ALL ABOARD!
Ken Hoffman tracks down the Astros train conductor with dynamite dance moves
Jul 30, 2018, 4:22 pm
This article originally appeared on CultureMap.
Went to an Astros games with my talent agent Bernie Shelley last week. We were sitting high up in the rafters and I hit Bernie with a trivia question that almost always stumps fans.
“You see that train that sits atop the Crawford Boxes in left field? Is the train bigger, smaller, or about the same size of a real locomotive?”
Bernie, like most everybody, said “smaller.” Unless you’re sitting in the Crawford Boxes and looking up, or you’re in the upper deck down the left field line, the train and does appear rather small, like an amusement park ride.
I took out my phone and texted Bobby Dynamite, the Astros train engineer, who promptly fired back, “It’s bigger, by 25 percent.”
I met Bobby Vasquez several years ago at a WWE wrestling show in Houston. He’s a big Roman Reigns fan, which I’ve never understood. It’s almost ended our friendship several times.
Vasquez took the name Bobby Dynamite for his train character after seeing the movie Napoleon Dynamite. Vasquez says he’s got some “sweet dance moves, too.” I’ve never understood that, either. But debates like that make baseball the great game it is.
I’ve been in the Minute Maid Park train three times. The first was during the 2004 playoff series against the St. Louis Cardinals. I was assigned to write a column every game that series. The train column was a cool experience. My favorite, though, was interviewing the person whose job it is to turn off the lights at the ballpark after the game, after all the concession grills are scrubbed cleaned, every piece of litter is collected.
A couple of years later, Bobby let me bring a few players from my Little League team on the tracks for a pre-game visit. Sure, it was a desperate attempt to get the kids to like me — in between my appearances in front of league officials asking, “You did what during a game last week?”
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Jamal Murray had 39 points, Michael Porter Jr. added 17 points and nine rebounds and the Denver Nuggets beat Houston 116-111 on Sunday night to snap the Rockets' nine-game win streak.
Murray, who scored 17 in the first half, had 17 in the third quarter as Denver outscored the Rockets 39-22 in the quarter to take a 96-79 lead.
Russell Westbrook had 14 points off the bench, Aaron Gordon scored 13 points with eight assists and DeAndre Jordan had 11 points and 15 rebounds for the Nuggets, which shot 51% and were 10 of 21 on 3-pointers.
Jalen Green scored 30 points, and Dillon Brooks added 21 points for Houston. Alperen Sengun had 17 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, and Steven Adams finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds for the Rockets, which shot 44% and were 11 of 34 from behind the arc.
Trailing 109-100 with 1 ½ minutes left, Houston used a 7-1 run to cut the lead to three on a Sengun layup with 21 seconds left, but Christian Braun made two free throws with 19 seconds remaining to push the lead back to five.
Nuggets: Nikola Jokic missed his fourth straight game with left ankle impingement, and Denver improved to 2-2 with him out of the lineup.
Rockets: Houston remains in second place in the Western Conference with 10 games left, but the Nuggets closed to within a game of Houston.
Sengun made one of two free throws with 14 seconds remaining, and Murray made two free throws two seconds later to push the lead to 114-108.
Houston finished 22 of 34 from the free throw line, while Denver made 18 of 26.
Denver hosts the Chicago Bulls on Monday night, while Houston hosts the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night.