Attendance is down. Everyone knows that to be true, as well as the reasons for it.  When the economy, specifically the fear (thanks, media) of the future of the economy, joins a tag team with a piss-poor baseball product, attendance is going to get suplexed from the top rope.  I’ve seen the numbers, and watched games on television, so of course I know attendance is down, but I hadn’t really felt it before Sunday.  Despite the reported attendance (tickets sold) of 30,023, (nearly 11,000 less than capacity), the actual AIS count felt like much, much less.  There were no lines to speak of at any of the concession stands or restrooms.  The ushers weren’t preventing people from coming down to better seats.  Even reasonably sure that everyone in attendance got at least 20 seconds of camera time on the Kiss Cam. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the problems with writing a column for this site is that by the time any coherent thoughts get put together, it’s been coveredad nauseum in the Talk Zone.   Between hoping for another appearance of Jeffster and watching playoff basketball, I’ve started and stopped columns about Lance Berkman’s “career-ending” slump, the apparently chronic disconnect between Cecil Cooper’s mouth and his experience, the surprisingly good starting pitching, the shaky start by the bullpen, Hunter Pence’s lack-o-smarts, and a bunch of other issues that the Zone Dwellers have already turned into a particularly tender breathing-challenged equine.  It may be why NO ONE ELSE is currently writing a column*, but I digress.

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For those of you who were expecting this on the actual off day this week, I can only assume that you’re numb due to the disappointment that the Astros have been so far, and this is just one more step towards the edge of the cliff.

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The only person who might be happy about Brian Moehler’s performance in the rubber game of the series is Brandon Backe, who might need some combination of injury and miracle to pitch for Houston this year. If you missed it, Brian Moehler gave up seven earned runs in just a hair less than two innings, opening the season with a robust 37.80 earned-run average. He wasn’t necessarily rocked around the park, giving up single, single, double, walk, single, single, single in the first, and single, HBP, single before getting an early shower. Before you could make it down to the good seats with a Star Dog, the good guys were down 8 to nothing. Combined with an anemic performance in the opener, Houston opens 1-2, and the Talkzone notwithstanding, isn’t exactly inspiring sonnets.

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When we last saw the Chicago Cubs, they were busy taking credit for the work of an unholy alliance between Hurricane Ike and Allan Huber “Bud” Selig. While somewhere between 2 and 3 million residents of the Texas Gulf Coast were clearing tree debris and having all you can eat BBQ parties (because that’s all that happens during a Hurricane…one big party after another), the Astros were busy bugging out to play a home series in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Even if you believe that Pangea was a reality, it’s tough to work out the geography. Read the rest of this entry »

This week in Astros’ baseball has been so horrific, so remarkably putrid, it’s almost beyond words. I haven’t checked the Chronicle or Astros.com today, but I fully expect to see some perspective pieces soon…the kind that make you realize that baseball is just a game and in the grand scheme of things doesn’t mean all that much.  Like the one about the transgendered left-handed midget albino eskimo kid fighting against the odds to get grass to grow on the Tundra just to honor the memory of his parents who were killed when a truck full of rancid blubber caught fire while they were trying to get him to a try-out for the Mat-Su Miners.  When you read about all of the issues kids like that have, how can you be upset that Wesley Wright grooved a couple of meatballs to the Yankees sunday?  This is what we call a distraction.

For instance, you might not notice that the paragraph you just read doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense after seeing this:

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