Blogs

Paging Holly Hunter. If that whole Saving Grace thing doesn’t work out on you, maybe you can come back to Texas and revisit the world of cheerleading. But this time, instead of having to endure Channelview, you’d get to visit the nice folks of Katy. And this time, instead of getting caught up in a plot to murder your daughter’s rival for a spot on the cheerleading team, you can play a mother raising complaints about the hazing of your daughter by the varsity cheerleading squad.

That’s right! Give me an H! Give me an A! Give me a Z! Give me an I! Give me an N! Give me a G! What’s that spell?

HAZING! HAZING! HAZING! Rah! Rah! Rah!

Can we please, please, stop talking about Wandy Rodriguez having turned the corner and become a legitimate top-of-the rotation starter? Please. I don’t understand the obsession that people have with trying to make this mediocre pitcher into something he’s not. The guy’s mediocre. He’s always been mediocre. He will always be mediocre. Sure, he looks good for a couple of games, then he gets beat up unmercifully.

Last night, when he gave up three home runs (two of them monster shots to Adam Dunn and one an upper deck job to Ken Griffey Jr.) is a perfect example. Rodriguez never had control of that game. He was pitching out of desperation the whole time. And by the time Cecil Cooper pulled him with two outs in the fifth inning, the score was 6-0 Reds and the Astros were running on fumes. Chris Sampson emerged from the bullpen in the sixth inning, and he deserves the credit for keeping the Astros in a position to win the game.

With the 9-5 loss the Astros' record dropped to 50-57. (They finished 10-14 for the month; my pick of a 12-12 July was close). The Astros' solo stay in fourth place lasted just one day, and now they find themselves back in a tie for fifth place with the Reds with the Pirates holding up the rear.

I couldn’t help but notice that the University of Texas is retiring the jersey of Kevin Durant. Now I don’t know about you, but I always thought that somebody had to do something rather exceptional to have a jersey retired. And playing for a team for one year just doesn’t seem to qualify to me, especially if that one year doesn’t even result in a national title.

I understand Vince Young. He still split school early, but he stuck around for a couple of years and he did lead the team to a national title. And I can understand Earl Campbell. He only won the Heisman Trophy and went into the NFL Hall of Fame. You can’t deny Bobby Layne, who went on to be one of the NFL’s greats. But Durant wasn’t even the best player in the country for the one year he played in college.

Just how bad is the press censorship in Beijing for the Olympics if even the Cuban journalists are calling it a bit much? The Chinese have gone back on another of the promises made to the International Olympic Committee and are restricting the Internet access of the international media that are assembled in China to cover the Olympics. So any U.S. journalist in China who wants to look up something regarding Tibet or Chinese human rights abuses isn't going to find anything.

This is in line with China’s recent decisions to block media access to Tienanmen Square, to prevent live person-in-the-street interviews and to prevent any type of media coverage that may be in the least bit critical of China. And it’s nice to see that NBC and the International Olympic Committee are caving on all of these issues.

Yes! A reason to be excited about Houston Rockets basketball.

For those not in the know, last night the Rockets acquired multi-talented Sacramento Kings forward, rapper and noted animal lover Ron Artest. Artest is one of those hard-asses who will bang away under the hoop, has a decent shot and likes to play defense. He’s also the kind of guy who, from what I understand, will let his coaches and teammates know when he’s not happy with how things are going with the team.

And of course, you rich bastards who sit down on the court might like this deal as Artest is known for coming into the seats to play around with his fans. Of course, this is the Rockets, so most of the fans who are getting drunk are either in the upper deck or are in the lower deck and don’t believe in going to their seats, so the newest Rocket might have to explore things for a bit in order to find someone to play with.

But seriously, I like this trade. Artest brings some much-needed attitude to the Rockets. I’ve just got to ask, though: What’s it going to take to get a real point guard for this team? -- John Royal

You know, last season I wasn’t Brian Moehler’s biggest fan. And I wasn’t exactly happy about him being on this year’s roster, either. To me, he just pointed out how bad the Astros pitching staff was. But damn, was I wrong.

Thrown into the starting rotation back in May after Chris Sampson failed to handle his spot in the rotation, Moehler has surprised everyone and has become one of the Astros' more solid starting pitchers. The guy’s no longer an ace – I don’t think he was ever considered to be an ace – but he’s turned into a solid number three/four starter. So while it was no surprise that Moehler pitched the Astros to the 6-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds last night, it was still surprising that Moehler was nearly the first Astro pitcher to throw a complete game in over a year before being pulled after 8.2 innings with two Reds on base. Wesley Wright came on to get the final out and preserve the victory.

So I want to apologize to Moehler for all of the crap that I’ve given him in the past. Last night was really impressive, and with the win – his longest outing since June 17, 2005 – Moehler’s record moved to 6-4 with a 4.23 ERA.

The Arizona Cardinals have gotten kind of tired of having their stadium invaded by Dallas Cowboy fans whenever the two teams play – not that I can blame them because the only thing worse than a Cowboy fan is a New York Yankee fan. Their solution is simple: if Cowboy fan wants to buy a ticket for the Cowboys/Cardinals game in Phoenix on October 12, then Cowboy fan has to buy a ticket to the preseason game against the New Orleans Saints on August 7.

I would like to see the Houston Texans adopt a similar type policy. And I wanted enacted toward people wearing Tennessee Titans jerseys. I don’t care if it’s a game where the Titans are playing in Houston, or if it’s just somebody wearing an Eddie George jersey for any game. I think the Texans should still sell these people tickets, but once they try to walk into the stadium, I think IDs should be checked, and if the wearer of the jersey doesn’t have a Tennessee license, then the person is to not be allowed entry nor is refunded his money.

