Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
His hearth the earth,—his hall the azure dome;
Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road,
By God's own light illumined and foreshadowed.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poverty at home is not a problem, but poverty on the road can be fatal.
— Ancient Chinese proverb, huh?

The Astros dropped to 2-21 on the road yesterday with a 4-2 loss to the Cubs and may have lost Roger Clemens for some time on top of it. All four Cub runs came in eighth. The tying and winning runs came off closer Brad Lidge.

Strangely, Houston is 13-9 at home. Based on the home record, the 'Stros would be tied for second in the NL Central, but overall are last. The difference between their home and road winning percentages is .504 (.590 at home, .087 on the road).

Here are the worst road records since 1901:

…And the worst in the expansion era:

Worst Since Expansion	Yr	W	L	PCT
New York Mets	1963	17	64	.210
New York Mets	1962	18	62	.225
Chicago Cubs	1981	11	35	.239
Detroit Tigers	2003	20	61	.247
Baltimore Orioles	1988	20	61	.247

Now, here are the worst road record for 2005, with the Astros leading the pack:

Of course, we are only a quarter of the way into the season, but Houston, Colorado, and Tampa are all on course to break the 1935 Braves' record for road futility

Not only that, the Astros would destroy the worst home-road split (since 1901) by approximately 150 percentage points:

Homebodies	Yr	H W	H L	H PCT	R W	R L	R PCT	Diff
Philadelphia Athletics	1945	39	35	.527	13	63	.171	.356
Philadelphia Athletics	1902	56	17	.767	27	36	.429	.339
Boston Red Sox	1949	61	16	.792	35	42	.455	.338
Colorado Rockies	1996	55	26	.679	28	53	.346	.333
Minnesota Twins	1987	56	25	.691	29	52	.358	.333
Houston Astros	1978	50	31	.617	24	57	.296	.321
Philadelphia Athletics	1908	46	30	.605	22	55	.286	.320
Chicago White Sox	1903	41	28	.594	19	49	.279	.315
Chicago White Sox	1902	48	20	.706	26	40	.394	.312
Boston Red Sox	1952	50	27	.649	26	51	.338	.312

Remember the '87 Twins and their Metrodome-aided championship? Oddly, last year the Astros home-road split was just .049. That's one whacky club.

By the way, in the 2076 team seasons since 1901, 1728 had better home records than away, 43 had the same home and road records, and 305 had better road than home records.

What was the greatest road-home split, i.e., which team outperformed their home record on the road by the most percentage points? The 1994 Cubs:

Did you notice that both the White Sox and the A's made the "Homebodies" list. Do leagues favor the home team more in one team than another? Here are the most lopsided H-R splits overall for a league:

There were just 4 years in which a league had an overall road record better than home:

OK, now that we're having fun, just a couple more things. Here are the H-R splits per league per decade and overall. The avg home winning PCT is .541; road, .459. I wonder why the AL was so lopsided favoring the home team in the 1900s—lack of maturity?

Finally, my friend Mike wondered why the Rockies made the "Homebodies" list just once. They actually came very close a couple of times. Here are their yearly records abd the totals per stadium:

That made me wonder what were the stadiums that caused the greatest home-road difference (min. 5 yrs, ignoring partial years). Coors is second: