The Co-Ards have had trouble with pitching all year. From the extraordinary, untimely death of Darryl Kile to run of the mill injuries to Woody Williams and all points in between. So what do they go and do? Trade away two pitchers, that’s what they do. Whaaaaa?

OK. So Rolen is an upgrade over Polanco at 3B. His defense is special, and it does the Co-Ards the huge favour of keeping Pujols off the hot corner. Of course, this puts AlbErt into LF where he’s rapidly garnering a reputation every bit as good as Dimitry Young. ESPN says that this is a good thing because Pujols hits better when he plays LF. Huh?

With the stick, Rolen has better plate discipline and more pop than Placido. But then Polanco hit #2 most of the time, so they’re not really comparable in the line up. I await with baited breath what arrangement Co Russa will make out of this. What I do know is, Rolen will have to generate a shit load of runs. (more…)

So. Drayton’s losing money and is threatening to sell the club if there’s a strike. Well he better get his e-bay posting ready, because here it comes folks.

Did anyone hear Richard Justice on 610AM today (7/17)? Apparently, the owners vs. players meetings have been so bad that at one point a players’ rep. (not Fehr) and an owner (Angelos I think he said) got into it pretty hard and started f-bombing each other. The players’ rep. stormed out of the room and had to be calmed down.

The owners say that they’ve put a comprehensive offer to the players, but have heard nothing. The players’ reps say that they’ve made concessions to the owners, but aren’t getting any feedback. The players are making Selig the issue; the owners are making steroids the issue. Bud wants to tour the locker rooms because he doesn’t trust Fehr’s boys to be disseminating the correct information (no one has yet suggested that he wants to tour because he misses getting to see the players naked).

It’s Armageddon time, people. Grab yer ankles and kiss MLB goodbye. (more…)

Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.

The favorite sport of many who call themselves fans of the Houston Astros does not appear to be baseball.  Their favorite sport seems to be “Jimy-bashing,” and it looks like a very easy game to master.  To be an accomplished practitioner, one has to take note of decisions or moves Jimy Williams makes during games, keep absolutely silent if the decisions work and, in the most strident tones possible, rail at or ridicule the ones that do not work.  There is no way the Jimy-basher can be wrong because he or she only points out decisions that have not turned out well for the Astros.  The refrain is if Jimy had only … everything would have been different and better.  Jimy-bashers have raised second-guessing to an art form and are infallible.  To confirm this, just ask them.  Jimy Williams gets bashed in Texas and other Astros environs, but second-guessing a baseball manager or coach is part of our national fabric. (more…)

By Scott
Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com on July 11, 2002.

So I don’t write much around here, but I figured in the wake of the recent turmoil and our decision to hang ‘em up after 6 years, I should probably chime in to 1) remind everyone that I exist and 2) just talk a bit about what the experience of running this site with Kev has meant to me. If you’re not interested in the nuts and bolts of the site or my personal ramblings, you can check out now and save yourself some time. But I figure there’s been a lot worse crap written on this site, and if that can fly as content, well then I think y’all can tolerate me for a spell. (more…)

Third place, 6.5 games out, 41-45 wouldn’t have sounded too promising leaving spring training. Given where the Astros looked to be heading a couple of weeks ago, though, it’s a fairly decent accomplishment. Since dropping three of four to the Brewers and two of three to the Mariners in mid-June, the Astros have run off 10 wins in 13 games, moving to within four games of .500. That’s progress considering that the Astros finished the Seattle series 10 games below even.

(more…)

Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.
 

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel…

Queasy. Even though I’ve known this announcement was coming for a couple of weeks, seeing it glowing ominously on my CRT this morning, it still feels like a sharp shot to the gut, and makes it all too real.

So whether this site exists until the end of the week or the end of the season, to steal from the “Naked Gun”, I feel like I’ve swallowed a gallon of Clorox…I’m cleaned out but I’m all hollow inside. The truth is, I feel like I’m writing a eulogy for a dear friend. (more…)

I am sure that we will never no the true effort required of the Fearless Hosts to keep this site going. I know that I can lob them a Limey Time at my whim, and find it online within hours if not minutes. The dedication and attention this site has received from it’s founders is clear to us all, and I believe that we all understand K&S’s decision to pull the plug.

