With a new season, it’s always time for renewing hopes and aspirations. And no sport embodies that feeling better than baseball, right? With a new season we embrace a lot of traditions.

One of the latest traditions in baseball is a yearly makeover for mlb.com and all 30 sites. Astros.com certainly is no exception. The guys over at MLB Advanced Media have been kind enough to link this blog on the homepage. I cannot thank them enough for that.

This is all about making it easier to find our favorite content, be articles, the roster list, press releases or anything else you might like. And I hope you consider joining us at blogging the Astros here at MLBlogs, which will make your opinions be exposed to a wider audience, and who knows, maybe even become a part of the new astros.com.

There’s plenty of interesting changes for the Astros this year, and I hope you join me as we see how a new era in the history of this organization unfolds.

First of all, I want to thank you so much for being here. If you’re reading us, it’s because you’ve been keeping an eye on us and on astrosdehouston.com. I cannot feel anything else other than thankful and honored. I know this blog has been quite very silent these days, but we’ll do something about it. We’ll post sporadically right until this season starts, when our posting frequency will certainly increase.

It wasn’t for a lack of topics during the offseason. But there were personal reasons which didn’t allow us to keep our regular conversation with you going, the way we want to. We did our job of covering the Venezuelan Winter League for astrosdehouston.com and lasmayores.com. We hope you liked it as much as we loved writing those.

We spent the Holidays with our loved ones. We even started to write our blog posts and articles on a different OS, Ubuntu Linux. We saw how the Roger Clemens steroid claims unfolded. We regret the situation, and quite frankly, we want to wait to find out how it all ends to talk about it. It’s a bit hard, trust me.

But there are no reasons for keeping silent anymore. You see, it’s that time of the year again. Spring Training has begun and, as usual at this time of the year, all 30 MLB teams feel with a right to dream big things once again.

The Astros are no exception to that, despite last year’s dismal finish. With a new manager in his first full season, a roster for which the word "overhaul" is an understatement, with a new GM, new position players, new pitchers, new closers, new you-name-it-and-it’s-most-probably-new. The face of the Astros organization is a different one.

Cecil Cooper has been optimist all along. He likes seeing Hunter Pence swinging and sending the ball a bit further in every hit. An emotional, wild and committed Jose Valverde. And Cooper has told us he just wants him to stay that way on the mound.

J.R. Towles now is responsible for the starting catching position. He has to soak in as much knowledge as possible from Brad Ausmus. Fernando Nieve wants to show us his arm is totally healthy. Felipe Paulino wants to stay on the Show.

And all of this is going on without Lance Berkman and Miguel Tejada arriving yet.

?We have a lot to accomplish this season", Cooper said. "We have a new team with new guys and a new attitude. Last season was unacceptable, and we have to come out here and get ready to play the way we know how to play this season.?

Wow. This new guy list is huge.

OF Reggie Abercrombie, IF Geoff Blum, OF Michael Bourn, RHP Doug Brocail, RHP Jack Cassel, C Alberto Castillo, OF Jose Cruz, Jr., RHP Mike DeJean, OF Victor Diaz, OF Darin Erstad, RHP Geoff Geary, OF Nick Gorneault, RHP Runelvys Hernandez, RHP Carlos Hines, C J.R. House, RHP Ryan Houston, C Josh Johnson, IF Kazuo Matsui, OF David Newhan, IF Lance Niekro, RHP Chad Paronto, IF Tomas Perez, OF Yordany Ramirez, IF Miguel Tejada, RHP Jose Valverde, RHP Oscar Villarreal and LHP Wesley Wright

From 52 players present this Spring, 27 are new to the Organization. That number stayed with us.

This is been some 48 hours. They have been full of intensity. And they shave showed us how easy your world can change, in a matter of minutes or hours.

Last night, the Astros announced the acquisition of Miguel Tejada, in exchange for what might have been the top pitching prospects in the organization, Troy Patton and Matt Albers, alongside Luke Scott and some other young hopefuls to the Baltimore Orioles. Adam Everett is now a Minnesota Twin.

24 hours later, here comes George Mitchell and his report. We have a massive storm surrounding us.

Tejada is now one of the major players in a 400-page-plus report which links more than 80 bigleaguers, both active and retired, in a sordid secret operation indirectly supported with the silence from teams, owners, teammates, coaches. In a nutshell, all of those who turned their backs on this issue using the hush-hush nature of the baseball subculture as an excuse.

Now, Tejada should explain all about a check for over 3,000 dollars issued to a former teammate, who was the missing link between him and a former clubhouse attendant at the New York Mets who carried the operation and was allegedly the provider for several Major Leaguers, from Roger Clemens down to some journeymen.

And that’s not all. We’re also dealing with the supposed Vitamin B12 shots Tejada imported from the Dominican Republic. That 2005 meeting in which both MLB and MLBPA officials asked him to stop injecting himself such vitamin shots.

