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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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TexArcher
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Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9381

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RJ trade, 20 years ago:


From his customary spot in the last seat of the team bus, Jeff Bagwell would peer down the aisle and marvel at the collection of talent.

It was 1998, and the Houston Astros were loaded. Bagwell and fellow franchise cornerstone Craig Biggio were in the primes of Hall of Fame careers. Moises Alou, Derek Bell and Carl Everett formed an elite run-producing outfield. Mike Hampton, Shane Reynolds and José Lima topped a steady rotation. A young Billy Wagner locked down the ninth innings.

And for the season’s final two months, a third Hall of Famer sat among them. Randy Johnson, all 6-foot-10 of him, came as a hired gun via one of baseball’s highest-profile trade deadline acquisitions. These Astros already featured the best offense in the National League. Now they had a bona fide ace to match up in October against the likes of the Braves and the Yankees.

“Damn, man, we’re good,” Bagwell remembers thinking on those bus rides. “(Adding Johnson) just gave us that feeling that we were that good, and we showed it in the way we played after that.”

“Up until last year, I still thought that was the best team that we’ve ever had here,” Biggio said. “That’s the impact that one guy had on a team that was already great. He was kind of like the cherry on top.”

The Astros’ July 31, 1998 trade for The Big Unit, a late-night blockbuster that stunned baseball and led to the most dominant two months of a storied career, turns 20 years old on Tuesday. Two decades later, it stands as both a prime example of the potential impact of a rental player and a case study in the long-term risk of parting with elite prospects.

Though it may be a footnote between his breakout with the Mariners and his incredible, legacy-cementing run with the Diamondbacks, Johnson’s cameo with the Astros produced an epic display of pitching. In 11 regular-season starts, the left-hander went 10-1 with a 1.28 ERA. Four of his 10 wins were shutouts.

“Statistically, it was the best two months of my career,” Johnson said. “And I think it propelled me into what was about to come when I got to Arizona.”

The six starts Johnson made in the famed Astrodome that season (playoffs included) signified his only appearances there in his decorated 22-year career. Upon his arrival in Houston, the city treated him like a rockstar. The Astros weren’t known for swinging major trades like this at the time.

“That’s the epitome of a deadline trade. You get a starting pitcher and he goes 10-1? I don’t think you could ask for much more,” said Brad Ausmus, the starting catcher on that Astros team. “He was just downright dominant. You felt like you were going to win every game. It was just a matter of how many runs you could score for him.”

“We were rolling,” said Gerry Hunsicker, the Astros’ general manager at the time. “This was one of those years. I was not one to just shoot from the hip and just makes trades to make trades. And you can’t go to the well every year when you’re in our situation with the need to keep prospects. But this was one of those years.”

The ‘98 Astros, whose 102 regular season wins still stand as a franchise record, lost only three times in games Johnson started. Unfortunately for them, two came in their Division Series against the Padres. Ultimately, the trade — which cost them two of their best prospects, future All-Stars in right-hander Freddy García and shortstop Carlos Guillén — failed to propel them any deeper than if they had stood pat.

“It’s a very telling moment about the caveats of trades,” Hunsicker said. “The trade can do everything you expect it to and then some, and it still doesn’t get you to where you want to be. As a general manager, you’re always wrestling with that.”

Twenty years ago Tuesday, Hunsicker wrestled with the deal all the way down to the wire.

Hunsicker, the Astros’ GM from late in 1995 through the 2004 baseball season, was never a fan of a big war room, where a dozen or more evaluators could sit around and toss around ideas to try to make something happen. So as 7 p.m. arrived that July 31, he sent everyone home.

Hunsicker, too, left the team’s Astrodome offices and made the 20-minute drive to his home in the Memorial area of Houston. He wanted to ride out the trade deadline — then at 12 a.m. ET/11 p.m. CT — in solitude.

The Astros weren’t much known for wheeling and dealing, to the point that their acquisition of Alou the previous November signified one of the biggest in franchise history. Generally, Hunsicker was reluctant to part with his better prospects in a farm system that wasn’t relatively deep to begin with, and the team under owner Drayton McLane was also usually averse to taking on big salaries in trades. “We were really always pinching pennies back then,” Hunsicker said. “Drayton would always have an open mind. It wasn’t, ‘Hey, you can’t make a trade.’ But I knew that it was going to have to be a compelling argument to make a trade that was going to take on any kind of meaningful money.”

