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Richard Justice and Jose de Jesus Ortiz had items in yesterday’s Chron representing everything that, to me, is wrong with the Astros. And it’s not so much that I disagree with Justice or Ortiz, it’s that I disagree with what they write. Because I see them as writing what the great minds running the Astros think.

I’ll start with Ortiz’s story on how Carlos Lee will not and should not be traded.

Lee won’t be traded because he has a no-trade contract. But this means nothing. When the team and/or money are right, just about any player will wave that no-trade clause. It’s possible that Lee would refuse; after all, according to Ortiz, Lee turned down more money with the San Francisco Giants to play here so that he could be closer to his cattle ranch.

I’m going to be honest here. I know that many of you probably love games like the one the Astros and Red Sox played on Saturday night. Sure, it was a 11-10 Astros win – and wins have been in short supply this month – and the Astros had to come from behind multiple times to win the game.

But I think these kinds of games are boring. The pitching sucked all of the way around – I’m beginning to think it’s time for Ed Wade to have a Shawn Chacon-type meeting with Brandon Backe – and the defense was awful – yeah, Hunter, I’m talking to you. Sure it’s nice that the Astros scored five runs after two outs in the third inning, especially since Backe had let the Red Sox score four runs after two outs in the top of the third. And I’m sure many of you found it amazing that the Astros scored five runs in their last two innings, but once again, Jose Valverde decided to make the game interesting by giving up a home run to Mike Lowell in the top of the ninth to make the score 11-10.

The Houston Rockets named their replacement for Gene Peterson and Jim Foley on Thursday. And the jobs are going to one person, Craig Ackerman.

Ackerman has worked for the team for 14 years, having started as an intern. For the past five years, he’s done studio work, and he’s filled in for Peterson and Foley when one or the other had to miss a game.

If you listened to the Houston Astros press conference Thursday, you might have gotten the opinion that Ed Wade is just an innocent weakling who never raises his voice and who does not have a temper. And that might be what the Astros want you to think, that Ed Wade was an innocent little victim who never did nothing to nobody.

But that’s not quite the national consensus.

Wednesday night, just after the Shawn Chacon/Ed Wade cage match, but just before the Astros went out to lose to the Rangers, the clubhouse doors were closed and Drayton McLane had a little chat with his boys. “We can't have anarchy,” McLane told them. “You can't have rebellion.”

Drayton, I’ve got some bad news for you. The inmates took over your asylum a long, long time ago. You might just now be realizing this, but the facts are the facts. Anarchy has existed in Astroland for well over a decade. And this has been evident to all objective observers for a long time.

Wow. Talk about a miracle. Not only did the Houston Astros defeat the Texas Rangers last night, but they defeated the Texas Rangers by a 7-2 score. Wandy Rodriguez dominated, and the team looked to be trying to exorcise any demons left behind by Shawn Chacon. The offense came to life in the first two innings, scoring three times in the first inning and four times in the second.

The game was so quickly out of reach that, for most of the game, the only thing in question was whether the Astros would find a way to score enough runs to keep the Rangers from winning the Silver Boot again. And the answer to that question was no.

The Astros won their second series of the month, and their second series in a row. This was the first time the Astros had won two series in a row since mid-May when they swept the Dodgers then took three of four from the Giants.

Well, the Astros are in the process of conducting a press conference regarding last night's action involving Shawn Chacon and Ed Wade. As would be expected from the Astros, they are not at fault. Everything is the fault of Shawn Chacon.

Despite what the Chron reported, Wade states he never raised his voice, nor did he direct profanity in the direction of Chacon at any time. The Astros also announced he was being placed on waivers, and that if not claimed, he would be unconditionally released and not paid.

Resident Rockets guy Jason Friedman apparently loved covering T-Mac and Yao so much, he decided to marry them. Okay, not exactly, but he did recently take a job as staff writer for the Houston Rockets, which means he can no longer write for us. We’re definitely gonna miss Jason, but we wish him the best of luck. It’s always nice to see one of our own do well in this world.

It’s hard to be funny when you’re saying goodbye. Farewells just aren’t inherently amusing. I mean, there’s a reason Shakespeare didn’t pen a line like “Parting is such wicked awesome hilarity.”

So this leaves me in a bit of a pickle. I’m saying goodbye to the Ballz blog today. I’d like my last post to be funny or, at the very least, mildly smirk-worthy. But I just don’t think I have it in me. And since there’s nothing worse than forced attempts at humor, I’ll just slip off into the ether with a few thank yous and call it a day.

During last night’s Astros game, there was a play late in the game that had me really asking some questions. A Texas Rangers batter popped up in first base foul territory near the Astros dugout. Brad Ausmus settled under the ball, and looked prepared to make the catch, only to almost lose his head when Lance Berkman came flying in to make the catch instead.

As Berkman trotted away, Ausmus turned toward Berkman and raised his arms in a questioning manner. Ausmus was wearing his mask, so his face couldn’t be seen. But it appeared to me that he was rather pissed off at Berkman and was trying to find out what happened. Bill Brown and Jim Deshaies laughed the play off, and I kind of wondered if I was reading something into nothing.

