard is it to trade home series?? Now both teams have to go to Florida and play in front of nobody. Stay classy Rangers.
                    Did you read the article?

                    Originally posted by bowhuntntxn View Post
                    The way that article reads, it is more Houston (specifically Ryan) being unwilling to make some necessary changes. Not the rangers.
                    Yep.

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                      #11
                      Reid is just trying to make Rangers look bad. The rangers made the necessary concessions. The Tampa thing may be better for the Astros. Tampa is on the road for a bit.

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                        #12
                        Sounds like a bunch of ego driven ***holes to me. Sounds to me like the Rangers tried to be fair but the Astros weren't budging.

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                          #13
                          Not only did the Rangers offer all of what was mentioned but they also offered to donate the money from the 50/50 to the victim's. I bet that would have come close to $100k! Reid just needs to shut up and continue to ride his daddy's coat tails!

                          Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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                            #14
                            As big as this state is how can you not play these games somewhere in Texas even if it's not in Arlington does not make sense what good does this do to either team to play in Florida?

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Tx.Fisher View Post
                              Yep, Rangers come out looking very bad in this situation. How hard is it to trade home series?? Now both teams have to go to Florida and play in front of nobody. Stay classy Rangers.
                              Guess you forgot to actually read.....

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