Spoke to my cousin this morning, who is about 10 years older than me, and he retired last year but he's always been a baseball nut. He grew up in Detroit following the Tigers and as a kid I got to watch a game at the old Tiger stadium, which was really cool.
About 20 years ago he and his family moved to Houston and he quickly adopted the Astros and when we acquired Verlander that sealed the deal, he was all in.
So in his first year of retirement he decided to become an usher for the Astros and he has a nice section, lower level, right behind home plate shaded to the first base line. I asked the obvious, are you getting a ring and he confirmed he was. He said it will even be engraved with his name but they have to sign an agreement that they won't sell it, which he never would in a million years.
Anyway, such a great gesture by Crane to take care of all the employees and I've heard him mention it twice in interviews over the last couple of days "we have excellence from the top all the way to the bottom."
ETA I asked him if he had any cool stories and he said in game 1 against Seattle when Yordan was up he spoke to a fan and said "can you imagine if he hits one out, the roof of this place will come off." The rest is history.
About 20 years ago he and his family moved to Houston and he quickly adopted the Astros and when we acquired Verlander that sealed the deal, he was all in.
So in his first year of retirement he decided to become an usher for the Astros and he has a nice section, lower level, right behind home plate shaded to the first base line. I asked the obvious, are you getting a ring and he confirmed he was. He said it will even be engraved with his name but they have to sign an agreement that they won't sell it, which he never would in a million years.
Anyway, such a great gesture by Crane to take care of all the employees and I've heard him mention it twice in interviews over the last couple of days "we have excellence from the top all the way to the bottom."
ETA I asked him if he had any cool stories and he said in game 1 against Seattle when Yordan was up he spoke to a fan and said "can you imagine if he hits one out, the roof of this place will come off." The rest is history.