Personally, I doubt my Astro-fandom would’ve reached the ridiculous levels it has without this site. As many of you know, I arrived in Houston in March 1994 and became an instant Rockets’ fan as I was swept up in “Clutch City” fever. I’d followed what you call “football” from across the pond and so baseball was a distant third on my list of sports in which to become interested. To my ill-informed mind, it was nothing but a bastardisation of a girls game called “Rounders”, and just a poor man’s cricket. (more…)

OK, so they haven’t exactly set the Central alight, but the Astros are creeping back into things. There’s one game left in Cincy as I type - a favorable pitching match-up for the Juicers - and Astros sit 6.5 games out of 2nd place with a chance to shrink that down to 5.5 tonight. With Roy on the mound and Berkman swinging for the fences, you have to fancy the Astros’ chances tonight. And did you know that Blud ‘n’ Mudders are 5-0 in their last five 1-run games?

However, after that it’s off to Pittsburgh, where things might get a little rougher. You see, the Astros have a sparkling rotation set for the wrap-around in PNC: Redding; Munro; Cruz and Miller. Yikes! Mlicki is due back at some point, but Hernandez may need surgery (MRI today or tomorrow) and Shane is definitely done for the year. The Astros are probably going to have a hole in their rotation for the rest of the season. Now that they’ve abandoned the B-Movie experiment of “The Sarloos Project” and beamed Kirk back down to the minors, the Astros will need Hernandez back and healthy, or Munro to be what no one’s ever expected him to be. That’s a tall order. (more…)

Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.
Much has been written about the ability of a catcher to “handle pitchers.”  If a catcher cannot relate well to his pitching staff and does not have their confidence, he cannot help them to maximize their performance and his value to the team is diminished substantially.  Generally accepted notions are that “calling a good game” is the main component of being a “good handler of pitchers” and that calling pitches is what makes a catcher valuable to a team and its pitchers.  Although it is true that the catcher-pitcher relationship is important to a pitcher’s success, calling pitches rarely is a significant aspect of a catcher’s game.  The purpose of this article is to examine the attributes that contribute to a successful relationship between batterymates.  Many of the skills which endear a catcher to his pitching staff may go unnoticed by the casual fan, and if a great catcher is not a run-producing hitter, many fans may not appreciate his worth to the team and may not consider him to be great at all. (more…)

2002

Well, it is that time of year again. A time to look upon the best and worst of TZ. But this year’s TZ Hall of Fame Spectacular is even more significant! Why, you ask? Because this year’s event WILL BE THE LAST IN THE HISTORY OF TZ!

There have always been reasons to stop doing this, but the main one this time around is that 2002 is going to be the final season for ASTROSCONNECTION.COM. Kev & Scott made a decision back during spring training to make this year the last hurrah, and make the announcement during what we consider the most important days on the ASTROSCONNECTION calendar - the July HOF activities during MLB’s All Star break. So here we are, ready to receive our plaques, bronze busts and custom Harley Davidsons from a grateful and heartbroken nation as we set out on the farewell tour.
Additionally, there has been speculation over the past few days as to whether or not ASTROSCONNECTION had received a “cease and desist” letter from MLB. Indeed, such a letter was received at ASTROSCONNECTION World Headquarters on Friday afternoon. While the Fearless Hosts are certainly aggravated that MLB’s legal initiative undercuts some of the drama of today’s announcement, we have always made it a policy to inform our loyal audience and the TZ community of any developments that potentially impact the function of the website. The possibility of MLB squaring off against the Big Freight Train is something that had been planned for, and we can tell you that for the record, Kev & Scott’s intent remains exactly as it was at the start of the year, to go the distance of the 2002 Astros season, whether that winds up being mid-August, early October, or heaven forbid, late October… and then blow this thing sky high.

Of course, updates on the status of the site will be provided as necessary, but right now consider it business as usual around here until seasons’ end. For complete info on our decision to retire from the Astro web community however, you can check out a special issue of the Pine Tar Rag.

We are sure that you have questions, and we have plenty of answers, but we’ve already wasted enough space in the hallowed halls of the TZ HOF on this. Again, a complete statement on the Fearless Hosts’ decision to shag and their perspective on MLB’s current actions can be viewed in the special Pine Tar Rag issue.

All right… here are the FINAL TZ HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES. As usual, some of this stuff contains bad language, and just about all of it is inappropriate, so proceed at your own risk. At the bottom of the page, we identify the 2002 TalkZone MVP, the last individual who will hoist the coveted Golden Scott Award aloft in victorious fashion… (more…)