Many years ago when I was in graduate school in Illinois, doggedly rolling the rock of my dissertation up that eternal hill, but doing so at times more like a sissy than like Sisyphus, the subject of "the quintessential guy's song" came up in the office. Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" off the album of the same name, was mentioned right away, but Springsteen's magnum opus--perhaps the greatest American rock song ever written--has too poetic a lyric, especially in that eloquent final verse, to be considered a guy's song. Same with "Stairway To Heaven" which, in all other respects, could be at the head of the class. Lynyrd Skynerd's "Call Me The Breeze" comes closer to the mark, but there again, we find that long, show-stopping passage in the middle where the piano just takes off, and I am thrilled by an instrumental happiness matched only by Beethoven at his best. Steve Earle came along years after our discussion, but "Valentine's Day" and "The Unrepentant", back-to-back off the I Feel Alright CD, have to be two of the greatest guy songs anybody's ever done--proof positive, if you need it, of just how achingly manic-depressive the male of the species really is, even if we say we're not.

What we wanted back then--and I should mention that this subject was brought up by a woman--was a song that celebrated youth and strength and the joy of living without sappiness or sentimentality. Puttering along in the middle of our list, as it has probably puttered along in a good many private lists of favorite songs since it came out thirty years ago, was Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town." Not layered with Tolkienesque fantasy like "Stairway," or caught up in young adult angst like "Born To Run", or skittish about attachments to women like "Breeze," "The Boys Are Back" is just there, pounding out its praise of drinking, brawling, and wenching, brazenly framing for us the things that guys do, without trying to point to anything larger in the scheme of things.

Been thinkin' about "The Boys Are Back" a lot this week, mostly because the boys--our Astros--are back, despite the fact that the calendar on the wall says that a few days still remain until pitchers and catchers report to Kissimmee. The latest evidence of baseball's return was Friday's announcement that the Astros and the Marlins will play a couple of exhibition games in Mexico City on March 13 and March 14. The movement of these two games south of the border had been rumored for days, but nothing had been confirmed or announced until now.

Been thinkin' about "The Boys Are Back" for several other reasons, too. The press this past week has been filled with articles about Roger Clemens's "tour' of New York, and columns about how well the Astros might do in the NL Central race. One of those articles mentioned the Astros' "aging" lineup, a characterization that bothers me some, even if it does carry a lot of truth. People look at the Houston lineup and they see Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, and Jeff Kent, all 35 years old or older, but I remind you, that's merely a third of the Astros' batting order. The rest--Lance Berkman, Richard Hidalgo, Morgan Ensberg, Adam Everett, and Brad Ausmus--are either in the prime of their careers, too young to have reached an athletic peak yet, or play a position whose defensive importance outweighs that man's ability with the bat. In addition, one of those "aging" stars, Bagwell, plays a position--1B--that does not require the running speed of 2B or CF. It would be pleasant if Bagwell could regain the ability to throw as well as he used to, but that's not going to happen. The reality, though, is that he is at the opposite end of the scale of imperatives from Ausmus. Ausmus earns his bread by being a defensive catcher; anything he gives the team as a hitter is a bonus. Bagwell is paid to hit, and as long as he can do that, the club will live with whatever he can give it in the field.

For this reason, I was a little miffed this week that Bagwell didn't get the props he deserves from ESPN.com's article on those players with a shot at Cooperstown. Thrilled as I am that people in the east are finally beginning to notice the career-long, all-around excellence of Biggio, they're still slighting one of the greatest first basemen the game has had in Bagwell. Part of the problem is that Bagwell plays a position from which run production is expected every day of the week, but that shouldn't diminish the work that he actually does. Another part of the problem is that Bagwell simply hasn't done anything with his opportunities in the post-season. It seems to me, though, that Bagwell will solve the first part of that problem, given time and good health. He'll get to 500 homers or close to it by the end of his career. There will be some fans, however, like Yankee booster Cecilia Tan over at Ceciliatan.com, who'll mistakenly argue that Bagwell is helped (and ex-Yankee Andy Pettitte will be hurt) by playing in a "notorious homer dome". Leaving aside the point that the stadium roof is retractable, the facts are that since 2000, Minute Maid Park is not the homer park it used to be. Most of the homers hit there do not go out via the Crawford Boxes, and the overwhelming majority of home runs, hit as they are to LCF and to RF, are legitimate shots, and would be in any other park. I read stuff like this all the time about how easy it is to hit a homer in Houston, and the last time I did, man, I just fell about the place. "If that chick don't wanna know. . . ."

