This is where I will tell stories about players who are important to me and why they are important. Most of these people aren't going to be particularly important to the world at-large and I'm okay with that. Eventually, I may enlarge it to include people who aren't ballplayers.

Barry Wesson

Barry Wesson's contract was purchased by the Houston Astros from the AAA New Orleans Zephyrs on July 14, 2002 when Brian Hunter was put on the 15-day disabled list due to needing an appendectomy and a hernia operation. He played in his first game (against the Pittsburgh Pirates at the Juicebox) on Monday, July 15, 2002, in center field for an inning but didn't get an at-bat. He started his first game at center field in Miller Park in Milwaukee on July 17, 2002. He also got his first hit, a single to center in the sixth, off Glendon Rusch. On August 6, 2002, Wesson was optioned to AAA New Orleans and Jason Lane was recalled. Right around the trade deadline, he was acquired by the Anaheim Angels on waivers (the Astros needed roster room). On September 3, 2002, he was optioned to the AAA Salt Lake Stingers. On September 16, after the Stingers lost the Pacific Coast League championship to the Edmonton Trappers, he was recalled by the Angels and rode their bench the rest of 2002. Or at least until it was time to do up the 25-man ALCS roster. Of course, he wasn't there. He was with the Angels organization until October of 2004, when he became a free agent. In Novemember, he signed a contract with the Astros and spent 2005 in AAA Round Rock.

Now you know who he is. This is why he's here. Due to my lazy inefficiency, I'd failed to ask Uncle Sam for my money back for a couple of years and so I had a chunk of change coming in. I thought it would be nice to do a few family things and one of the things I thought of was to go to an Astros game. I hadn't been following baseball since the strike, but I figured Iker and T-bob were old enough to sit through nine innings and baseball at the stadium is something that spectators participate in. So, I bought cheap-seat tickets online (if you've ever heard that commercial, you know that you can get seats for four for as little as twelve bucks). We took the Park & Ride bus and had a great time. Prior to going, I bought a pocket radio so that I could follow the game, as I don't see too well. The game we went to was on July 12, 2002, when Wade Miller beat the Cincinnati Reds and their newly-acquired righty starter Ryan Dempster. On the following Wednesday, July 17, Iker and T-Bob wanted to play outside and I couldn't find the book I'd been reading, so I grabbed the pocket radio instead and turned on the ballgame. That got me back into baseball. So, in a sense, it was my first game, too. So Barry Wesson and I share this date. I also wrote him a letter — the first fan mail I ever sent to anyone. I told him that I was his fan and that I would be following him, so he would have someone other than his family and friends who would be looking for his name in the box score. He wrote "Thanks!" on the back of the letter, signed it with his name and jersey number (45), and sent it back. Now that he has a page on baseball-reference.com I'm sponsoring it.

Rob Mallicoat

I first knew Rob Mallicoat as a customer of Brokersys. He was always pleasant and easy to deal with and paid his bill on time. It wasn't until recently that I determined that he was the same Rob Mallicoat who used to pitch for the Astros. He has a home page and if you're really interested, that's why they invented search engines. I was really interested.

On one of his pages, he has scans of some of his baseball cards. And, he says he'd be willing to pay for dupes or for cards that he didn't have. Well, it just so happened, thanks to synchronicity, that I'd asked my good friend Joshua over at Astroland how one goes about getting started in card collecting, as I'd like to collect a few cards of a couple of guys on this page. So, I actually knew how to come up with a checklist and where to go hunting for the items on the checklist. And who to ask about minor league cards and such. So, instead of typing "Jason Lane" as my first name to hunt for, I typed in "Rob Mallicoat". I put together a good list and was doing the preliminary shopping (filling my shopping carts and such) and had just gotten to the point of figuring out how much it would cost when my browser tanked. Now, this had been a pleasant afternoon that I'd spent learning how to do this, but the next time I did it, it looked like it might be work (seeing as I didn't have print-outs to work from and had to start, basically from scratch). So, I sent an e-mail to Rob asking him if he was serious about buying his cards. Until then, I had been thinking about doing this as a surprise and sponsoring his page on baseball-reference.com with a message of

J-Mag Guthrie sponsor(s) this page.	You can sponsor a page.
I have all your cards — e-mail me.

and send him the URL from an anonymous account with a message along the lines of "Have you looked at your page on baseball-reference.com? If not, you really need to." I did go ahead and sponsor his page, though the message was originally a bad haiku.

