'Rona/Politics-Free Hot Links, Vol. 29

*RIP Bob Watson. In 14 seasons with the Astros, Watson hit .297/.364/.444, for an OPS+ of 130, and six seasons of over 3.0 fWAR. Watson is still 3rd on the Astros' franchise record list with a career .297 average (only Moises and Altuve have a higher BA with the Astros), 9th in OBP, 19th in SLG.

Former #Astros 3B Enos Cabell,now special ass’t to GM,on how the late Bob Watson impacted Baseball &African-Americans n the game:”He’s prob n the top5 all time b/c of him being a player,coach,GM,working for MLB-(w/ guys like)Hank Aaron,Roberto Clemente,Joe Morgan,Jackie Robinson” pic.twitter.com/28gwuTj548

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) May 15, 2020

In 1982 Watson was traded by the Yankees to Atlanta for Scott Patterson, aka Luke from Gilmore Girls. A little over four years ago I wrote about Watson scoring MLB's One Millionth Run. Watson also was the first player to hit for the cycle in both the NL and AL, and the first African-American GM to win the World Series.

Jake Kaplan: Enos Cabell, on Bob Watson. Cabell:
He was always the stable one. Me, J.R (Richard), and a few other people, we'd want to jump up and own and Bull would say sit down. He hardly ever cussed. You know me, I'll say it. But Bull would not say it. He would just grab you and tell to sit down. What are you going to do? You're going to sit down.

Dusty, on Bob Watson.

*Obviously Myles Straw is the fastest player on the Astros. Having seen both, Straw makes J.B. Shuck look like Carlos Lee.

*Check out Dream Bracket 2.

Join @ApolloHOU as we stream for 24 hours straight starting at 7:13pm tonight simulating the @astros vs @yankees series.

We are raising funds for the @LMcCullersJrFdn and the @HoustonFoodBank

Be there or be square. pic.twitter.com/8DbzLq7VaN

— SPACEMAN (@CopierCollin) May 15, 2020

*Minute Maid made an appearance on SI's best ballparks in baseball list.



*Nolan Ryan's legend transcend his numbers.

*The Navy released more UFO incident reports. 2020 is so insane the government basically said "Ye, we don't know," and everyone collectively shrugged their shoulders.




*OU (BOOMER!) landed the #1 WR.

Reminder that UT football is like Tiger: Three solid days in July and THEY'RE BACK.

Enos Cabell on Astroline

Alyson Footer handled the tweeting during Astroline with Enos Cabell. What did There Once Was a Man Named Enos have to say?

On Pedro Feliz:
"He plays great defense. He played a lot of games last year. (The Phillies) kind of ran him down. With Blum there, Blum can rest him...With the short left field porch, I think he's going to hit a lot of home runs."

On Manzella:
Manzella can really play defense. If you have a great defensive team on the left and the right side, with our young pitching throwing strikes, we should be very effective. We're still looking for another middle infielder in case anything happens to Manzella."

On Lindstrom:
"We see him as our closer. (Que interesante!) He's 6-3, 220 pounds and he throws hard. We needed somebody to make sure can close out a game.

But. Hey. What about the $15 million man? The guy that Ed paid about $8 million more than the last 8th inning guy who just signed with the Brewers?
He's been a stopper before. Once we lost Valverde, we tried to cover the back end and that's the key. He's more of a veteran than Lindstrom and he can step in if Lindstrom struggles.

On Castro:
It'll be up to him how he plays if he breaks with team after Spring Training. This kid is smart, he played really well. He moves so fast it's unbelievable. If he can catch in Spring Training & catch our pitching, catch our starting rotation, he might make the team."

That's a whole lot of interesting, right there.

Cabell to direct "Koby: Doin' Work"

Enos Cabell apparently couldn't shut up about Koby Clemens over the weekend.

Let's turn to JJO, who has breakfast with Enos Cabell, apparently, enhancing the quality of his Manifest Destiny of knowledge:
Over breakfast Sunday morning, Enos Cabell was gushing about Clemens, saying the young catcher might be the most clutch run producer in the whole organization.

I looked to see if Cabell was joking, but he wasn't. He is seriously impressed with Clemens.

"You need to pay attention to this kid," Cabell said. "He's had a great year and he's not getting enough recognition about it."

Ricky Bennett, what say you?
"He's right," said Astros assistant general manager Ricky Bennett, who also thinks Clemens has made dramatic strides this season behind the plate.

And JJO's after-school special portion:
Clemens has been a respectful young man, remaining classy during difficult times. More importantly, he's shown that he has a genuine fighting spirit and desire to be a major leaguer some day.

At Lancaster this season, Koby is hitting .346/.420/.622 with 62 of his 130 hits coming for extra-bases, and a league-leading 110 RBI.