After three innings last night, the Houston Astros were beating the Cincinnati Reds 5-4. Both Roy Oswalt and Reds starter Johnny Cueto were struggling, and since both teams had been abusing their bullpens for the past week or so, it looked as if Oswalt and Cueto would have to just eat the innings and let their ERAs take the hit. Only a funny thing happened – both pitchers settled down, and with the departure of Oswalt after five innings and Cueto after seven innings, the score was still 5-4, Astros.

New Caney’s Adam Dunn almost put the Reds in the lead in the top of the eighth inning with a blast to deep center field that Darin Erstad hauled in just short of the fence. (Dunn liked deep center field last night – he hit a third-inning grand slam off of the top of the fence in deep center to put the Reds up 4-3.) And in the ninth inning, Cecil Cooper called for closer Jose Valverde to come in and end the game. Amazingly, Valverde held on and got the save.

You may not realize this, but the greatest college football player of this era is Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. At least, the Miami Herald reports, that’s what his coach Urban Meyer told some assembled boosters in Miami recently.

Sure Tebow’s won the Heisman, but I have never seen him singlehandedly take a team to the national championship like Vince Young – who has also helped to take the Titans into the playoffs. And I would argue that Reggie Bush, Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart were better college players than Tim Tebow. And don’t forget the Purple Jesus himself, Adrian Peterson. So while I’m sure Meyer was just trying to pimp the Gators and his quarterback, I also think that he’s underestimating the intelligence of the average college football fan.

The Houston Astros and their AAA farm team, the Round Rock Express, have a lot in common this year -- a nearly identical losing percentage (.462 for the 'Stros, .459 for RR), with both teams in next-to-last place (Houston is 12.5 games behind; the Express 12.)

Still, Round Rock leads the mothership in fan appreciation -- and one-on-one marketing. Their players actually make telephone calls to their fans to thank them for attending games.

Any of you Astros fans ever gotten a call from, say Runvelvys Hernandez, for shelling out your hard-earned dough to watch mostly-losing baseball?

Yesterday, the Chron had a story on the greatness of Mario Williams, a blog post on the greatness of Mario Williams, and a blog post asking why we like Mario Williams so much. Reading all of this stuff on Mario Williams, I had one question: When did teenage girls start running the Chron sports department?

Seriously, is this really journalism? Asking why we like Mario Williams? Hell, is the Chron now saying that Charlie Casserly was actually some kind of genius who knew what he was doing? Because, as I remember things, back when Mario Williams was drafted over Vince and Reggie, the Chron put all of the blame on Casserly. And when Mario Williams was seen the biggest flop ever, it was because Gary Kubiak let Casserly call the shots in that draft. So if Williams is actually a good player, then maybe Casserly actually did know something.

Color me unimpressed by the debut of Randy Wolf for the Astros on Sunday. Given an 8-4 lead in the fifth inning, he needed Chris Sampson to come bail him out. Wolf in turn gave the Astros just what they needed, another starter who can’t give his team a quality start. But it’s looking like Chris Sampson may have finally found his role on the team as he’s continuing to shut down the opposition whenever he comes in from the bullpen.

The Astros won 11-6 on Sunday, and they won two of the three games against the Milwaukee Brewers this weekend to pull themselves out of last place. But to me, this weekend just bodes ill for the rest of the season because I’m sure that, as I’m typing this, Ed Wade is telling Drayton McLane that 11-6 victories are just what he intended for this season and that the Astros are now poised to make their move up the standings and into the playoffs. And I just know that Drayton is smiling, nodding his head, and telling Wade to trade Hunter Pence, Michael Bourn, Mark Loretta, and Darin Erstad for Manny Ramirez.

The son of Rudy Giuliani, Andrew Giuliani, has decided to sue Duke University over his being kicked off of the school’s golf team. There’s a bunch of stuff in the suit about the coach intimidating his fellow golfers, and about the coach not giving a reason for kicking him off of the team, but the thing that caught my eye was this: he’s suing because being kicked off of the team interferes with his chances of being a pro golfer.

I didn’t know you had to be a college graduate to play professional golf. I didn’t even know you needed to be a college golf player to play professional golf. Do they give some kind of waiver onto the PGA Tour if you played in college? Is that what the deal is?

During the last football draft, I was puzzled by the Detroit Lions’ decision to draft defensive back Caleb Campbell from Army. I was puzzled because, well, I figured the guy had this commitment to the military that he had to fulfill – you know, with him being a West Point grad and a soldier I thought his services might be more important over in George Bush’s little Iraq quagmire than they would be helping the Lions to another in a long string of losing seasons.

But I was wrong as the Army said they would let Campbell skip out on his service; instead he would play football and serve as a recruiter – he would find other suckers to go out and die while his only worry would be making sure he wasn’t burnt on a Rex Grossman bomb.

I never thought that I would see this day happen. The day when Jose de Jesus Ortiz gives up on the season. But yesterday, it happened: “When the Pittsburgh Pirates sweep you to drop you alone into last place only a few days from August, it's time to realize the season is lost. Some of you want to see the Astros start a youth movement, but there aren't any prospects quite ready to really have a youth movement. You might say it cannot get worse. But trust me, it can and likely will in September.”

Now, I thought the season was over around the time of the first pitch – the first pitch of spring training, not of the season. But it’s nice to see the guy who covers the team on an almost daily basis is finally ignoring the company line and telling everyone the truth. And Ortiz wrote this on the same day that Richard Justice suggested that Ed Wade and Tal Smith be fired – I’ve got no problem with the firing of Wade and Smith, but as someone who has dealt with Pam Gardner in the past, albeit on a very limited basis, I’m confident that she’s not the answer – just because she can market the team doesn’t mean she can choose a roster.