A National League Central title in ’97, the franchise’s first division championship in 11 years, heightened expectations in Houston. The ‘98 team’s start only increased the buzz around town. On the morning of deadline day, the Astros awoke in Pittsburgh 20 games over .500 at 64-44 and powered by the NL’s highest-scoring lineup.

But the rotation was always the question mark when looking ahead to October, especially after Darryl Kile departed in free agency following the ’97 season. Hampton, Reynolds and Lima headlined a good, not great starting staff that benefited from pitching in its cavernous home ballpark. It was no secret the ’98 Astros lacked the true No. 1 starter to match up with the game’s best in the playoffs.

After it became evident earlier in the summer the struggling Mariners would move Johnson, who was a free agent at season’s end, Hunsicker followed the sweepstakes through the press. Internally, he played things close to the vest. He mentioned to both McLane and team president Tal Smith that Johnson was available but not much more.

Hunsicker dispatched his lone major league scout, Paul Weaver, to Seattle to watch Johnson. Weaver, familiar with The Big Unit dating to the pitcher’s high school days, saw no regression in Johnson’s stuff despite an ERA that hovered over 5.00 in mid-June. By July 31, Johnson had improved his ERA to 4.33 through 23 starts, six of which were complete games. In 160 innings, he still had an AL-leading 213 strikeouts. A change of scenery, teams thought, would bring back the numbers that more closely resembled the pitcher who won his first Cy Young Award in 1995.

About 10 days before the deadline, Hunsicker made an introductory call to his GM counterpart with the Mariners, Woody Woodward, to put the Astros on his radar. Their conversations intensified the week entering the deadline. It was apparent to the Astros’ GM that the Yankees and the Indians were his chief competition for Johnson. He sat down with McLane and Smith to notify them of negotiations but requested they keep the development quiet. But there was a chance.

Within a couple hours of the deadline, that chance appeared slim to none. From his home, Hunsicker called McLane and Smith separately to tell them he thought the deal was dead.

Then about an hour before the deadline, he decided to make one last-ditch call to Woodward.

For the first time, Hunsicker recalled, Woodward revealed what it would actually take to consummate the trade. The Mariners’ ask centered around a couple of the Astros’ best international prospects, which was the strength of their system. Hunsicker phoned special assistant Andres Reiner, the guru of their international operations, a pioneer of scouting in Venezuela, and a man as protective of their prospects as anyone.

“This is what it’s going to take,” Hunsicker told Reiner. “I’m going to have to give up both Freddy García and Carlos Guillén. How do you feel about that?”

García was 21 and had already conquered Class AA. The Astros were confident the righthander would be a major league starter but not convinced he would be a frontline starter.

Guillén, 22 and performing well in Class AAA, was more polarizing, some thinking he was too big and slow to stick at shortstop. Reiner was all in on Guillén, too, though.

“Andres kept beating on me, this was way before the Randy Johnson trade, ‘This kid’s going to be a big leaguer and he’s going to play shortstop and he’s going to be an All-Star,’ ” Hunsicker said. “Well, when Andres makes those kind of statements it gets my attention. And as much as he loved Guillén, he was the guy that was the hardest for us to give up.”

Hunsicker “tried like hell to keep Guillén out of it,” he said, but relented about 15 minutes before the deadline. Only about 10 minutes remained by the time Woodward called back after conferring with his side to confirm the agreement. That left little time for Hunsicker to phone in the trade to the National League office and Woodward to do the same to the American League office, which then was the standard protocol.

“It got hectic because I felt like I had a responsibility to call Tal and let him know. I had a responsibility to call Drayton and let him know. And most importantly I had to make that call before the deadline,” Hunsicker said. “I had 10 minutes.”

“I made the call to Tal. That was an easy one. He understood. I called Drayton. Well, Drayton wanted to ask a bunch of questions. I said Drayton, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get this in.’ So I get off the phone and I call Nancy Crofts, who was the person in the National League office, the liaison who took the calls from the clubs to approve trades. I knew Nancy pretty well. A really nice lady. And she said, ‘Gerry, I’m looking at my clock. It’s like 45 seconds until midnight on my clock.’ She said, ‘If you called 45 seconds later I couldn’t have approved this.'”

