Look of a champ?
The Astros mirror a memorable club, per ESPN's David Ross.
David Ross, baseball player, is still adjusting to the unique phenomenon of being David Ross, former baseball player, pop culture celebrity, ESPN analyst and ballroom dancer.
“I don’t even know whose life I’m living,” Ross said Sunday as he prepared for ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” telecast of Red Sox and Astros. “I will wake up from this dream at some point, but for now I’m just going to have fun and enjoy it.”
Part of that dream involves reliving past glories and relating them to the present, as with the current hope in Houston that the 2017 Astros are being formed in the image of the 2016 Cubs, with whom Ross celebrated a World Series championship last year.
“This team reminds me a lot of our team,” Ross said. “It looks like they’re having so much fun. Their young position talent is through the roof, and the numbers speak for themselves.”
As a role player for most of his 15-year career with seven ballclubs, Ross particularly enjoys the manner in which the Astros surprise by their manner of winning games.
“Their bench is loaded,” he said. “They throw in a guy here and there, and the guy ends up hitting two home runs or having a lot of success in the game. It reminds me of what happened (with the Cubs) last year.”
Ross on Biles
David Ross spent much of batting practice Sunday talking with Astros catcher Brian McCann, a former teammate in Atlanta, but he also has spent a lot of time of late around familiar Houston face in Simone Biles, the four-time Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast against whom he completed on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”
“She’s a fun person to be around, a great human being,” Ross said. “She’s probably one of the biggest names I’ve been around, and being in my profession, that’s saying a lot.
“She’s super humble, and the way she gives time to people she meets stood out to me.”
So impressed was Ross with Biles that he was taken aback when she