Our seventh installment of the legends series features Jim Deshaies, who landed in Houston after being dealt for Joe Niekro. In his first full season with the Astros, he’d post 12 wins, punctuating that amazing rookie campaign by striking out 8 Dodgers batters the first time through the lineup in September of 1986.
A younger generation of fans would come to know him and Bill Brown as a popular duo in the broadcast booth.
We begin the conversation about that legendary booth combination.
Q: When did the
chemistry begin with Bill? Did you guys click right away?
A: I think it evolved and that was because mostly I was so new to it. When I started, I had no clue how to do the job. I learned the ropes and relaxed over time with the job and Brownie was such a professional, he made it easy. That was really the key. I really looked forward to those opportunities.
Q: June 28th, 2007. Biggio gets his 3000th. Brownie’s call is iconic. Where would you rank that moment, being in the booth that night for your career?
A: Everyone was looking forward to it. You knew it was going to happen so there wasn’t a surprise element to it. Brownie was anxious. He wanted to get the call right and he nailed it; he did a great job. It was fun to be part of that moment for sure.
Q: What stood out to you the most about your rookie season in 1986? That was such a special year for this city.
A: Two things come to mind. The first is the fact that we were able to win the division when preseason expectations weren’t great. That season was the most fun I ever had in baseball.
I remember thinking, this is great, we’re going to this every year, and we didn’t do it again (laughs). When I look back at it, I appreciate it even more.
The second thing is that there’s a bittersweet element to it because we didn’t finish the job when we lost that series to the Mets.
Q: Do you feel if that series had gone to seven games, that Mike Scott would’ve propelled you guys to the Series? He was so incredible that season and seemed to have the Mets number.
A: I think you’re right, although when you ask Mike Scott, he hesitates a little bit. The rest of us assured him that he was so deep inside their heads and he was so good.
That’s why it’s a little bit of regret because we were ahead 3-0 and we knew that we had Scotty teed up to pitch game seven. We didn’t have the level of analytics back then, but I’m betting our win probability when we were up 3-0 in Game 6 was pretty high.
Q: The season is such a marathon. Why do we have a tendency to overact to how a team starts in April?
A: Astros fans should recall in 2005 when the Chronicle ran the piece with tombstones at 15-30 that the club was dead and buried and they went on to win the pennant.
I think the overreaction stems from that a slower start at the beginning is your entire body of work up until that point. I tell fans not to panic, but if you must, you have the right to react to it anyway you want.
Q: How did you collect a Hall of Fame vote from John Lopez?
A: They would put out this list of guys that were under consideration and I was on it. So, we decided to have some fun with it, and I told everyone that I just wanted one vote.
Chuck Pool in media relations came to me with an idea to do a tongue and cheek campaign and we had some fun with it. They put up a website and some fun facts and it took off from there. John wrote a piece on it and voted for me. It was nice of him to do that.
Q: At least you got the one vote!
A: I got the one!
