Houston News Blog

​There are certain teams around the NFL where having the national stage all to themselves -- say, on a Thursday night, Sunday night, or especially on Monday night -- is seen as just another day at the office. To teams like the Colts, Patriots, Giants, and a handful of others, the prime-time stage and the altered preparation schedule that goes with it are routine blips in the 16-game grind that is the NFL regular season.

The Houston Texans are not one of those teams. Eight years into what is starting to feel like a construction project that has no end, the Texans' playing in the prime time spotlight still feels pretty new to the fans and most of the team, and I mean that in a good way. It feels special. The battle-red jerseys get dusted off, tailgating becomes a day-long affair (as opposed to a "squeezing in a speed funnel or two a couple of hours before those pesky noon kickoffs" affair), and people actually get to their seats before the end of the first quarter (GASP!).

Above all else, the Texans themselves want to make it a point to show a nation of football fans deprived of the heart-attack-inducing, fourth-quarter tightrope act that is Texans 2009 what Texans football is all about. And ultimately (and unfortunately), that is exactly what happened on Monday.  

Remember that soap opera that you watched back in college with your buddies (admit it...c'mon, you did....Days of our Lives for me...seriously, admit it)? You skipped class to watch it, crack jokes about it, and follow it a little too closely? Then you got into the real world (where 1 p.m. TV time wasn't allowed), but one vacation day when you're like 26 years old you found the old soap while channel-surfing and you were able to catch up on four years' worth of storylines in an afternoon?  In other words, nothing had changed.

Well, if you hadn't seen a Texans game all season, then the Monday night game against the Titans was essentially the equivalent of finding an episode of Days of our Texans; in short, investing three hours Monday night told you everything you needed to know about the Texans over the entirety of 2009.

​Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together." -- Kent Brockman, Channel 6, Springfield (The Simpsons)

If you are wondering what "this" was in that quote, it was the Bart Simpson-led mutiny of Kamp Krusty by a bunch of 10-year-olds. Why was this rebellion considered so unsavory and appalling by award-winning newscaster Kent Brockman? Because it was going on right NOW, right in front of him. So it had to be the most important event in the history of man, right?

I'm not sure what it says when the local coverage leading up to tonight's Texans versus Titans game over at Reliant Stadium reminds me of a quote from an animated newscaster in an episode that took place waaaayy back in 1992, but I feel like I'm being led to believe by many of my peers that what I'm about to see in several hours on Monday Night Football is going to change my life forever.

You see, tonight's game between the Texans and the Titans, depending on who you listen to, is being billed as anything from the tried and true "biggest game in franchise history" to the positively Brockman-esque "battle of epic proportions", the latter one I heard this morning from Marc Vandermeer on 610, and I like Mark, but...wow. Epic? 5-4 vs 3-6? Okay. (DISCLAIMER: I don't know that I've addressed this in my small piece of blog real estate, but just know that in the sports-talk host world, everyone listens to everyone else in this town. It's called scouting the competition. So the fact that I switched over to Marc during John and Lance's show should not be seen as the beginning of my own mutiny at Kamp KGOW. In fact, John Harris and I get text messages during our show from a couple of on-air personalities at another station when they listen. Who, you may ask? Can't say, it's part of the code.)

So we can put this in perspective, ask yourself if any of these matchups from this past weekend strike you as "battles of epic proportions":
Miami (5-4) vs Carolina (4-5)
San Francisco (4-5) vs Green Bay (5-4)
Buffalo (3-6) vs Jacksonville (5-4)

(The correct answer is NO.)

​Less than two years removed from taking home the Bear Bryant Award which goes to college football's top head coach, Kansas coach Mark Mangino's mouth is getting him in trouble. No, I'm not talking about the fifth serving of cheesecake he may or may not have had (ok, DID have) after dinner tonight putting more undue stress on his ticker. No, it's not an eating issue, it's a talking issue. Well, a yelling and screaming and ranting and raving issue, more accurately.

You see, Mark Mangino likes to push his players' buttons by belittling them with insults. Nothing new there, some coaches have been doing the whole "break 'em down to build 'em up again thing" since the dawn of time. Bill Parcells won Super Bowls doing it. Bobby Knight became the all-time winningest coach in college basketball doing it. But we all know the best insults are the ones that are really personal, and when it comes to spinning a barb that cuts to someone's core, Mangino is apparently a maestro.

