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Goooooooal Tending: Rockets Beat Suns, Make Playoffs on Bizarre Final Play

"What a long strange trip it's been." -- The Grateful Dead It is fitting in a season as crazy as this one that the young Rockets' road to the playoffs would ultimately come down to a game, a play and a call like the ones that occurred Tuesday night at Toyota Center. All season, the Rockets have don ... More >>

The Screwball Economics of Major League Baseball

As another season begins, MLB faces an unsustainable future - and you're picking up the tab.

Cabo 2013: Your Johnny Football Spring Break Update!

On Monday, I compared the Houston Texans in free agency to the Wheel of Fortune shopper that scooped a meager, one-letter-remaining puzzle for a few hundred bucks. That description would imply that the Texans are at least doing some shopping. In reality, thus far, they've been more like the dude wh ... More >>

When Beer PR Goes Flat: A Review of Crazy Mountain's Beer Lineup and Its Less Successful PR Strategy

Does anyone actually enjoy watching athletes get interviewed? The answers range anywhere from the all-too-common scripted response or -- more typically -- wander into completely nonsensical banality. If you're truly lucky, the interviews will go beyond the latter into the soundbyte ridden ramblings ... More >>

Dallas Baseball Fans Suck, Former Ranger Star Josh Hamilton Says

Josh Hamilton is no longer a Texas Ranger, meaning the Dallas-Fort Worth area is deprived of its chance to spot the recovering alcoholic in bars and be subjected yet again to his Jesus-centric quotes. Maybe he should stick to proselytizing, because all he's doing now is pissing off Dallas fans. Ha ... More >>

New Orleans Braces For Super Bowl XLVII Onslaught As Future Of The Game Is Debated

Excited tension hung heavy in the air in New Orleans on Monday evening as the coming Super Bowl XLVII super-storm of tourist dollars began to filter into town. Most streets downtown near convention center are already cordoned off. There are NFL banners blanketing the city. The Mercedes-Benz Superd ... More >>

A.J. McCarron's Hot Girlfriend Will Be Bikini Clad On A Reality Diving Show

The clock is ticking on Katherine Webb's 15 minutes of fame, and to say that she is striking while the iron is hot would be putting it mildly. If you are asking "Who in the blue hell is Katherine Webb?" then you don't read headlines of my stories very closely let's go back to Monday night, January ... More >>

2012: My Fave Fifteen, 15 Posts I Enjoyed Writing and (I Think) You Enjoyed Reading

A few years ago during the dog days of summer, in an attempt to fill air time with not much else going on, ESPN came up with this gimmick segment called "Who's Now?" Basically, they matched up various sports figures in a bracket style tournament and then had random celebrities (sports and Hollywood) ... More >>

The Owls Aim To Soar Into The New Year

The minor bowl games are usually boring. These games often feature not-so-epic battles between two teams who finished sixth or seventh in their respective conferences and who usually don't even have a winning record. These games generally exist as nothing but programming for ESPN and in which the st ... More >>

Texans-Vikings: 4 Winners, 71,688 Losers

There were 71,688 (mostly) Texan fans in Reliant Stadium on Sunday. It's been a while since they've trudged back out to the Blue Lot feeling like they did on Sunday after the Minnesota Vikings' methodical 23-6 dismantling of the home team. The Packers game earlier this year while unacceptable was un ... More >>

Bo Knows Bo: Bo Jackson Turns 50 Years Old, Smashes Old Age Over His Knee

Today Bo Jackson turns 50 years old. The former baseball and football star was one of the most exciting players to watch in the late '80s and early '90s. He was able to incite excite in not sports fans young and old. Dem legs, you guys. And he knew how to sell shoes. He did double-duty with t ... More >>

Texans-Jets: 4 Winners, 4 Losers, The World Learns About J.J. Watt Edition

Well, it wasn't sexy, it wasn't pretty, and it was actually a whole lot closer than most people thought it would be, but the Texans escaped northern New Jersey with a 23-17 win over the New York Jets. After the game, most Texan fans on Twitter were more interested in breaking down what went wrong ( ... More >>

J.J. Watt Saves Texans From Prime-Time Embarrassment

Things didn't turn out quite as planned -- for Texan fans, tonight was supposed to be a dominating effort introducing the team to the national stage -- but a win's a win, right? And this win was due in large part to the hands and skill of J.J. Watt, who got drooled over by the ESPN announcers as he ... More >>

2012 College Football Media Days, From Best to Most All-Out Painful

A few years ago, ESPN anointed the various college football media days as the unofficial start to the season. We get it. Folks are starved for some mutha-effing football so placing an artificial start date on the season and posting previews and interviews is going to get media outlets a hell of a l ... More >>

July 4th Travesty: Joey Chestnut's Annual Hot Dog Beatdown To Be Tape Delayed!