Mitchell wonders, what was a ballplayer doing injecting himself in a locker room?

Mitchell also reveals us an email exchange between Rangers owner Tom Hicks and his GM, Jon Daniels, in which the latter expressed his concern over Tejada’s diminishing performance; and concluded it could be because he stopped using steroids. With that problem lingering over "la Guagua", he wasn’t all that interested in him.

There’s also the accusations against Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, detailed enough in an already extensive report which many have tried to devour and understand just today.

And we have passages about the behavior and drug use of former (and late) Astro Ken Caminiti, which admitted taking illegal substances in a story for Sports Illustrated.

Many are trying to dismiss the Mitchell report’s effect for several reasons: Plenty of Yankees and few Red Sox in the list (Mitchell is a member of the Red Sox board of directors), that he only talks about the Radomski operation and there are no further details. And what about Barry Bonds?

Precisely Mitchell didn’t get any more details because of baseball’s secretive nature. This world is a very small one, and many of those involved in it know each other. It’s still a wealthy, yet small, industry. So it shouldn’t be weird that word of mouth spread between fellow ballplayers that this guy Radomski can bring you the goods.

This issue makes us all look bad. Teams, owners, baseball players, both who did wrong and those who helped do wrong with their silence. The Commisioner’s office, which acted because practically the issue was about to blow on their collective face. The Players’ Union, extending the use of legal minutiae to the point of excusing the unexcusable.

Even ourselves, the writers. Sometimes we help in glamorizing and giving these guys the impression they are above us all.

It’s time we all agree that we have to do something. Now. I don’t think it’s necessary to see yet another kid who died because, following the pros’ behavior, injected himself with God knows what.

We can only hope this is the starting point for an objective evaluation, in which those accused can defend themselves, something they denied themselves the right to do so while Mitchell was doing his investigation. And that baseball understands, once and for all, that its members are regular citizens with the same rights and duties all of us have.

It’s tough, I’ll tell ya. It’s hard to digest today’s developments. But it’s necessary so the right measures can be taken in a world in which being stronger and more competitive seems to be more important than life itself.

He might be a man of few words, but when he’s on the field, Luke Scott lets his bat do the talking.
That’s the case in Venezuela. When he debuted two years ago with Navegantes del Magallanes in Winter Baseball, he was an up-and-coming prospect, looking to establish himself in the Majors.

Scott impressed and made headlines with a performance unseen in an American player at the Venezuelan League in more than 20 years, since its teams, due to the looming financial crisis the country has experienced ever since, stopped signing high-profile Major Leaguers and Triple-A players.

When we found Scott, it was barely his first day in a Magallanes uniform in this new season. Manager Al Pedrique didn’t place him in that night’s roster; therefore, he didn’t dare to give us a definite impression of the country, or his team.

"I haven’t had time to play yet", Scott told us in an impressive  Spanish. "We’ll see and give it some time. So far, everything seems to be great, the country and my teammates. Let’s give it some time".

Patience and humility are two of his main assets, combined with a deep sense of religion. He is a faithful man, and he’ll let you know just that. When we asked him on how he would fit into Ed Wade’s new plans for the team, he told us he hadn’t had a conversation with Wade yet, but that he was clear he had to do his job the best way he could. And that’s how he sees how he could contribute with Magallanes as well. "My expectations are always the highest, and I have to do the best I can, always in the hands of the Lord (…) I’m a human being though, so I’m not perfect".

Attendance at the Chico Carrasquel stadium was good enough, but far from a sellout. Maybe the soccer match between Venezuela and Argentina for the World Cup qualifier, in which Venezuela had high hopes, was the factor which kept many at home.

Regardless of that, we enjoyed a nice baseball mood in Puerto la Cruz, the Eastern city which hosts the Caribes de Anzoátegui team. Finding old friends you only get to see three months each year, to look at the field nice and ready. It all adds up when you consider that Puerto la Cruz was about to lose its ballclub, at least for this season, because of a power struggle between the team’s stockholders. The conflict was solved days before the tournament started.

Carlos Zambrano was willing to answer questions fielded by reporters. He donned the Caribes uniform only for a ceremonial first pitch though. However, he was kind enough to talk about his season at the Windy City, a possible Cy Young candidacy, and said he didn’t believe in curses of any sort, be Goat-induced or otherwise.

We found Astro Luke Scott, who sat at the dugout for his club in Venezuela, Magallanes. He was kind enough to give us five minutes of his time. He wasn’t included in the night’s lineup, but he is anxious to set foot on the field. Scott told us (in perfect Spanish) he was ready to help with the direction Ed Wade will set the organization to; and always true to his strong religious beliefs, he trusted God’s will. He is ready to play in a country which received him with arms wide open after his monster performance with Magallanes a couple of years ago.

How will Luke’s season be like? Stay tuned.