Going back to the well a second time in the space of a week is pretty ambitious. It’s not really that soon, though, as my debut effort had been written for about a week before K&S got it up on the site. There was a delay while they made room for me in the database – suddenly Dierker’s recent quote about shoveling ten pounds of (manure) into a 5-pound bag seems relevant. Of course, Breedlove went for two columns in as many days, and look what happened to him! The “Brushback” feature doesn’t even get a link on the front page any more.

Franklin

The Astros kissed off their very un-special, lefty specialist this week. Unable to get out hitters of any orientation, Wayne has languished in the Astros system. The only thing of note he’s done is to cause some of the TZ Popes to get all in a tizzy about his presence on the 40-man roster, exposing some of the potential talent on the farm to the Rule 5 draft.

Hipolito Pichardo takes his place, ensuring that the tizzyness over unprotected prospects will continue. Read the rest of this entry »

To break the trend of previous MVP Award recipients, I have decided to increase my presence on the site rather than disappear into the miasma. Kev and Scott have foolishly granted me this corner of AstrosConnection forever England, and I intend to use it. At least twice.

What can you expect? Well, there’ll be shite-loads of nugatory humor, exegeses on all things Euro, fuliginous pop culture references, catechization of the Astros and grandiloquence out the ying-yang.

Let’s start with the Astros, shall we? For almost the entire off-season, all we’d seen the club do is say “TTFN” to some talented, some not so talented but useful, some talented, useful but injury tainted free agents?and Scott Servais. In return they gave us cult hero C.J., fellow Meaty-Cheesy Boy T.J. and a bunch of never-wases like Tripp Cromer. Read the rest of this entry »

Last season the Brewers shattered the major-league club record by striking out 1,399 times, eclipsing the mark of 1,268 set by the 1996 Tigers. As power-hitting has come to dominate the game, increasingly more players are swinging for the fences with whip-handled bats that generate tremendous speed over the plate. Coupled with changes to the strike zone in 2001, the result for the Brewers was lots of home runs and lots of strikeouts.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Neil T.
Editor’s note – This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com on February 5, 2002.

I promise this has something to do with baseball, and not just my children. Bear with me.

I have two children. Austin is my daughter. She’s 15 and she’s Ivy League smart, very pretty, and very talented. She is more fun to go to a baseball game with than anyone I know. She yells with joy at every strike and despises the wave. Read the rest of this entry »