For the record, these insults have now become an issue which threatens Mangino's employment. While I can't say I condone the things Mangino said (which I will list in just a moment), I do find his overuse of the word "homies" to be delightfully uncomfortable in a "WOW, he sounds even whiter than me" kind of way. Also, I find it funny that none of these things were an issue when Mangino was going 12-1 and winning the Orange Bowl. Apparently, back then he could have sat on his players' heads and farted or shown them videos he took of himself in the shower, and it wouldn't have been an issue. But lose five in a row in a season where hopes were high, and the receipts for years of verbal abuse will get presented to you like you're the Best Buy customer service desk.

Part of me wants to tell the former players alleging the verbal abuse (which also for some has a side order of chest-poking or jersey-grabbing attached to it) to turn the page; part of me hopes Mangino gets canned for the damage he's inflicted on my "Kansas over 7.5 wins" wager this season; and part of me hopes that he survives this turmoil because the "when in doubt, write about Mangino" adage is important for those of us in the content-generation business.

Should he stay or should he go? Well, some of it comes down to the answer to "Just how hurtful were the things he said?" As winner of five Smack-Offs on the Jim Rome Show (the
foundation of the Smack-Off being personal insults and figurative chest-poking), I feel I'm uniquely qualified to judge just how biting Mangino's chops are. Consider me like the Roger Cossack of hurtful, personal insults. When you need an expert in the area of being verbally ugly to others, I'm the guy.

So according to Mark Mangino's former players, here is a scorecard of Mangino's hurtful, personal smack:

QUOTE: "If you don't shut up, I'm going to send you back to St. Louis so you can get shot with your homies."
TARGET: Former Kansas WR Raymond Brown
BACK STORY: Raymond Brown has a brother (one he presumably also considers a "homey") who was shot in the arm in St. Louis.
SEAN'S ASSESSMENT: Mangino pulled off the "double dip" here, managing to insult and belittle one of his players, while at the same time trivializing a near-death experience of his brother....it's like a downfield block that takes out two DB's at the same time. Bonus points for use of the word "homies."
GRADE:  A-
POTENTIAL COMEBACK BROWN SHOULD'VE USED: "Sending back something other than a steak for being undercooked would be a good start for you, Coach."

​The Sopranos is the greatest television show of all time. I know that sentence right there will be enough to start plenty of discussion, tweets, and emails, both in support of and in disagreement with that statement.

It's funny, with sports expansion breeds mediocrity. The more teams that get added to the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball, the more watered-down the product becomes. Essentially, new homes are created to house the crappy quarterbacks, point guards, and soft tossing lefties that twenty years ago would have been in Canada, in the CBA, or playing Double A-ball in Durham.

With television, the exact opposite has happened. Depending on what cable or satellite package to which you subscribe, you probably have at least 100 channels (maybe double or triple that) available to you. The result from the explosion in sheer volume of TV channels has been more very good to great TV shows in more different genres than ever before. The lesson? You'll get more respect as a decent actor than you will as a shitty left-handed pus-throwing reliever. I guess.

I bring this up because in television nowadays, when you say a show is "the best ever," the competition has never been stiffer. When I make my contention about The Sopranos, the one show that my listeners try to "raise the ante" with is The Wire. I've watched both from beginning to end, and it's close. Very close. So close that I smell a future "Tale of the Tape".

But for purposes of this post, I bring up The Sopranos for two reasons: Rumors have begun to spring up (and let's face it, it was just a matter of time) about a Sopranos movie. I'm not sure yet how to feel about this, but with Sopranos creator David Chase, it's almost like it is for Rockets fans with GM Daryl Morey, where if he makes a deal Rocket fans assume it's a good deal. If Chase decides to make a movie, I trust him.

Have you looked at the football schedule for this weekend? It blows!! There is one college game matching up ranked teams and that's #25 Cal vs #17 Stanford. Plus, the Texans don't play until Monday night. In other words, it's a perfect time to take a trip down Memory Turnpike, take a seat at the Bada Bing, and pop in some old Sopranos DVD's.