Thirteen-hundred miles away, Bagwell and Ausmus waited over beers at the Clark Bar, a popular watering hole across the street from Three Rivers’ Stadium in Pittsburgh. Earlier that night, a Friday, the Astros had knocked off the Pirates, 7-4, to open their weekend series. As the deadline approached, Bagwell kept in touch with Astros travel secretary Barry Waters for intel. But it was now after midnight on the east coast, and they had still yet to hear anything.

“I walked in the door and there were a couple of players in there,” Waters recalled. “Baggy saw me walk in and he looks at me. I just gave him a thumbs-up. And they go, ‘You’re kidding me?'”

Bagwell called Biggio, who had been asleep in his hotel room, and broke the news. Word of the trade stunned the baseball world. Hunsicker remembers the shock of the ESPN Baseball Tonight panel on its trade deadline special when the deal was announced. “It kind of felt like the night before Christmas,” recalled Astros third baseman Bill Spiers.

Not everyone heard the news that night, though. The next day, when the Astros’ broadcasters boarded the team bus bound for the ballpark, they found a star left fielder who somehow had yet to hear. Alou’s eyes lit up upon learning his team had a new ace.

“He had probably just gotten up,” cracked longtime Astros’ TV play-by-play man Bill Brown.



Johnson, too, was surprised to learn of his destination when Mariners manager Lou Piniella pulled him aside at the Kingdome during their July 31 game against the Yankees and notified him of the trade. The Astros were not among the teams he had heard rumored to be vying for him.

Nevertheless, he remembers being excited to join the NL contender. On Aug. 1, a Saturday, he boarded a cross-country flight from Seattle to Pittsburgh, where he met his new team. The Astros, who had an afternoon game that day, cobbled together an introductory press conference upon Johnson’s arrival. They held it in a ballroom at the William Penn Hotel, where the team stayed. Because of their game and Johnson’s long travel day, it didn’t start until late at night, maybe not until 10 p.m, those in attendance recall.

The Big Unit made his Astros’ debut against the Pirates the following afternoon.

“My first impression, like most everybody else, was I couldn’t believe how tall he was,” said the team’s manager, Larry Dierker, a former pitcher himself, who stands 6-foot-4. “6-11 is 6-11, but it’s just a number until you stand next to somebody who’s 6-11.”

When Johnson, who’s actually listed at 6-foot-10, walked by in the clubhouse, Dierker turned to 6-foot-7 righthander Scott Elarton and quipped, “What’s going on, shorty?” The 5-foot-11 Ausmus jokingly asked Johnson if during mound visits if he could stand on the mound and Johnson on the grass to alleviate the height discrepancy.

In a harbinger of the two months to come, Johnson struck out 12 Pirates over seven innings of two-run ball in his team debut. Five days later, Astros fans flocked to the Dome for his home debut.

The Phillies were in town the night of Aug. 7, when a ballpark record-setting 52,071 packed into the Astrodome. As Johnson emerged from the dugout probably a half hour before first pitch, he was greeted with a standing ovation. Television cameras hustled down the first-base line to get their first glimpses of his warmups.

“I went out on the field with him as he was getting ready to warm up and for the first time in my life – especially for a regular-season game – you realize what it must have felt like for the Beatles or the Stones or Springsteen,” said Rob Matwick, then the Astros’ director of media relations. “I mean, the ovation that he got.”

“Oh, the place was just electric,” said Brown, who called the game on TV. “He came out to warm up and the place exploded. It was like a playoff game. And then he just started dotting that fastball on both sides, both corners of the plate, and throwing his slider. Nobody could touch him.”

Johnson pitched a five-hit, complete game shutout on 109 pitches that night, amazingly merely the first of four consecutive shutouts he would throw at the Astrodome that season.

But it’s the ovation he received in that home debut that resonates most with many when they recall that summer. Hunsicker described it as “the loudest, most unbelievable noise that I’ve ever experienced. It was just incredible. Just a historic moment for the franchise.”

“The only thing I remember is just the welcome that I got there and how big the Astrodome was,” Johnson said of his home Astros debut. “It was really amazing to be walking out to the bullpen to warm up, all of the excitement and enthusiasm. Amazing.”