Well, he said, sure, he was interested and then, wonder of wonders, offered me a 1992 signed bat instead of cash. He said something about it being worth more than the money, but it's on a whole other scale. I don't think I can describe this adequately, but let me give it a whirl — it doesn't matter if it's worth $2 or $2 million because I would not exchange it for cash. However, I have a couple of rare cards yet to find.

Jose Vizcaino

This is a much more boring story. Jose Vizcaino is T-Bob's favorite Astro. This is because when T-Bob was three, "Vizcaino" was fun to say. Because of this, I sponsor his page at baseball-reference.com. I rather like him, too. He finished 2002 with the best batting average of any real Astro (sorry, Mark Loretta, but you're a Rent-an-Astro). He actually finished over .300. Not bad for a utility infielder. He did a great job stepping in when Julio Lugo got sidelined.

He got to step in again when Adam Everett's wrist got broken. And he came through again. Gotta love Viz!

Dave Mlicki

Wade Miller

I saw him pitch twice in 2002 at the Juicbox. First, on July 12, against the Cincinnati Reds and then on September 15 against the St. Louis Cardinals. The second was a complete game shutout. Wade Miller is most directly responsible for the existence of this website. I sponsor his page at baseball-reference.com. The man is awesome. His 12-game winning streak (that's a tie for longest in 2002) came to an end on Friday, September 27, 2002 in San Fransisco's Pacific Bell Park, where he suffered a 2-1 loss to the Giants' Jason Schmidt. He pitched well enough to win most games, but Schmidt and relievers Tim Worrell and Robb Nen were able to hold the Astros to only one run on five hits.

After the 2004 season, he was non-tendered by the Astros and signed a contract with the Boston Red Sox. His shoulder has been bothering him and he's going to have surgery on it.

Jason Lane

When he was called up to replace Barry Wesson, I took an immediate and total dislike to Jason Lane. That lasted three days. What happened was he started a game at the Juicebox against the Atlanta Braves in center field. That was August 9, 2002. And he went 2-for-5 with an RBI double and scored a run. He also played well defensively. He didn't make any big plays that game, but he didn't make any errors or any rookie mistakes, either. The Astros lost 6-5 in thirteen innings, but I was impressed with Jason Lane. And I told everyone who would sit still that I was impressed with him. I called KTRH radio's Tenth Inning show. I posted on the Astros Daily forum about him. I changed my AstrosDaily profile to list him as my favorite Astro, whereas before, I'd said I didn't have a favorite Astro. I even told Jonathan about him. And, if you happen to be standing behind me, when I close everything, it's him you'll see on my screen, in right field at Chavez Ravine about to catch that ball. I don't know if he's the second coming of Lance Berkman, butt he very well may be.

I sponsor his page at baseball-reference.com, but I had to fight for it. Because there was no fairer way to let people sponsor the rookie pages, they were put up for auction on eBay. When I found out this was happening, I jokingly told Sean Forman, the guy over at baseball-reference.com, that I really wanted Jason Lane's page and that I would feed my kids ramen noodles for a month to save up the money to afford it if that's what it took. He said that I was over-valuing Jason Lane. Silly man! I watched all the rookies and guess which rookie had the most bids and sold for the highest amount—Jason Lane! In fact, the only page that went for more was the San Francisco Giants 2002 team page (2002 team pages were also auctioned for the same reason as rookie pages). For awhile, I changed my sponsorship message to let people know that.

If you watch the Music page, you know I've written several songs for him.

I now have a Jason Lane signed ball! A friend in New Orleans went to a Zephyrs' game in 2003 and collected the autograph for me. I am a happy woman!

Alan Ashby

He's here because someone found out I was an Astros fan and asked me what I knew about Alan Ashby and the answer was, not much actually, but he used to catch for the Astros. But, I told her, I could find out more on the internet. So, I put together a little something, printed it out and gave it to her.

Several weeks later, she surprised me by telling me that she actually knows Alan Ashby and that, as a late birthday present, he had a bunch of Astros sign a ball for me. The ones that I am able to identify are: Jose "Cheo" Cruz, Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman, Craig Biggio, Roy Oswalt, Billy Wagner, Daryle Ward, Dave Mlicki, Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel, Pedro Borbon, John Tamargo, Geoff Blum, Brian Hunter, Jimy Williams, Gregg Zaun, Jason Lane, Adam Everett, and Alan Zinter. There are two more that I can't identify.

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