Some Final Thoughts on Fan Fest

The local Astros bloggers were given a great opportunity to spend a day observing and interacting with everyone from front office guys to the manager to current players to former stars to the fans for whom baseball hope always springs eternal.  I hope you've enjoyed my posts from the event.  I will leave you with some random thoughts and observations ...

• Enos Cabell is a natural story-teller with a great sense of humor.  He really needs to write a book about his days with the Astros.
• Larry Dierker REALLY isn't a fan of Carlos Lee's work ethic.  Wow, he's a straight shooter!
• Brad Mills thinks of 2011 as a learning curve for him and for a number of players as they learned about themselves.  As painful as it was, the 2011 results managed to "bring us together and kind of bond us."
• I don't know that J.R. Richard's number will get retired, but I'm pretty sure that he will be one of the early Walk of Fame inductees.
• As long as Jeff Luhnow is in charge, I don't think we'll ever see another 3-year Kaz Matsui signing.
• Competition in Spring Training will be fierce.  The catch words were "passion" and "hunger."  And the often stoic Brad Mills actually looked animated at the thought.
• Long-time fans of the Astros are really going to enjoy everything that is being planned for the 50th Anniversary celebration.  There will be many trips down memory lane.
• If an informal poll by Larry Dierker at one of the sessions means anything, a permanent return to blue and orange in 2013 is looking promising.
• If comments by Jeff Luhnow at the Baseball Dinner on Friday and Brad Mills at Fan Fest on Saturday are any indication, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Lance Berkman could be the Astros DH in 2013.  He may just be one hometown discount away from retiring as an Astro.
• Although there wasn't a huge crowd at Fan Fest on Saturday, the fans I spoke with were enthusiastic and hopeful.  They are happy that there is finally a well articulated plan in place with people in charge who listen to the average fan (and the average blogger).

Which brings me to this.  You would have been proud of the Astros blogging community on Saturday.  All were well-prepared with good questions and completely professional.  We did you, our readers, proud.  And the result has been fascinating.  In the reporting of the event, there has been overlap.  But the tone, the vision and the emphasis for each of us has been different.  Whether it's Terri at Tales from the Juice Box reporting my favorite moment from Fan Fest, this running diary from David over at Crawfishboxes, this humorous entry from Jason at Astros County, this fully-fleshed take from Alex at Climbing Tal's Hill, or my humble look at things from a minor league viewpoint, Astros fans are the beneficiaries of this robust blogging community.  Thank you for reading.

Now, let's play ball!