Then I read that before the game started, but after the Shawn Chacon/Ed Wade confrontation, Drayton McLane closed the doors and had a bit of a chat with his boys. “We can't have anarchy," McLane reportedly said. "You can't have rebellion.”

There seems to be a pattern developing with this week’s games between the Rangers and Astros. Rangers lead-off batter Ian Kinsler starts things off with an extra-base hit, then scores the run to put the Rangers up 1-0. Then the Astros take the lead 2-1 on a home run – last night being Michael Bourn hitting a two-out homer with Roy Oswalt on base. Then the losing team comes within a run in the ninth inning, but come up just short.

The main difference between this week’s games is the outcome. The Astros won 4-3 Tuesday night, but last night, the Rangers won the game 3-2, the final two runs coming off of Rangers rookie Max Ramirez’ first major league home run in the fourth inning.

The Astros were able to load the bases in the bottom of the ninth inning, but the game ended with Miguel Tejada grounding into a force out at second base, thus ending the Astros mini – and I really mean mini –winning streak at two games.

The newest word on the interwebs is that the fine folks at ESPN are contemplating Daily Show-type programming for ESPN 2. They feel they need to do something to get viewers to turn on the Deuce after ten o’clock at night, and they apparently feel that comedy-talk programming is the way to go.

There are a couple of problems with this, I think.

First, it seems to me that ESPN is missing the point of The Daily Show. They think it’s a funny show about politics, so they want to do a funny show about sports. But if you really pay attention to The Daily Show, you know that it’s actually a funny show about the media in which politics play a very large role. The whole conceit revolves around the pompous anchors and reporters who don’t care about facts but are more interested in he-said/she-said arguments. The jokes come from President Bush saying something really stupid, then showing how the media completely change the statement to one of genius.

The game got off to a kind of an inauspicious start last night when Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler led off with a shot to the outfield that was just feet short of a home run, but turned into a double. Two batters later, Kinsler scored, and the Rangers were up 1-0 with a man on and one out.

Flash forward to the ninth inning where the Astros have taken a 4-1 lead. Starting pitcher Brian Moehler managed to hold the Rangers down after that first inning, and with the help of his bullpen, was in a position to get the win. But it should probably be mentioned that Jose Valverde was now pitching, and that with one out and one on, Valverde gave up a home run to right field to make the score 4-3 Astros.

With the Astros hanging on for dear life, Jim Deshaies, from high atop his perch in the broadcast booth, let loose with some words of wisdom he had received from the Arizona Diamondbacks, Valverde’s previous team: give Valverde a three-run lead and he’ll make the game interesting; give him a one-run lead, and he’ll lock down the game. Thus, J.D. summed up, Valverde was just getting the game into the proper position for him to save it. Which he did, striking out Ian Kinsler to end the game.

I thought we would play a new game today. And it’s kind of easy. You’re just going to match the statement with the person. Are you ready?

Okay, I’m going to give you four media personalities who have written or said some very stupid things the past couple of weeks. Let’s see if you can make the match.

A. Jemele Hill – columnist, ESPN.com.

B. Johnny Miller – golf commentator, NBC Sports.

C. Dick Enberg – tennis commentator, NBC Sports.

D. Don Imus – radio blowhard.

1. Upon being informed of the travails of Adam “Pacman” Jones, then being told that Jones is an African-American: “Well. There you go. Now we know.”

2. “Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim.”

3. Rocco Mediate “looks like the guy who cleans Tiger's swimming pool.” And “Guys with the name ‘Rocco’ don’t get on the trophy, do they?”

4. “Roger Federer on his way. I wonder how they transport him? One of those Sultan chairs with four Nubian Slaves take him into our studio.”

I’d like to say many profound things about George Carlin. But I don’t have the ability with words that he possessed. Let’s just say I thought he was funny. And that there was an intelligence and wit in his humor found in his work that many comics can never match.

I was a fan.

The first routine of his that I remember is his great baseball vs. football routine. And though I later heard the infamous seven words routine, and though I later heard him pontificate on politics and religion and the general absurdities of life, it was always, and will always be, baseball vs. football for which I remember him.

And don’t worry, this clip is safe to watch at the office:

I’m wondering if Rocket and his associates saw the latest news from Barry Bonds World last week. The news isn’t so much about Bonds as it’s about Greg Anderson, Bonds’ former trainer, the guy who went to jail for 13 months rather than testify to a grand jury about Bonds. And it seems that now the Feds have decided to target Anderson’s wife, making her the focus of an investigation into whether she conspired to commit a crime against the federal government.

The legal experts in the article contend that the Feds really don’t care about Anderson’s wife, and that they’re just using her to get him to talk. This tactic is often used against significant others in high-profile investigations as a means of gaining leverage and making the actual desired witness or defendant testify.

So I could easily see the Feds, if Team Rocket keeps up with their current strategy, sending Mrs. Rocket a nice little letter, saying she’s a target of a federal investigation for conspiring to commit a crime against the Feds. After all, Mrs. Rocket did illegally use HGH, which is a federal crime.