Bearing down on the quarter pole

39 games under their belt, the Blud ‘n’ Mudders sit atop the Central by 1 game, a tidy 9 games above .500 which is the best record on the Senior Circuit. There’s been some oddities for the team: Ensberg’s cold start; Redding’s frigid start; and Roy O’s inability to garner a win despite pitching well. There’s been some fantastic positives too: Clemens; Miceli; Berkman; Everett and even Ausmus.

The Cubs, as expected, are right there, despite having Prior, Wood and now Sosa struck down by the BBGs. Alou must be slaughtering chickens like he’s Colonel Sanders. It will be interesting to see how things go once we (finally) play each other head-to-head. As last year, the Cubs’ stretch run is the soft part of their schedule, so the Astros need to put them away early and often to avoid repeating last year’s disappointment.Read More

It took a couple of days, but after Clemens grabbed hold of the Can o’ OrangeWhoopAss and shook it up on April 7, the Astros have been riding a wave. Who knows how long this run will continue, or if it will still be ongoing by the time this piece is posted, but 9-2 since that glorious day is blitzkrieg in its most literal sense.

It has been a joy to watch. For the most part, each facet of the game has picked up the others when they’ve faltered. Admittedly, on two occasions, the defense looks like all 8 position players arrived at the game in one VW Bug, but there have been some games where the leather has been flashing like Vegas at Christmas. Even without the services of Pettitte, the pitching has been fantastic (AP’s fateful start and AutoPop’s ignominious outings notwithstanding). But replacements Backe and Gallo have been great, while Duckworth has taken up enough of the slack to allow the offense to win.

Remember: Short, Controlled Bursts

Oh, the offense! Almost everyone is playing over their head. Biggio’s shorter swing has allowed him to lay off the low-and-away shit yet still give him gap-power. Bagwell claims that his high walk numbers are because he’s fouling off a lot of pitches instead of hitting them, yet he’s still hitting near .400! Hidalgo is just a brute, and must put the fear of FrankenBarry into pitchers at the moment. Berkman has come alive, even poking a granny right-handed (only in a baseball forum is that an acceptable phrase).Read More

On the eve of baseball in MMPUS, I find myself at a loss for words. Not the words that comprise the rubbish I dump in the TZ on a regular basis, of course, that I can still do. But for the words that comprise the more expansive, grandiloquent rubbish that I serve up as an excuse for an ego column. Much like “The Daily Show” suffering an identity crisis this week when they had Richard Clark in studio: “Are we still a fake news program?”, I find myself with a yen to write a pre-OD column yet I have nothing to say. Does that make me like all the other, allegedly legitimate, online sports journalists? Am I no longer a fake columnist? It’s enough to drive one to drink!

Is this is what Spring Training is like for YankeeFan every year? A roster that’s virtually set? Boringly consistent good play? A comfy execution of the motions required to start the campaign proper? Timely and positive roster moves? I hope that this is merely the product of a spectacularly good off-season by the team’s management, rather than an unspeakable April Fool being shat upon us by the BBGs. To set us up like this, only to rip the rug out would be cruelty beyond reason.

Strangely, I am reminded of a moment from my youth (Warning: rambling, self-aggrandising, allegorical stretch to follow).Read More

“There’s only one thing in the World worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about”

Finally, pitchers and catchers reporting for duty has meaning outside of State Penitentiaries. Many of them will be pulling on different uniforms in different backwater shit-holes of Florida and Arizona. Of obvious interest to us but, due to a couple of notable moves made by other clubs, of little interest in the media any more, is the first action seen by Pettitte and Clemens as Astros.

But how far has this story dropped off the media radar scope? Look no further than our own, venerable Houston Chronicle, which leads its baseball section with a photo of Billy Wagner in a Phillies’ valet parking uni practicing his very necessary self-defense skills.

To be honest, the recent indifference of the media to the Astros is not a problem. When they focus the watery half-light of their collective intellect on our team, they invariably miss the point, re-hash old cliches and get things flat out wrong. Who needs that? Plus, when it comes to missed points, tired cliches and inaccuracy, one needs to look no further than Limey Time.Read More

The Racket. Rahjah. Team Bastard. All were intentionally derogative terms hurled at Roger Clemens and his agents. Having tickled our collective scrotum last time Clemens was a free agent, these twin (triple?) pillars deception kicked us squarely in the bollocks by signing with the Evil Empire. History shows that Clemens got what he wanted, a World Series ring, but it also shows that he received some shabby treatment from Herr Steinbrenner and also engaged in a curious, one-sided feud with Mike Piazza. (I agree with David Wells, if that’d been me, that shard of bat would still be jammed up Clemens’ arse).

As a result, Clemens became something of a pariah around these parts.

But then an odd thing happened. He retired, in all likelihood to allow the opportunity to compete in this year’s Olympic Games in Athens. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. The US Olympic team was dumped unceremoniously out of the qualifying stages and The Racket found himself without a gig for the coming summer. Then Andy Pettitte signed with Houston. Then a radio station gave him a Hummer (NTTAWWT). Then the town many called his own, finally embraced it’s wayward…umm…neighbour from 50 miles west.Read More

What the hell? The Astros sign Andy Pettitte, the Coalition scoops up Saddam and the Dow takes up permanent residence above 10,000 (you heard it here first, folks). The Holidays have come early to the good folks of Astrodom, and there may yet be more…

But first things first: this week, I shall be mostly wearing Coco Chanel.

Team Bastard

Now back to the insults. The brothers Hendricks, those arrogant shysters who rubbed our noses in dog shit last time they were hawking a name arm in these parts, seemingly enjoyed a change of heart more pronounced and unlikely than that of James Caan in “Elf”. Suddenly, the Astros were not a stick with which to whack the Yacht Captain and McLane’s offer was not simply bum-fodder. With his home town beckoning and the warmest of welcomes from an owner who was not behaving like John Lithgow obsessing about an over-thruster, Pettitte took time out from his son’s recital to call Santa’s Little Helpers and tell them to make a deal with our ‘Stros. The deal was struck, and the Hendricks’ heart (they have one between them which they keep in a vault) grew three times that day.Read More