So with that in mind, I am giving you my personal list of the 10 Greatest Episodes of The Sopranos, and more or less 10-12 hours of viewing that could serve as a Cliffs Notes way of going back and getting a feel for the series from beginning to end. In essence for those of you who don't have 86 spare hours to go back through six seasons of DVD's, I've whittled the greatest show ever into a weekend for you. So without further ado, here we go:

10. "IRREGULAR AROUND THE MARGINS" (Season 5, Episode 5)


This episode was in the middle of the season where Tony and Carmela were separated. Not like marriage was ever really an impediment for "T" to dip his cannoli in broads not named Carmela Soprano, but he in season 5...well, let's just say separation seemed to agree with Tony. However, it almost went sour in this episode where he gets into an accident with Adriana (who happens to be his psychotic nephew Christopher's fiancé) riding shotgun and the rumor mill goes into overdrive. The end result was Tony almost whacking Chrissy execution-style in the Meadowlands swamps in maybe the most tense scene in the history of the show that didn't end with someone's brains splattered on the floor.

Damn, can't a mob boss and a Jersey skank go buy some cocaine in Dover, NJ without everyone thinking he's getting a hummer?

​Dear Richard,

I'm not sure if you are aware of this but your Monday column entitled "10-0 TCU Not Equal of 10-0 Texas" has caused quite an uproar among the Horned Frog faithful. I am going to assume you are aware of this because the only logical explanation for your outlandish premise and its subsequent flimsy support would be that you were solely writing this column to see how many Horned Frog fans/alum you could piss off.

While I can appreciate first-hand someone in your position having to come up with content several times a week, I also share a radio show with you for two hours each week. So when you introduce elements like higher TV ratings and better ticket/merchandise sales into an argument having to do with playing for the national championship, it tugs at the fiber of the credibility of our show, and that's not good for either of us.

So now you've painted me into a corner and are forcing me to do something I don't normally do. Anyone who listens to our show knows that I am no apologist for the "little guy". As you know, I went to Notre Dame, a school that itself knows a little something about the role TV ratings and ticket/merchandise sales play in a school's bowl plight. My world was perfectly in order ten years ago when the Top 10 was not regularly infiltrated by these outsiders like TCU and Boise State; I openly long for years when the Top 10 reads like a college football history book. A perfect season to me has a Top 10 that includes Notre Dame, Michigan, USC, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and what the hell...Texas.

I like tradition. A world order like the one outlined above pleases me. To me, that is the appropriate alignment of the stars in the college football universe. However, unlike you, I do not let my preferences cloud my judgment and assessment of the truth -- and the truth is that top-shelf football in 2009 is being played in, among other places, Fort Worth.

​(Cue cheesy announcer voice:) "When we last left our our venerable 1560 The Game crew of Pendergast, Nuno and Ramzanali, they were checking into the Norman, Oklahoma Days Inn at 2:30 in the morning, readying themselves for three days of free continental breakfast and lumpy mattresses. To read about the trip up to Norman, click here. We press on..."

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13: As I mentioned in the blog post about our trip up to Norman, this trip was one of those combination business-pleasure type trips, whereby we would be "working" on Friday and then enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of Norman, Oklahoma on a college football afternoon on Saturday. And yes, "working" is in quotes because I feel stupid calling what we do "work" sometimes. A lot of the time actually.

Anyway, when you're paying $55 a night for a hotel room at the Days Inn, you sure as hell want to suck every penny of value from the room, so naturally Raheel, Nuno, and myself took advantage of the free continental breakfast. Now, sometimes hotels will try and slip one past you and pass off pre-packaged pastry and some ripe-three-weeks-ago bananas as "continental breakfast", but credit where credit is due -- the Days Inn actually had hot food (biscuits and gravy, Belgian waffles!).

Not just that, but somehow, even with the paltry $55/night room rate, they managed to have someone on staff who actually poured the waffle batter onto the waffle maker for you! He was a crusty, 70-something old man who Raheel named "Belgia the Belgian Waffle Maker"...and wow, did he make a mean waffle! And like any great artist, he took pride in his work, so much so that he nearly slugged Raheel in the face when Raheel tried to pour his own waffle batter. (I'd like to think this is how Picasso would have reacted had you tried to grab his brush.) ​

(Note: Sunday morning, we figured out how the Days Inn was able to "afford" Belgia's otherworldly waffle-batter-pouring services, when we saw him picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot. Yes, the same guy whose hands were on or near everyone's breakfast was cleaning up debris from the parking lot piece by piece. Even now, I still don't know whether to call the Health Department or nominate the Days Inn for an award for creating the position of "Custodial Culinary Engineer".)

