Lovable Houston Astros not bidding farewell all by themselves - NOLA.com

Opening Day 2012 has been circled in red on the Houston Astros’ calendar for a long time.

Ron Thibodeaux

This season marks the 50th anniversary of Major League Baseball in Houston, and for fans across south Louisiana, the Astros have been our de facto home team. From lovable losers to pennant winners and back again, the Astros have given us a memorable ride.

This should have been a magical time for the franchise. But as the Astros open their season at Minute Maid Park today against the Colorado Rockies, the moment is bittersweet, and not just because they’re in the midst of a substantial rebuilding program (read: they’re the worst team in baseball).

As it happens, 2012 will witness the Astros’ farewell tour through the National League. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has decreed that next year, Houston will relocate to the Western Division of the American League.

That won’t be an easy transition, because a different league means a different brand of baseball. The American League is home of the designated hitter. It’s where games are strategy-free and interminably long. And while the Astros will gain an in-state rival in the Texas Rangers, they otherwise will surrender 50 years of tradition and rivalry with teams they have competed against since entering the National League in 1962.

Texas native Lance Berkman spent 12 years with the Astros and helped lead Houston to the 2005 World Series, then took his considerable talents to the American League for a brief stint with the New York Yankees before landing in St. Louis last year.

“I’m against the move. I really do think it’s bad for baseball in Houston,” Berkman said several days ago at the Cardinals’ spring training complex in Jupiter, Fla. “One of the main reasons is that all of the road games (against new divisional opponents on the West Coast) are going to start at 9:30 at night. To build a fan base and generate the kind of revenues from that that would drive your payroll, that’s going to be tough to do. I hate to see it for the organization.”

The National League is “real baseball,” and players and fans will miss it, Berkman said.

“It’s how the game was meant to be played,” he said. “There’s a lot more strategy. The games are crisper, cleaner, more tautly contested in the National League than in the American League, in general. I don’t like the American League, in terms of the way they play. ... If you’re a baseball purist, it’s not the highest and best for the sport.”

Former Astros pitcher, manager and broadcaster Larry Dierker is the living embodiment of the Houston franchise, having been with the team in some capacity for most of its history, going back to his playing debut on his 18th birthday in 1964. He is similarly disenchanted with the pending move.

“It doesn’t seem fair, and it’s not fair, but it’s the way life is,” Dierker told me during a lengthy conversation before an Astros’ spring training game. “We were the only team that was for sale, and the only leverage they had with us was withholding approval” of the sale unless new owner Jim Crane agreed to the move, he said.

Selig announced last November the Astros’ move from the six-team NL Central to the four-team AL West, touting it as a way to balance both leagues and all six divisions while guaranteeing interleague play throughout the season.

The change might not matter to others across the broad landscape of Major League Baseball, but for many Houston fans, this is a very big deal, and not in a good way.

I’m as conflicted about all this as any of them. I’ve been an Astros fan just about all my life â€" specifically, since July 25, 1965, when, at age 7, I traveled with my dad, grandpa and uncle from down the bayou to Houston to get a look at that newfangled domed stadium, widely hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world.”

The game featured three future Hall of Famers â€" Joe Morgan, Frank Robinson and Tony Perez â€" as well as Pete Rose, whose Hall-worthy career was ultimately eclipsed by off-the-field misdeeds. Cincinnati beat Houston 3-1 that day, but it hardly mattered. We were captivated by the Astrodome, the million-dollar scoreboard, the field crew that dragged the infield dressed like astronauts and, oh yes, the baseball team. I was hooked.

Listening to the games on the radio late into countless school nights, reveling in the rare TV broadcasts in those precable years, my friends and I were fans through thick and thin, and it was mostly thin. The Astros didn’t make the playoffs until 1980 â€" by that time, I had finished college, gotten married and started a family.

Starting our own rite of summer in the mid-1980s, we made annual trips to see the Astros play. The kids learned the teams, relished the rivalries, respected the traditions. They cheered Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell, marveled at Greg Maddux, booed Tommy Lasorda and Barry Bonds.

The times have changed, though, and so have we. We haven’t made that trip since our nest emptied. The last games we attended in Houston, in fact, were the three glorious wins over the Cardinals in the 2004 NLCS.

Meanwhile, once Houston moved its AAA affiliate from New Orleans to Texas and then to Oklahoma years ago, it stopped marketing itself in this part of Louisiana. I couldn’t tell how many years it’s been since the Astros’ preseason “caravan” of players and coaches stopped in New Orleans.

The reality is, the Astros moved on from here a long time ago. The switch to the American League next year will only distance them even farther. Call me a fanasaurus, but I’m inclined to stick with the “real baseball” of the National League and all those other teams I’ve been watching for the past 47 years.

I’ve already got a new home team in mind: the Washington Nationals. After all, Washington, D.C., is a national city, and as an American citizen in good standing, I’ve got as much claim to it as anyone.

So as the Astros take that farewell tour through the National League, I’ll tag along. It’s been a good ride. But before the bus heads for the AL West, I’m switching caps, and getting off.

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Ron Thibodeaux can be reached at rthibodeaux@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4834.