ST. LOUIS -- For decades, Richard and Alyce Bell have been coming to Cardinals games at Busch Stadium, decked out in red and white. So you can’t blame Alyce if she felt a little strange coming to the ballpark on Monday night sporting the colors of the Astros, who were playing her beloved Cardinals. “Blood is thicker than water,” she said. “We have to do what we have to do.” The Astros’ trip to St. Louis to face the Cardinals this week is a homecoming for quality assurance coach Jason Bell, who grew up in nearby Chesterfield, Mo., pitched for two years at St. Louis University and earned a degree from Central Missouri. Like his parents, he grew up a fan of the Cardinals, because in the Bell family, there really wasn’t any other option. Richard Bell, Jason’s father, was an usher at Busch Stadium II while in college at the University of Missouri, beginning in 1968. He worked weekend games while he was in school and spent the summers in the aisles and concourses of the ballpark so he could see his Cardinals and legends like Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda and Steve Carlton. “That’s how the love for baseball began with my family,” Jason Bell said. The Bell family had season tickets to the Cardinals for years, allowing young Jason to sit in the stands in left-center field in Busch Stadium III -- the Cardinals’ home since 2006 -- and watch some of his favorite players like Scott Rolen, Yadier Molina, Jim Edmonds and Albert Pujols. Bell also remembers participating in a Little League player parade on the field and sitting in the stands with teammate Luke Voit, a future big league player. |
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“I remember missing school as a middle-schooler to go to playoff games, which was one of my favorite memories of Busch Stadium,” Jason said. “You’re driving up the highway and getting off the exit and you just kind of smell the hotdogs and just the energy that St. Louis brings to baseball. That has always been special to me.” Richard also ushered games for NHL’s St. Louis Blues, beginning with their inaugural season in 1967-68 when they lost in the Stanley Cup Finals. That was a banner year for St. Louis sports, with the Cardinals winning the National League pennant before losing to the Tigers in the World Series; Richard was there for that, too. “I still loved it,” he said. Jason, 34, has been with Houston since 2017, serving as a development coach at Single-A Quad Cities in ‘17, managing Short-Season Tri-City in ‘18 and spending five years as the team’s Minor League field coordinator, where he oversaw Minor League Spring Training. He was added to the Major League staff prior to the ’24 season. “He’s worked very hard his whole life for this,” Alyce said. As part of his Master’s thesis, Bell wrote a roughly 20-page paper as an intern with Baseball Info Solutions in 2013 about why the 111-loss Astros were going to soon win a World Series. Bell sent in the paper as part of his job application with the Astros to be a development coach, which he eventually landed a year after initially applying. As fate would have it, Bell joined the Astros in 2017 -- the year they won their first World Series -- after spending one season as the pitching coach at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore. Bell’s playing career at Saint Louis University and Central Missouri was cut short by a Tommy John surgery. Still, he carved out a career in baseball and made it to Busch Stadium in a big league uniform. It wasn’t the uniform of the team the Bell family cherishes, but so what? “We’ve still got Cardinals blood, but you have to root for your own blood first,” Richard Bell said. “This is the first time we’ve been here since he’s been in the Majors, so it was a little tough. We love the Cardinals, but the Astros are first.” |
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The Astros will hold their annual Faith and Family Night at Daikin Park on May 31. After the Astros face the Tampa Bay Rays, there will be a postgame concert by Joseph O’Brien, a Christian music artist who is based in Nashville. A game ticket serves as admission to the show. |
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The Astros joined the rest of baseball in wearing No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day on Tuesday, marking the date Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947. The players wore special “Breaking Barriers” T-shirts during batting practice at Busch Stadium. For Astros rookie Cam Smith, his first Jackie Robinson Day was special. “Just the resilience he had and just to know that somebody always had it worse,” he said. “I think sometimes when times are tough, Jackie Robinson was the first to do it and he had to open the gates for us. It always keeps me grounded and humble to know what he had to go through for us.” Astros assistant general manager Gavin Dickey wore special edition Nike blue sneakers that featured the No. 42 on the tongue and a gold 42 charm on the laces. |
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“I grew up a huge Jackie Robinson fan,” Dickey said. “He was born in Cairo, Georgia, which is like 10 minutes from where I grew up. I learned about him at a very early age. He’s an instrumental human in American history.” The Astros will host a Breaking Barriers Forum on Friday, where current Astros players, coaches, alums and executives will share their experience in breaking barriers and the importance of Robinson's nine values to success (courage, determination, teamwork, persistence, integrity, citizenship, justice, commitment and excellence) with 50 high school Astros Youth Academy players. |
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