Historically bad.
Historically badass.

Both winless, and for some reason, one is still really fun.

"Anyway, your Astros are terrible and I've been asked to write an SI.com story about how historically bad they might be. (Ed Wade claims it's just a matter of the bats struggling.) Care to defend your club? Or maybe pile on instead?"


And that, my friends, is how the second paragraph of the email I received from my old friend Joe Lemire went, followed by a cheery, "Cheers, Joe."

My first reaction was, "How does Joe Lemire know that I'm coaching a Little League team this year named the Astros, and how does he know we're 0-4?"

And then I remembered, the Houston Astros are even worse.

This was three days ago, by the way. The South Austin Astros got mercy ruled by the dreaded Pirates that night, 15-0, in three innings, with five outs given to us in the final frame, so we're now 0-5. And the Houston Astros?

Oh-and motherfreaking-eight.

Joe, who was my first sports editor at the Cavalier Daily in 2003, is now a writer for Sports Illustrated. He wrote this this week, but I'll always remember him as the author of this column from 2005, which has inspired me to be the man that I am today:

Johnny Damon?

Wrong. The man who stretches Beard Fortnight into Beard Q2.

I think Joe Lemire should spend his time at SI more wisely, and write a feature about how the team that Nick, David and Tony are all coaching is getting stomped on every game, but only because our Astros are almost all six year olds playing in an eight year old man's world. And how we're still having fun despite the fact that we are getting worked every Monday and Saturday. In the coach pitch division at South Austin Little League, there is crying in baseball, and we've got our share of criers.

But two things:

1) We are going to dominate this league next season

2) Who cares if we're losing?

Okay, some people.

But that's just because they don't realize that they're only six.

(And also, by the way, that photo was snapped right after I asked the Astros how many of them I had accidentally beaned that night.)

Could be worse, I suppose. I could be Brad Mills.

His players are older than six.

All that matters is that Emmett knows how to slide, Nicholas is a spark plug, Andre is my ballin' cousin, Lucy loves sitting on the bench (coach's dream), and all of the other kids are giving me constant material, too.

In a little league full of history (they say it's the oldest one in Texas, but I have no independent verification of this), the South Austin Astros themselves could be historically bad.

But there is one thing we will never fail at.

Eating sunflower seeds

Climbing trees

Playing in the dirt

Almost making contact on a fist bump

Lining up our players shortest-to-tallest for team photos while standing on the side of a hill

Adding piles of grass to the dirt after we've played in it

Making awkward high five contact after missing the fist bump

Okay that was a lot of things. But we're good at some stuff, see?