“Winning is an Attitude” It’s all about enjoying a challenge and stretching oneself to the limits. It is absolutely essential that you develop mental toughness. Mentally tough people can think negatively without becoming discouraged. The issue is not failure but your reaction to it. Enjoy your work, your work is important. Go out with a plan and stick to it. If you miss, accept it. Your next opportunity is more important than your last mistake. Stop reacting to your failures and start developing the right mental attitude, “I Am a Winner!”

Robert Royal Beauchemin
(1923-2004)

Born in Houston during the spring of 1967, I was the son of an avid Astros fan. My father, Robert Royal Beauchemin, was born in Michigan on Halloween day, 1924. He was raised a Detroit Tigers fan. Every summer in the early 1930s, his father would send him to his grandparent's house in Canada so they could babysit. There he would listen to the games through a transistor radio. When he began high school, he would always hand write the plays on homemade scorecards. The next day, he would relive the games through his writings. By the time he was a senior in high school, he could type the games action live as they played out over the radio. In the fall of 1941, he was accepted into one of the most prestigious literature universities in the country at the time, Boston College. By then, he had already written a baseball novel of sorts. Since his 18th birthday was on Halloween, 1941, it meant the destruction at Pearl Harbor was only 8 days after. He tried to quit college that December to join the Navy but the elders at the university wouldn’t let him. He was persistent on quitting so they arranged a way he could still serve our country, while not risking his life daily. He was assigned to the Navy baseball team and played centerfield from 1942 through 1945. His pictures are on the wall in Arlington, Virginia at the Pentagon. When the war ended, he married my mother and they both agreed Michigan was just too cold so they packed up the kids and went as far south as they could. They landed in a little town called Harlingen, Texas. When my father heard Houston was getting a baseball franchise a few years later, he gathered the kids again, “Hello Houston!” Sitting in the stands for the first Colt 45s game, my dad fell in love with the city and the team. He then raised his 9 kids to be the same. We became Astros Buddies during the mid-'70s and Bob Watson would even call our home occasionally to discuss potential player pickups and trades. My dad knew baseball. He wrote Bob letters a lot and that’s what started their relationship. He took his kids on road trips every summer following the team until he died of cancer in 2004. On September 26th, 2012, my hopes for the Astros were bleak. We had set records for the most team losses for 3 consecutive years. But, as I awoke the next morning on the 27th, there was news the Astros had hired a new manager. Later that same day, a newscaster mentioned the new manager's wife was from Houston. Within 15 minutes, “Havin’ a Ball” was complete. It was a gift for her because being from Houston, I knew she would do a lot of extra stuff in and around the community.

Peter James Beauchemin