In his 11 regular-season starts for the Astros, Johnson dominated opponents to the tune of a .191/.261/.258 line. In 84 1/3 innings, he racked up 116 strikeouts against 26 walks. He yielded three runs in a start only once — his lone loss, on Aug. 17 at Philadelphia — and more than one run only four times. On Aug. 28 against the Pirates at the Dome, he struck out 16 and didn’t issue a walk in a seven-hit shutout. It’s still one of the most dominant performances in franchise history.

“He has said it before that that was the best he’s ever pitched in his life, control-wise and everything-wise,” Biggio said. “So, to have the view from second base, to watch him go low and away, up and in, slider down and in, just moving the ball around the zone with the command of a Greg Maddux, per se, and a guy that’s (6-10), it was crazy. We expected to win every single time he went out there.”

Johnson was known for his intensity on his start days, which his new Astros teammates learned quickly.

“Randy used to throw the ball to first base like at 100. I mean, it was literally scary,” Bagwell said. “If you think about it, he’s 6-10 and when he strides over there he’s like right on top of you. A guy got to first base and he threw it over my head. So, the ball goes down in the corner over there (in the Astrodome). The guy gets all the way to third and he is maaadd. But I’m like, ‘Dude, it ain’t my fault, man. I’m sorry I’m 5-11.’ He was so mad he struck out the next three guys and that guy didn’t score. I was just like, ‘Damn, man, this dude’s legit.'”

The most prolific 11-start stretch of Johnson’s career concluded in St. Louis, where on Sept. 23 he overcame six walks to pitch seven innings of one-run ball. He improved his season ERA to 3.28, more than a run better than the ERA he brought to Houston.

“I had never had two months like that. The game’s not that easy,” Johnson said. “You go from an un-Randy-like situation in Seattle and then everybody thinks, ‘Well, now he’s trying. Now he’s trying.’ I never had a 10-1 period with that ERA and those numbers even in Arizona. That was a remarkable two months.”

Johnson credits the pitcher-friendly Astrodome, a bullpen “that just nailed everything down for two months for me” and the dynamic Astros’ offense as key factors in his epic run.

But as Johnson put it, “The bubble got popped when we got into the postseason.”


Johnson during Game 1 of the 1998 NLDS against the Padres (Photo: Sporting News via Getty Images)
The Astros’ 102 wins earned them the NL’s No. 2 seed — the Braves won 106 games that year — and a Division Series matchup against a 98-win Padres team, a series remembered most for the dominance of an ace not named Johnson.

In Game 1, Kevin Brown outdueled the Hall of Famer with a historic 16-strikeout, eight-inning performance at the Astrodome. To this day, the only pitcher to strike out more batters in a postseason game is Bob Gibson, who recorded 17 in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series.

“I faced (Brown) my whole life. I faced him in college. He was at Georgia Tech, and I was at Clemson. I faced him in the minor leagues. I faced him in the majors,” said Spiers, who batted second for the Astros that day. “He was just always nasty. He had an uncanny way to his sinker. His fastball moved. He threw a heavy ball. It was like hitting a rock instead of hitting a baseball.”

Spiers bailed out Wagner for a blown save in Game 2 with a walk-off single against Trevor Hoffman to send the series back to San Diego tied at a game apiece. But Game 3 swung the pendulum back in the Padres’ favor. With an off day between Games 1 and 2 in addition to the usual travel off day between Games 2 and 3, manager Bruce Bochy brought back Brown on three days’ rest to oppose Hampton at Qualcomm Stadium. Both Brown and Hampton allowed only one run and completed at least six innings before Jim Leyritz won the game for the Padres with a solo shot off Elarton.

Johnson fell to 0-2 in the series in the clinching Game 4 despite allowing two runs (only one earned) in six innings on regular rest. In the only game of the series not decided by one run (the Padres won, 6-1) Sterling Hitchcock shut down the Astros with 11 strikeouts over six innings of one-run ball.

The highest-scoring offense in the NL in the regular season managed only eight runs in the four games against the Padres, who knocked off the Braves in the NLCS (Hitchcock was that series’ MVP) before losing to the Yankees in the World Series. Biggio, Bagwell, Alou and Bell, the Astros’ four best players that year, were a combined 9-for-57 (.158) with two extra-base hits (a Bell homer and a Biggio double) in the NLDS.

