Jason Lane made his major-league debut in May of 2002 as a pinch-hitter for Carlos Hernandez. He played in three games from May 9-11. He was called back up in August of 2002 to replace Barry Wesson who was called up to replace Brian Hunter who had gone on the DL with appendicitis. It was his second time up that I became familiar with him.

I'd taken a shine to Barry Wesson because he'd had his first start on the same day I began to seriously follow baseball and the Astros again after years of being away that started with the strike and I was mad at Jason for taking Barry's place.

This lasted all of three days. What happened is that Jason got a start in CF against the Braves at the Juicebox. He went 2 for 5 with an RBI double and a run scored and didn't make any errors or any misplays. Now, the Astros ended up losing in extra innings, but I was impressed by Jason Lane and I told everybody who would sit still.

He's still my favorite Astro. It was a sad day for Jason when Jeff Kent was signed and Biggio was moved to CF because that meant there weren't enough spots in the OF and Jason had to spend the year in New Orleans. I wrote a song about it. And then, in 2004, Jason was supposed to be the fourth outfielder, not Palmeiro. But Jimy didn't see it that way. And I wrote a song about that, too. When Gar took over, he let Jason play some.

In 2005, he was pretty much the starting RF. And he's done well, knocking in 26 HR. Yes, there was a period of about a month where he looked lost and Gar got so frustrated that he started sharing the RF job between Jason and Orlando Palmeiro. But he got it together again and has been clutch in September.

He's also now the answer to the trivia question "Who hit the last home run and caught the last out at old Busch stadium?"