With the nourishment of generic biscuits and Belgia's Cigarette Butt Surprise Waffle fresh in our bellies, we headed to the venue for our show -- JR's Family Bar-B-Q, which is owned by WWE Hall of Fame announcer and perhaps the most famous Sooner fan on the planet, Jim Ross. The goal of our show on Friday was to have a celebration of college football with a Sooner flavor to it, and Jim Ross had us booked wire to wire on the show with a fantastic list of guests that read like a who's who in Sooner history and even mixed in a couple of my favorites from the world of pro wrestling (John "Bradshaw" Layfield and "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, who dropped his signature "WOOOOOOOOO!!!" on us at the end of the interview, which from a euphoria standpoint felt like getting mobbed at home plate after a walk-off home run.)

​At some point, there is an age you reach where climbing into an SUV with three of your buddies to drive a ridiculous distance to a backwater town to watch football, drink beer, fart, and pretend you're 22 again becomes old. I don't know what age that is, I just know I haven't reached it yet.

Last night would have been a good litmus test for that as myself, Raheel Ramzanali, and David Nuno climbed into the 1560 The Game Mobile for a seven-hour drive to Norman, Oklahoma for the clash of 5-4 titans this weekend -- the Aggies of Texas A&M versus the Oklahoma Sooners. For those wondering, this is a trip that is a combo business-pleasure event, as we will be broadcasting our shows on Friday afternoon (Nuno from 1-3 p.m., me and John Harris from 3-7 p.m.) live from Norman (Tune in at 1560thegame.com!).

​That noise you hear is Florida coach Urban Meyer laughing his ass off. In case you missed it, news broke this morning that three University of Tennessee Volunteer football players -- freshman defensive backs Janzen Jackson and Mike Edwards, as well as freshman running back Nu'Keese Richardson -- have been arrested for attempted armed robbery.

According to a Knoxville City Police report, the incident goes like this -- the reported victims were sitting in their car minding their own business outside a Pilot convenience store near campus. As they were getting ready to start guzzling their 64-ounce Mountain Dews and eating their Hostess sno-balls, two perpetrators wearing hooded sweatshirts demanded the victims "Give us everything you got!"

One of the robbers, possibly in tribute to Clark Griswold in the first Vacation movie, was brandishing what turned out to be an air pellet gun. Also, one of the thieves was (no joke) actually wearing Tennessee Volunteer gear; apparently, he didn't have time to put a sticker on his chest that said "HELLO, my name is NU'KEESE."

When the victims showed the two robbers that they had no money, a third hooded-sweatshirt (likely the mastermind behind this intricate, multi-layered scheme) came out of the woodwork and said "we've got to go." All three then got into a Prius which left the scene with a woman driving, and presumably sped away at 25 miles per hour very quietly and in an environmentally friendly fashion.

​I'm sure if all of you have heard, but Tracy McGrady has set a target date to return from microfracture surgery, and that date is November 18. What he's going to do once he comes back or whether he's even ready to come back are secondary issues, because chances are if you heard this news when it broke, then you actually found out about this before the following people:

-- Tracy's doctors

-- Rockets GM Daryl Morey

-- Rockets coach Rick Adelman

-- Pretty much anyone employed by the Rockets

Proving once again that what he lacks in passion for actually playing basketball he makes up for with a bizarre misdirected passion to be a doctor, Tracy McGrady gives all of us the straight dope on when he's going to be coming back, maybe kind of, sort of, maybe not. Because this is what Tracy McGrady does -- finds any way he can to keep himself as the center of attention even if it means alienating the franchise that continues to fulfill their obligation of cutting him seven figure, bi-weekly checks for doing nothing more than blogging once a month and presumably rehabbing his knee. Seriously, I think this is unofficially the 1,000th self-diagnosis we've gotten from Tracy since he arrived here in 2004.

​For most of his tenure in Oakland, Tom Cable has been your run-of-the-mill, overmatched, "dead man walking" NFL head coach. When he was hired last season in the wake of Lane Kiffin's firing, the things that jumped out at me about Cable were:

-- His only head coaching experience consisted of four seasons at the University of Idaho where he compiled a sporty 11-35 record

-- He was the first Idaho head coach in 22 years to be fired; his most recent predecessors had all been successful and moved onto better jobs

-- He looks EXACTLY like "Sean and John Show" producer Kyle "The Taskmaster" Manthey. Check it out...