The reason I can contemplate a 14 / 15-win rotation and still be a happy fellow is Houston's bullpen. Jimy Williams will have some sorting to do down there once ST opens, but the bullpen could be a much better instrument this year than anybody thinks. Many people are wondering whether Octavio Dotel can handle the closer's role, and his prior stats as a closer do suggest the concern is warranted: six saves in ten opportunities in 2002, two in four chances in 2001, and sixteen in twenty-three opportunities during Billy Wagner's elbow-injury season of 2000. Dotel is a different pitcher now, however, from the one he was when he first came to Houston. He's more experienced, calmer, and more confident. He wants the closer's job and that's a big part of doing it well. He might not be as ruthlessly efficient as Wagner was last season, but Dotel will be all right. The supporting cast around him will be different and probably better, too, with two more hard throwers and more experience. Brad Lidge will be there to set up or close, and if Brandon Duckworth (hard thrower # 1) or Jeriome Robertson takes hold of swing man duties to go with Stone, Miceli, Veres, or Brandon Backe (hard thrower # 2), then the bullpen could pick up more wins than it got last season. Whether that happens or not depends on factors that can't be predicted accurately, but I think it's fair to say that however successful the bullpen will be, it will be almost certainly less stressed than it was last season or the year before. Williams will still use it, of course, but he's got four inning-eaters in the rotation now, and that may minimize troubles for both middle relief and for Dotel, too.

So, yes, while I have to acknowledge that a thousand pieces have to fit together for the Astros to make the playoffs this season and that a few of those pieces--Bagwell, Biggio, Kent, Oswalt, Pettitte--could shatter at any time and wreck Houston's hopes, I like those pieces, and I'm not going to assume that something awful will happen to anyone. I am going to assume, rather, the opposite, especially in regard to these five men, based on their track record in prior seasons. I am going to assume that their work ethic--the way they prepare themselves for the season and for individual games--will remain as rigorous as it has been.

I'm going to assume something else, too: "if the boys wanna fight, you better let 'em." Roger Clemens professes not to be worried about other teams retaliating for his high-and-tight pitching style, now that he's in the National League and has to bat as well as throw. He shouldn't be worried. Pitchers in the NL have always had to worry about retaliation, whether they themselves were good hitters or not. It so happened that Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale were excellent hitters, but I suspect that the converse, had it been true, wouldn't have mattered. Gibson and Drysdale wouldn't take anything off anybody, and neither would another master of the high-and-tight style, Tom Seaver. Clemens, even in this extended era of many ballplayers being millionaire pals, is in that same class. He'll take care of himself and the opposition, if need be. The Astros have always been tough; you can't take as many wicked shots on the elbow as Craig Biggio has and not be tough. But for the first time in many seasons, I expect an edge to the Astros' play, a meanness of temper on the field within the rules that only a few teams--the Yankees, the Braves, the Red Sox, the Phillies, the Cardinals--have shown historically. The Reds have also had an edge to their play for years, in both good seasons and bad, most vividly expressed for me in the smirking face of Ray Knight as he led the charge out of the Cincinnati dugout for a couple of memorable brawls against the Astros in the late 70s. I hope the Reds pick a fight with the Astros this year. I really hope they do, those no-talent, beans-in-their-chilli twits. If Clemens doesn't slap the smirks off their faces, then Pettitte, with a choir-boy demeanor underneath fire and brimstone eyes, will.

This is the kind of team I think we can look forward to--a sharper, more aggressive bunch. I think the change will come in part because of everyone's raised expectations. While I do believe that the organization is standing by Jimy Williams as the Astros prepare to open camp, I think that at least some of the pressure that other writers have suggested Williams is under in 2004 is in fact there, and that's not a bad thing. All the players I've mentioned will be feeling a different level of pressure this season, too, and that's all right. Even as cautious as most of us who watch the team have tried to be this off-season, our expectations should be raised; we should expect more out of the team we support, for the same bloody reason we should expect more out of ourselves in the work we do every day. In part, though, I think the change will come because of the kind of players Clemens and Pettitte and Orlando Palmiero and Dave Veres already are. While they will find it a privilege to play with Bagwell and Biggio, I fully expect that something of these four-- their fire, their spirit, their fight--will be transmitted to their teammates, as well.

I cannot wait for any of these things to happen. I find myself thinking younger thoughts and being younger even as I mark the days until the players report. That's an illusion, I know, and a dangerous one, as Don Zimmer will attest. Although I've closed down more than my share of bars in life, the time is long past when I could survive a dustup with anyone bigger than I am. Yet, make no mistake, the words--"The drink will flow and blood will spill / And if the boys wanna fight you better let 'em"--are in my soul, and you don't wanna mess with me. You don't wanna mess with my team, either. Not this year.

That's it. That's all there is and all there needs to be.You gotta admire Thin Lizzy for their brutal simplicity and directness. Yet, simple as life appears to be, all things go in cycles, and there's more that draws me to that song than just its elemental passions. Despite what I said a few minutes ago about the band not delivering much in the way of a message, there is a message in the lyrics that I've always liked, one that baseball fans on any cloudy, cold February day can always take heart in: "That jukebox in the corner blastin' out my favorite song / The nights are gettin' warmer, it won't be long / Won't be long 'til summer comes, / Now that the boys are here again."

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