Road Still Unwinding for Astros

With George Bush back home in the Houstonian Hotel, it’s only fair to check on the Astros, banished on baseball’s longest trip in 48 years to make room for the Republican National Convention.

After Sunday’s 1-0 loss to the Cubs, the Astros are 8-12 on their odyssey, with six games remaining. That is a .400 winning percentage--superior to their .325 road record before this trip.

Astro “trainer emeritus” Doc Ewell told the New York Times’ Kelly Candaele his suggestion to players was: “Just bring three pieces of clothing, wear the same thing all the time and avoid running into the same people.”

Candaele writes that his brother, Casey, the Astro player, “thinks that John McMullen, the team owner until the end of the season, should have struck a better deal. ‘In return for getting the Dome, Art Howe should have been allowed to run the country for a month,’ Casey said.

“(Casey) thinks that even with a .430 winning percentage, Howe, the Astros’ manager, is, to paraphrase Babe Ruth, having a better year than the President.”

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Add Astros: “These guys are complaining about a 28-day trip,” umpire Joe West told Kelly Candaele. “Steve Rippley (a member of West’s crew) here is on an 81-day road trip. The younger guys who don’t have seniority won’t get home from the All-Star break until the end of the season.

“A bus takes them (players) to the park and brings them back. They have their own charter plane. They never touch their personal luggage. No one gives a damn about us.”

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Trivia time: Ryne Sandberg has 47 extra-base hits in his bid to become the second second baseman to get 60 in four consecutive seasons. He had 60 in 1989, 73 in 1990 and 60 in 1991. Who was the first second baseman to do it?

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They’re history: Reebok, still trying to put a happy face on the twin fall of decathletes Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson, says its long-running ad campaign is over.

“Dan and Dave was set up as an Olympic campaign to end at the Olympics,” Reebok spokeswoman Bernadette Mansur told USA Today. “Yes, we would have loved to end with (Nos.) 1 and 2, but it didn’t happen. Awareness of Reebok in track and field happened.”

Whatever happened, nothing else will.

“Dave winning a bronze and the resulting coverage of that in his Olympic awards suit--his Reebok Olympic awards suit--was closure,” Mansur said.

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Trivia answer: Juan Samuel of Philadelphia in 1984-87.

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Quotebook: Defending PGA champion John Daly, fourth from the bottom in this year’s tournament after finishing last in the British Open: “I was pretty pleased with the way everything went this week, except for my golf game.”