“I feel blessed to have been able to play with Randy,” said Bagwell, who joined Johnson and Biggio in the Hall of Fame last July. “To this day, (the end of) that ’98 season, that is my biggest regret of everything. I don’t know if regret’s the right word. But, we were good. Like, really good. And as great as the Yankees were, I would’ve liked to have had a seven-game series against them because of our left-handed pitching. We had Randy, Mike Hampton. We had Billy Wagner in the bullpen. But in a five-game series, anything can happen.”

In his two starts of that NLDS, Johnson allowed only three earned runs over 14 innings.

“You get traded for what you’re going to do in the postseason, and I did good enough on any other day, just not those two days, those two starts,” he said. “It was unfortunate because I think had we won one of my games, I think we would’ve been in pretty good shape… I think if we had gotten past San Diego we could’ve regrouped and it could’ve been a good run, maybe something like what the team did last year in Houston.”

“The emotional rollercoaster in those two months — you went from the ultimate high to the ultimate low,” Hunsicker said. “It was just devastating losing in the first round. Just devastating.”

When Hunsicker pulled the trigger on the Johnson trade, he did so understanding that he was acquiring purely a rental. The Astros weren’t going to be able to give Johnson, already 35, the type of long-term deal he sought in free agency. “I knew there was no chance when I made the trade,” Hunsicker said.

The two sides still met before Johnson signed his four-year, $52-million deal to play for his hometown Diamondbacks, with McLane and Hunsicker visiting Johnson’s Phoenix-area home to extend the Astros’ offer. According to reports at the time, Houston wasn’t willing to guarantee a fourth year like several other teams in the race.

Johnson, of course, defied the aging curve, rendering his deal with Arizona probably the best free agent pitching contract in history. He went on to win the NL Cy Young Award in each of the four subsequent seasons and teamed up with Curt Schilling to lead the upstart Diamondbacks to a World Series title over the Yankees in 2001. His career didn’t end until after the 2009 season, his age-45 campaign.

García and Guillén, meanwhile, both blossomed into multiple-time All-Stars. In his parts of six seasons with the Mariners, García had a 3.89 ERA in nearly 1,100 innings. He finished third in AL Cy Young voting in 2001, the first of two consecutive All-Star campaigns. Guillén had a few good seasons on the back end of his Mariners’ tenure but really broke out after he was traded to the Tigers in 2004. Lefthander John Halama, a player to be named later in the trade, made a career for himself as a back-end starter/swingman.

“I’ve been asked that a thousand times, and I don’t hesitate in the answer,” Hunsicker said regarding whether he looks back on the trade differently because of the outcome. “If you don’t make that trade, then you should never make a trade. The profile of what the important factors are in deciding whether to make a trade or not were all there, in my opinion. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. But that’s the risk you take.”

“Football will always be king in Texas, but we really put baseball on the map by winning the year before, and we were in the middle of having another great year,” added the former Astros’ GM, who still lives in the Houston area in his role as a senior advisor for the Dodgers. “The enthusiasm was as high as it had ever been in the city. It was one of those moments where you said to yourself, ‘You’ve got to go for it.'”

Nineteen years and one month later, Jeff Luhnow also went for it in an Aug. 31 deadline deal that went down to the final seconds, and the current Houston GM’s acquisition of Justin Verlander propelled the Astros to their first World Series championship. When the deal went down, Verlander’s manager with the Tigers couldn’t help but think back to the summer of 1998.

And one day in particular.

“I just remember in my mind’s eye thinking when Ver gets to Houston and he walks out on the field at Minute Maid, I could see the fans reacting exactly the same way they did when Randy got there in ’98,” Brad Ausmus said. “I had visions of that in my head

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29179

Posted
Posted

García and Guillén, meanwhile, both blossomed into multiple-time All-Stars.

while technically true, come on.

garcia was an all star twice, but was essentially a journeyman after some early success with seattle.  guillen was never an all star with seattle, so i don't really care what became of him 9 years later in detroit.  we gave up a lot to make it happen, but let's not paint it like we traded away willie mays and jim palmer.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9381

Posted
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I was about to be a senior in HS in July ‘98 and remember being awake watching ESPN or some other channel when the headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
I remember being equal parts wanting to jump through the roof and equal parts anxious thinking too much was given up.
Both reactions turned out to be somewhat correct.

