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Two things we know about Houston Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice: 1) For some reason, he is far better, more engaging, much easier to take when he's on the radio as opposed to when he's in print; and 2) He really, really loves the Astros. He was on KILT-AM this morning from Kissimmee raving about new Astro Carlos Lee, who will apparently astonish us all by playing left field with finesse and grace despite having the physique of an arena-league offensive tackle. But that bit of Panglossian analysis wouldn't have shocked anyone who's read Justice's reports from spring training this year. Here are the headlines:

February 16 — Astros Look Set to Make Another Run February 20 — There's Still a Lot to Like About Lidge February 21 — Backe Loses None of His Enthusiasm February 22 — Ensberg Set to Get Back to Business February 23 — Rocket's Presence Invaluable

Hey, we know spring training is the time for eternal optimism, but writing a series of glowing hosannahs to Brad Lidge, Brendan Backe and Morgan Ensberg is setting a new standard. The 2006 season did happen, after all. Or maybe it really was just a bad nightmare we had. -- Richard Connelly

Poor Dan Hawkins. The man is under a lot of pressure. The team he used to coach — the Boise State Broncos — capped off an undefeated season with a win over Oklahoma in one of the most exciting bowl games ever played. Hawkins's new team — the Colorado Buffaloes — capped off a miserable 2-10 2006 with a 37-14 drubbing at the hands of their rival Nebraska. Some have begun to wonder aloud if current Boise State coach / former offensive coordinator Chris Petersen was the real brains behind Boise's success. And from the sounds of this Denny Green/Jim Mora-like clip, Hawkins is starting to feel the strain. (Wait for it — he abruptly goes batshit about 90 seconds in.) -- John Nova Lomax

A letter is going out to all Houston area friends of soccer urging its recipients to join the campaign to convert the city-owned Gus Wortham golf course to a youth soccer complex and practice field for the Houston Dynamo. The news that the city was considering converting the East End greens — is it true that Howard Hughes once played there??? — immediately produced more adrenalin among its golfers than a lifetime of Masters championships. How could the city think of doing this to an historic field! And one located right across the street from the Villa de Matel, a retired nuns convent (rated #24 on the Yahoo Travel Guide for things to do in Houston. Sigh.) Never mind that it's sort of a forgotten historic golf course. But there are voters fine people using it and so Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, elected from that district, has said no way. She'd rather see it renovated, something estimated to take millions of dollars. On the other hand, Houston has a well-known shortage of soccer fields for kids and adults alike with the result that a lot of the city's kids either can't find a field to play on or end up being shipped out to the dreaded suburbs to play club ball. And this may be a stretch here, but probably there aren't that many of those kids (or others) golfing at the Wortham.

Still searching for that prefect Valentine's Day gift? If your significant other is an Astro fan, we can pretty much say: Don't buy this item. It's a baseball being auctioned on eBay (bids are up to $175 right now), a baseball signed by both Brad Lidge and Albert Pujols. Perfect for any Astros fan. Who wants to remember The Pitch That Forever Ruined Brad Lidge. The seller says Lidge signed the ball first and it was later presented to Pujols, who signed it "with a smile on his face!" We bet he did. -- Richard Connelly

For much of its existence, Sports Illustrated magazine has dealt with its famed "cover jinx" -- players or teams featured on the cover one week often end up falling flat on their face the next. Does the Houston Press have the same evil mojo going? Ask Rice's baseball team. Tabbed as the number-one team in the country in just about every pre-season poll, the Owls were the subject of a February 8 cover that joined in the hype. Since then, Rice has opened the season 2-3, their worst start in seven years. They've lost to Texas State, for crying out loud. You could blame a surprisingly shaky bullpen, some oddly light hitting or even an uncharacteristic slew of mental errors. Or you could blame us. After all, we had the Texans on the cover the year they eventually went 2-14. We had the Astros on there just before their feeble effort in the 2005 World Series. One good thing: the actual cover boy was Joe Savery, and he has been terrific on the mound coming off surgery. (On the other hand, he's been struggling at the plate.) Rice still has plenty of time to recover from its bad beginning. But maybe we should put together a cover featuring the rest of college baseball's Top 25. — Richard Connelly

How can you tell if you're a college football fanatic? If you've been anxiously waiting for tomorrow, February 7, for a long time. The rest of you are wondering to yourselves: February 7? Why are college-football fanatics going nuts over the anniversary of Emile Zola's "J'Accuse!" trial? As it turns out, fans are instead waiting for National Signing Day, when high school seniors sign on the dotted line and commit themselves to a specific college. For some fans, that means an enthralling mix of despair and elation as players wait until the last minute to announce their choices. For others, like us, it means the end — for an all-too-short while, at least — of endless nattering about the thought processes of 18-year-old jocks who change their mind every 10 days anyway. Here's a neat little site that lets you track just where your favorite university is getting its players from. As you can tell, Mack Brown doesn't let anyone come across the border and steal someone from UT. The guys at the best college-football blog, Every Day Should Be Saturday, apparently posted this earlier today. But we, ever mindful of the need for Houstonians to be productive at work, have held off until prime working hours are passed. In case you're wondering, the "all too brief period" where recruiting talk ends lasts two days. -- Richard Connelly

According to a group of researchers at UCLA, last night's Super Bowl ads might've missed the mark. Reuters has the story:

Super Bowl ads, which cost $85,000 per second during this year's game, fumbled overall as they failed to connect with viewers or just scared them, according to researchers who tracked people's brain activity.

Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles scanned the brains of five men and five women between the ages of 18 and 34 as they watched Super Bowl ads to measure the emotional impact. Participants viewed the commercials through goggles as they lay inside a donut-shaped machine called a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine.

[...]

"We saw huge activity going on in the amygdala -- the threat detector -- so much so that we had to go back and double check our software," [Dr. Josh] Freedman said in a telephone interview.

The ads are still our favorite part of the show — feel free to question our manhood — but right now we're kicking ourselves for not posting information we received last week in a press release from the University of Texas. We totally missed out on a told-you-so moment.