Separated at birth?

​ 
But surely, the casual football fan did not give a rat's ass about Tom Cable when he was hired. It took Cable's caving in assistant coach Randy Hansen's face in a team meeting to make him somewhat interesting, it took his denying it to make him laughable, and it took allegations of physical abuse from a handful of women he either dated or married going back to the Reagan Administration to make him pathologically creepy and dangerous.

So with these skeletons now out of Cable's closet and with all of this appearing to be a classic case of "where there's smoke, there's fire," now we're in a place where Cable's job security is being debated as a result of these allegations (again some of them taking place nearly 20 years ago). It's at the point where the National Organization of Women has now taken a keen interest in Oakland Raiders football.

To be very clear, I think hitting a woman is the most cowardly thing anyone could do (unless of course it's by another woman and it happens in a food court at a grubby casino in California, then it's hilarious). But do we really need Tom Cable's abusive track record of "MMA fighter trapped in a fat husband's body" to fire him as coach of the Raiders?

​So the Yankees are World Champions. Yippee. Between watching Kobe tear out the Rockets' collective heart last night, and then having to flip over to Fox to watch Alex Rodriguez' post-game celebration (rehearsed in the mirror no fewer than 100 times, no doubt), November 4, 2009, will live in infamy as one of the darkest sports days of the year.

I will admit that I did watch most of the Yankees' post-game celebration, if for no other reason than post-game celebrations are a virtual smorgasbord of train-wreck interviews and unintentional comedy (see Buss, Joey). I mean, who doesn't love the canned answers of A-Roid, which are topped only by the canned answers (via translator!) of Hideki Matsui?

Conspicuous by his absence at the on field celebration, at least in the parts I saw, was Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. He may have shown up at some point, and if he did I apologize, but admittedly I was making bathroom runs every 45 seconds to go throw up again.

Cashman is one of the most intriguing people in baseball to me, not because he's particularly charismatic (or charismatic at all) but mostly because every time they show him in the owner's box at games he has a look on his face like he's simultaneously battling food poisoning and watching animal porn. I keep thinking someone needs to remind the guy that he is getting paid seven figures to construct a baseball team with the virtually bottomless checkbook of a senile old man. On the "job quality" scale, with 1 being "guy who empties portalets" and 10 being "a Maloof Brother," I would say Cashman's job is a solid 8.5. And yet aesthetically, the guy is one step above a skeleton.

Some of you may be wondering what Cashman would have said, if he'd been given the microphone. What would the man who had the guile and smarts to -- well, spend a shitload of George Steinbrenner's money -- have said to America?

Fortunately, my web of sources is vast, and it includes a flight attendant on the Yankees' charter flights. She's a little Swedish number named Svetlana, and she managed to find a rough copy of Cashman's championship acceptance speech in the seat pocket in front of Cashman's seat on the flight home from Philadelphia. (For those wondering, the speech had pink blotches of dripped Pepto Bismol all over the page, and Svetlana also found two empty bottles of Advil.)

So, without further ado, the deep thoughts of Brian Cashman on winning a World Series:

​I'm not afraid to admit it, I'm a huge fan of The Karate Kid. And I'm not just talking "guilty pleasure" fan.

No sir, not only do I actually own all three DVD's in the Karate Kid trilogy, but my Karate Kid III DVD actually has some scenes that skip because of wear and tear. Yeah, you heard me, the Karate Kid movie whose central storyline involved a Wall Street tycoon spending every waking moment of his day trying to figure out a way to mentally and physically destroy a skinny teenage kid from New Jersey has actually logged more Pendergast DVD time than The Godfather (and for the record, I love The Godfather).

I've named my fantasy football "Kobra Kai Dojo" for ten straight years (until this season when I changed it to "Tom Cable's Dojo"). I openly pine for the chunky version of Elisabeth Shue from the first Karate Kid movie. I make the Daniel Larusso "Yeah, I just scored a goal in bubble hockey!" Face after every goal I score in bubble hockey (anyone know where I can find bubble hockey in Houston, by the way?).

I actually dedicated an entire radio show to the 25th anniversary of the release of the first Karate Kid movie. Included in that show was an interview with Billy Zabka (the diabolical "Johnny Lawrence"), and to this day when people ask me "Who is the most famous person's phone number you have in your iPhone?" I immediately answer "BILLY ZABKA", not because he is the most famous, but it's the number I find to be the coolest. It's the Honus Wagner baseball card of celebrity phone numbers.

