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Being a longtime observer of Houston sports means that I’ve seen an awful lot of uniforms. Some good. Many bad. Here are what I consider to be the five best uniforms in Houston sports history.

5. Houston Astros, Road Uniforms, 1971-1974.

This one kind of gets lost when remembering Astros history. I guess you can call it the transitional uniform since this is where orange first becomes the team’s predominant color. When the team has throwbacks, they’ll sometimes trot out the Colt .45’s unis, or the original Astros unis, and they always, always, trot out the rainbows.

I like the simplicity of this uniform. There’s the orange hat with blue star. There’s the light gray uniform color with Houston printed in orange letters across the chest. The Astros logo is on the left shoulder.

Nothing ruins a sporting event more than some hack who won’t give the score, or keeps screaming, or gets facts wrong. Here are Houston’s five worst offenders.

5. Clyde Drexler was one of the greatest basketball players the city of Houston has ever produced. As a broadcaster, well, let’s just say that as a broadcaster he was a better coach. Sure, he’s an improvement over Calvin Murphy, but that’s just because he doesn’t waste time talking about cookies.

4. Mark Vandermeer has a great voice. Unfortunately, when he’s broadcasting a game, you get the feeling that he’s more concerned with trying to fit in one of his catchphrases than he is with actually describing the play. You also get the feeling he’d be happier hearing his voice on a SportsCenter highlight than with the Texans winning a game.

You may not know this from reading my writings, but I like sports. I watch lots of sports. I listen to lots of sports. And I have lots of opinions based on what I listen to, and what I watch. If the play-by-play guy and/or the color analyst is really good, I can sit through a bad game and actually enjoy myself. But if the analyst or play-by-play guy stink, a really good game can be ruined.

Now Houston has been home to major league professional sports franchises since 1960. So while the city might not have the sports broadcasting history as places like New York or Chicago, it does have some. For instance, one of the current voices of those great NFL Films highlight packages, Harry Kalas, started by doing play-by-play for the Houston Astros. Jim Nantz of CBS Sports got his start in Houston.

I thought I would take a few minutes to give you what I consider to be the five best sports broadcasters in the history of Houston sports.

Since it is playoff time for the Rockets and Aeros, and since the Astros and Texans probably won’t be seeing the playoffs for a long time to come, I figured it was an appropriate time to visit the Five Biggest Choke Jobs in Houston Sports History.

So, in descending order, away we go.

5. January 1, 1979, Notre Dame vs. UH: The weather in Dallas is beyond awful. The temperature is below zero. It’s sleeting. But the Cotton Bowl must go on because CBS is paying lots of big bucks and the teams have been promised lots of money. The Houston Cougars are leading the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame 34-12 with only 7:37 remaining in the game. The Notre Dame starting QB has been sitting in the locker room, suffering from the flu. The QB is fed some chicken noodle soup. Notre Dame blocks a Cougar punt for a TD. The QB emerges from the locker room to pass for the two-point conversion to make the score 34-20. Notre Dame moves the ball 61 yards on their next possession, with the QB gaining the final three yards for the TD, then throws for the two points. And with 4:15 on the clock the score is suddenly 34-28. The Irish manage to get the ball back and, with :00 on the clock, the QB connects for an eight-yard TD to tie the game. The Irish make the PAT, and just like that, the Irish have won 35-34.

Oh, and the name of that Notre Dame QB: Joe Montana, and it was on this day that the legend of Joe Montana was born.

They, whoever they are, say 15 people will look at an accident and bring back 15 different stories. We had a mini-version of that go down this year, when it seemed like columnists John Royal and Jason Friedman would pretty much always look at the same game, the same play, the same trade, and come back with differing opinions on what just happened. They were like Hannity and Colmes, except neither of them played the part of wimpy straw man.

Royal covered the Astros on an almost daily basis, so it was only natural for him to come out a little more pessimistic than Friedman did. (We’re actually a little surprised J.R. didn’t file a claim for P.T.S.D. after that stinker of a season.) This is not to say Friedman was a blind optimist. He’s definitely not one for idol worship (unless you consider his penchant for name-checking pop icons, but that’s another story altogether). However, when we had to decide who was going to pick the Top Five Bad-Ass Houston Sports Moments of 2007 and who was going to pick the Top Five Dumb-Ass Houston Sports Moments of 2007, let’s just say the choice was clear. – Keith Plocek