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Now here's today's news, discerned differently.

Spring training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine,

optimism, and baseball. Spring training is a time to think about being young again.

So said the great Ernie Banks, the most optimistic of all optimistic baseball players.

Baseball has been called the national pastime since at least 1856. Now that spring

training has begun, hope springs eternal yet again for the 30 Major League Baseball MLB teams,

not to mention the 261 minor league teams, and the 15.6 million Americans who play amateur baseball. By comparison, 5.16 million

Americans participate in tackle football. But this is a year for baseball unlike any other in 101 years,

and my beloved Houston Astros are to blame. I have been a Houston Astros fan from the time I was old enough to follow baseball.

Growing up in Houston, cheering for the Astros was a citywide passion.

We had some really bad teams in those days, but we didn't care.

I've been to more Astros games than all other sporting events combined.

That's why the Astros'

World Series victory in 2017 was so important for so many of us. It's the only MLB championship

in our state's history, and it came by defeating the hated Yankees to get to the series. Then the famed

Los Angeles Dodgers to win the championship. With so many outstanding young players,

the Astros have been touted as a dynasty in the making, and they may still be. But the pride that I

and so many Houstonians took in the team is gone. Now there are a warning we do well to heed today.

Here's the story in brief.

Mike Fears, a pitcher who played for the Astros in 2017, told the athletic last November

...