Why do I bring my Karate Kid fetish up, in a sports blog post of all places?

Well:

​(I want you all to watch in amazement while I introduce you to the literary technique known as the "shplegue". This stands for "shameless plug that turns into a segue." Watch and learn...)

I'm not sure how many of you have seen the web-based tragicomedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but this coming Monday at the River Oaks Theater is the world premiere of the unofficial prequel Horrible Turn, starring yours truly as Police Commissioner Tommy O'Chimina (and by "starring", I mean I'm in the movie for a solid 12 seconds, rocking a sick bobby hat no less).

A lot of people worked really hard to put this movie together; it will be interesting to watch it blow up virally (is that a word?) when it's released on the internet.

(Okay, now for the segue part of the shplegue ... )

(Wait for it .... )

(Wait for it .... )

Speaking of horrible turns (THERE IT IS!), the turn could have not have been more horrible for Texans tight end Owen Daniels on Sunday when his season ended in Buffalo with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Owen's been down this road, having suffered torn ACL's before, most notably his senior year in high school, so the rehabilitation and instinctually how he feels he's progressing along the way won't feel foreign to him.

​I hope everyone had a great weekend, and that you were all able to enjoy the nice weather by moving your television and recliner into your driveway to watch football on TV.  I'd like to start off by welcoming the Texans to this new thing for them called "November".  Boys, I know in the past this has typically been the month where you start making hotel reservations for your first post season golf trip (or if you're a wide receiver, this is the month you hope and pray that Andre Johnson makes the Pro Bowl and he brings you with him to Hawaii), but you need to know that for good teams this is when the season begins.  Games matter more, possessions are more valuable, and you need to bring it all 60 minutes.  You appear to be one of the "good teams this year.  Don't screw it up.

​Just cleaning up some random broken glass in my "Blog" folder on a Friday ...

Can You Guess This Team?

Channeling my inner Cosmo Kramer... WHO WANTS TO HAVE SOME FUN?! Ok, well, I'm going to describe a fairly well known football team to many of you, and after I'm finished describing them, see if you can guess what team it is! The answer is below. (Sorry, other than recommending you go print my NBA Preview post and spend a couple hours on the crapper, this is the best I can do to distract you from work right now.)

1. In his most recent job before becoming a head coach, this team's head coach was an offensive coordinator under a future NFL Hall of Famer.
2. The embattled coach is on a bit of a hot seat and probably needs to play a meaningful game in January to keep his job.
3. The team has had literally almost every game down to the last minute this season.
4. Two of their losses were in the final minute, complete with excruciating goal line drama.
5. This team's quarterback is finally putting up numbers in his third year with the team ... like silly numbers.
6. The team has arguably the best wide receiver in football, and one of the best tight ends.
7. The team has serious trouble running the ball sometimes despite a very talented starting tailback.
8. The defense has been suspect at times, but the run defense has been nails the last few weeks, including recently shutting down the leading rusher in football week before.
9. The most impactful first year player on the team is a difference making linebacker.
10. The secondary has been shuffling different combinations around this year, trying to find an answer, while making some very average quarterbacks look good.
11. The punter's last name is Turk.

​The biggest story locally this week has probably been the Astros hiring of Brad Mills. While some see it as the dawning of a new era for the Astros, I for one am sad to see the pageant that was Star Search 2009 end.

So many memories...watching Drayton and Tal parade all ten candidates around...hearing them each answer a couple questions from the media to test their poise (was really hoping for Ned Yost to go all Miss Teen South Carolina in that part)...but my favorite memory? I, for one, will always remember Manny Acta magically making himself disappear in the "talent" portion of the competition. Riveting.

As for Mills, I honestly don't know that much about him...and to me, that's actually a good thing. It means that Drayton McLane is not serving us some stale, recycled carcass like those nachos he carries in his pockets like so many nickels and dimes. Presumably, hiring someone with no association whatsoever with Drayton McLane and Tal Smith, and only a second-degree association with Ed Wade (like the Kevin Bacon game, stay with me ... Brad Mills sat next to Terry Francona for six years, Ed Wade fired Francona in Philadelphia. BINGO!), means that there will be fresh, new ideas.