I also remember going to at least one of his starts in the Dome. Against McGwire and the Cardinals in September in the middle of the McGwire/Sosa chase of Maris. One of the loudest games I’d been to up until last postseason. ...just checked the box score. Over 52k in attendance.

Most of all, ‘98 gave me an appreciation for last year’s playoff run I don’t think I would have had otherwise.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9381

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Posted
Rosenthal reporting we've traded for Osuna from Jays....

That’ll be interesting from a chemistry perspective....

 

 

Edit:

https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Astros-Carlos-Correa-Blue-Jays-Roberto-Osuna-11274084.php

 

Carlos Correa and Roberto Osuna cooled down the heat that simmered after Thursday night's 7-4 Blue Jays win over the Astros.

Correa had called out Osuna for showing him up on the final out and said the next time they match up, Osuna "better not give up a homer."

Osuna, the Blue Jays' closer, had induced a soft grounder to the mound from Correa. Correa did not run the ball out, first baseman Justin Smoak slowed on his way to cover the bag and Osuna took six short steps toward first before throwing out Correa.

Osuna had completed his third consecutive save in as many nights and 22nd of the season.

"I wasn't mad or anything," Correa said. "It was a play where he got the ball, stared at me, walked and I stopped running. That's when he threw the ball.

"The way I see it is that. That's the way he plays the game and the way he goes about his business. No big deal."

Given chances to readdress the matter on Friday, both players said there is no animosity.

"I don't know why he thought I showed him up because I was going to flip the ball to first base, but (Justin Smoak) wasn't there yet," Osuna said. "He gave me a little bit of time because he didn't run hard to first base.

"If I did something wrong I apologize because that wasn't my intention."

Correa said he did not notice Smoak or rewatch footage of the final out.

He explained that he did not run out the ground ball because that would risk injury for the sake of "fake hustle"—a faux pas, perhaps, more unseemly than how Osuna fielded the ball.

"I knew it was the last out of the game," Correa said. "So I wanted to go home.

"We talk about it here: there's no need for fake hustle. You hit a ground ball to the pitcher (and) try to run hard to first in the 80th-something game of the season and blow a hamstring on the last play of the game. There's no need for fake hustle. If I hit a ground ball to short I'm going to run hard.

"(If) I'm going to hit a ground ball to the pitcher, and he caught it, and I'm not even out of the box yet, why would I need to run to first? It's just fake hustle."

Osuna was named a replacement for the AL All-Star team on Friday, which means that he and Correa will be teammates for the game on Tuesday night in Miami. Both players said they did not have a problem teaming up next week.

"Congrats to him," Correa said of Osuna's All-Star selection. "He's an unbelievable pitcher and a great baseball player."

Correa remarked that he is especially impressed since Osuna is younger than him. They are both 22 years old. Correa is older by less than six months.

"Obviously if I see him, I'm going to say hi to him," Correa said. "I don't hate him or anything."

Correa divulged an insight about his reaction to Thursday's finish that cut through the tangle of unwritten baseball rules.

"You're a competitor and you always want to beat your opponent," Correa said, "and he beat me last night."

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kevwun

kevwun 15667

Posted
Posted (edited)
Quote

Obviously, any club weighing a trade for the 23-year-old Osuna will have multiple layers to consider. Beyond any moral and public relations considerations, Rosenthal noted last week that Osuna’s next hearing is set for Aug. 1 — the day after the non-waiver trade deadline. A criminal conviction could result in additional time away from the field and/or complications in his ability to travel with a team.

His case isn't done yet.  I wonder how much that uncertainty effected what the Astros gave up for him?  Not sure how I feel about this one.

 

Also, the Blue Jays wanted a closer who only attacks himself.

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Seasick Sailor

Seasick Sailor 3747

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, kevwun said:

His case isn't done yet.  I wonder how much that uncertainty effected what the Astros gave up for him.

 

Also, the Blue Jays wanted a closer who only attacks himself.

Have to think they did their homework and know that he'll get a plea deal that doesn't involve jail time. 

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Js1

Js1 85136

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, kevwun said:

The risk with domestic violence stuff is that if more details come out, things will change real fast.  I am not real crazy about this other than the part about Giles being gone.

High risk, high reward I'm guessing.

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