Here is what I do know about Brad Mills:

PRO: Mills is completely bald. This is a good thing, as people automatically assume that 100 percent baldies in a position of power are bad-ass until they prove otherwise. Examples include UW defensive coordinator Nick Holt, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Michael Chiklis in The Shield.

PRO: Mills nickname is "Sarge". For a team whose veteran players need a kick in the ass, this is good news for Astro fans. Put it this way, I'd be even less enthused about 2010 if I found out Mills' nickname was Spanky, Slappy, or Booger.

​There are people who like to go to sporting events, there are people who would pay anything to go to sporting events, and then there are people who would pleasure a complete stranger for World Series tickets.

Meet Susan Finkelstein. If you haven't heard her story, she is a diehard Phillies fan in desperate need of some World Series tickets. So desperate is Susan to see Chase Utley and the boys bring home a World Series that she recently posted an ad on Craigslist that reads as follows: "Diehard Phillies fan-gorgeous tall buxom blonde- in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable-- I'm the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!"

"Gorgeous tall buxom" ... weird, she left out "humble". Uh, anyway, unlike most great prostitution anecdotes, this one does NOT have a happy ending.

Alas, Susan Finkelstein (mugshot after the jump) was arrested when she clarified exactly what she meant by "help each other" and tried to "help" an undercover police officer take off his pants in exchange for his World Series tickets. BUSTED! (Note: According to her Facebook page, Susan Finkelstein is a grad student at the University of Pennsylvania. You'd think an Ivy Leaguer, possibly a Wharton Business School student, would come up with a better plan than "(a) find someone with tickets, (b) screw their brains out, (c) head to game," but I guess not.)

(Note #2: Yes, I have asked her to be my friend on Facebook.)

(Note #3: No, she hasn't responded yet. Keeping my fingers crossed.)

​Pretty much every social instinct I employ comes from George Costanza of Seinfeld fame.  (... and yes, the fact that it's been 11-plus years since the Seinfeld finale means I officially have to remind people who George Costanza was.)

*"Whatever your instincts tell you to do, do the opposite."

"It's not a lie, if you believe it."

But my favorite Costanza-ism of all time is George's parting shot in any relationship on which he has soured ... "It's not you, it's me." You see, despite the fact that George hates almost everyone, he can't stand to have people hate him, so he just tells his soon-to-be-discarded significant other "It's not you, it's me".

TRANSLATION: This relationship ending is completely a result of my gross dysfunction; you're fine, you're great, you'll find someone better than me at any deli checkout line.

The relationship Texans fans have with their team is not unlike a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship -- the highs are very high, the lows are very low, we constantly question what the hell we're doing in this relationship, and we threaten to break up at least three or four times a month. (By the way, the same can be said for nearly every NFL team and its fans.) Of course, inevitably, most of us stick around for more abuse, because even in years like 2005 where we only "got laid" twice, the hope that there would be years where we "get laid" 10, 11, hell maybe even 12 times (!) is too enticing to walk away. (Let's not even discuss the whole "getting laid in late January on South Beach" thing ... baby steps, people.)

​I will get the pleasantries out of the way ....

My name is Sean Pendergast, and I am a sports talk show host at 1560 The Game.

I realize that sentence has the sound and feel of a self-introduction at an AA meeting (and carries with it more similarities than you'd think), but I figure simplicity is best as I begin contributing to the blogosphere here on the Houston Press website.  My entries will, for the most part, be sports-related (not always, though) and pertinent to Houston (not always, though).

Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, please know that I have taken a vow of silence on the dog-and-pony show that is the Astros "managerial search" until it's over. I see you working, Drayton. Go find a jillion candidates, parade them around for the press like cattle at the livestock show so your ball club keeps a few inches in the local paper in the middle of football season and an Astro-less MLB postseason.  You can swindle me into your ten dollar nachos, but I'm not falling for this.  Wake me up when you've chosen the poor shlub who gets to manage this team to 65 wins next year ... or at least wake me up for the swimsuit competition. Manny Acta in a one piece ...that'll be interesting.

If you follow sports at all, you know the big story this past week has not been the MLB Playoffs or the Red River Shootout (and yes, it's a SHOOTOUT; please, stop being so sensitive, people), but instead the revelation that ESPN, in addition to televising sporting events worldwide, is also running what amounts to a corporate brothel (in Bristol, Connecticut, of all places!).