First and foremost, I want to wish a very happy Independence Day to all of the people who read this blog and listen to my radio show, and more than anything else pay thanks and tribute to all of our troops past, present, and future who protect our freedom. Their bravery and sacrifice is exemplary. ... More >>

Comment of the Day: Passionate Sports Talk Radio Fans Debate Host Rankings

We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning or afternoon from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula i ... More >>

Jerry Rice Doesn't Really Grasp the Whole "Stock Market" Concept (w/ VIDEO)

Not read by Jerry Rice.​It seems like every retired NFL player with any small modicum of celebrity over the last decade has found his way onto television, either on the NFL Network or ESPN. The amount of money that is spent on salaries for largely repetitive, and oftentimes useless, opinions h ... More >>

UT Sports, George Greanias: The Turkeys of the Year Runners-Up

Almost, but not quite​Not everyone can be a winner. Not everyone can be such a loser that they become a Houston Press Turkey of the Year. But while we don't give out participation ribbons, we do think there were some candidates who only barely eked out our 2011 winners. So we salute these in ... More >>

Five Reasons Why Texas A&M Needs to Elope to the SEC

​Hey, Texas A&M and the Southeastern Conference: Get a room already! Then get married or whatever because this idle flirtation, which has been going on for years, is getting tired. For the past few weeks, a potential move by A&M to the SEC has become a hot topic, especially after the A&M Boar ... More >>

UH Football Announces Two More Start Times for 2011 Season

​Today, the University of Houston announced two more start times for the football team's highly anticipated run at a Conference USA championship. The September 24 match-up against the Bill Curry-led Georgia State Panthers, which is entering just its second season of competitive football, will ... More >>

UH Moves Three Football Games to Thursday Night For TV

Thursday Night Lights for UH​UH has announced that three of the upcoming season's games will be moved to Thursday nights to get TV exposure, including the Bayou Bucket game Road games at UTEP and Tulane will be on Thursday, and the bragging-rights contest against Rice will be played under th ... More >>

And in the End: 20 Final Thoughts on the Final Four

John RoyalLeAnn all dressed up for a white wedding.​In an attempt to wipe that awful excuse for a basketball game on Monday night from my head, I thought I would purge a few things still running through from my mind about the whole Final Four weekend. So... 1. I like attractive women. And ... More >>

Drink Up, Texas

Sunday liquor sales to close budget gap.

Andre Johnson Goes To School

Photos by Dawn McGeeAndre Johnson gets team coverage​After being postponed by an injury, Texans star receiver Andre Johnson made his annual visit to Bastian Elementary today, hot on the heels of his clutch game-winning TD catch Sunday.Johnson has more or less adopted Bastian, and the kids can't se ... More >>

Houston Texans Turn The Corner -- 5 Winners, 5 Losers

Neil Rackers -- He's no Kris Brown​I shouldn't enjoy carnage as much as I do, but I have to admit that a few hours after Neil Rackers' 35-yard field goal sailed through the uprights, sending the Houston Texans to an improbable 30-27 overtime win over the Washington Redskins yesterday afternoon, My ... More >>

What Were You Doing Two Years Ago? Hoping The Power Would Come On

No, you're not getting your ESPN​Two years ago, if you were living in Houston, you were beginning your long, long journey of post-Ike living without electricity.Maybe you were very, very lucky, or maybe you were one of those people who planned ahead and got a generator, but chances instead are tha ... More >>

HISD Payola

Kids get money for homework

UH Opens Season Like It Should, And In Front Of A Sellout Crowd

Case Keenum gets off to a hot start​Playing a school like Texas State to open up a football season is never quite as easy as it looks. Just ask Michigan and Ole Miss.The Houston Cougars were very aware of the upset possibilities, and they were very aware of the opposite danger, that they could a ... More >>

Game Time: LeBron James: The Decision -- You Suck, ESPN

LeBron is Cleveland's new "Cuyahoga River on fire"​"It's been a real humbling experience to be in this position." -- LeBron James on his self-requested, one hour made-for-LeBron TV special on ESPNIf you lived in Houston at the time, you remember September 13, 2008. That was the morning after Hurr ... More >>

Jay Mohr

The creator of Last Comic Standing stops off in Houston

The Week In TV: So Long, Julia Sugarbaker

Even with my dependable shows in reruns, it feels good to be back in the stern embrace of David Simon. This was the week in TV Land: • Thank God for Hulu, you know? The video site is the only reason I actually keep up with Saturday Night Live most weeks. The show's had a real hard-on for tweens ... More >>

Game Time: The Definitive Sports "How To" Blog Post

​In a week that saw me have to write my eulogy to Corey Haim and on the cusp of one of the best sports weeks of the year, I'm going to use this Friday post to breathe easy a little bit and let someone else do the heavy lifting. More on this in a second....First, a couple of housecleaning items:-- ... More >>

Most Downloaded "Hope For Haiti" Texan? Although She Killed, Not Beyonce

Between fighting crime, reducing global warming, mending our socks and, you know, everything else Rocks Off does when we're away from the office, we caught a good bit of Friday evening's "Hope for Haiti" telethon. We didn't have much choice, because the George Clooney-organized, celebrity-packed fu ... More >>

Chronicle Drops the Ball on Texans' Illegal Drills

I think it's pretty common knowledge that the newspaper industry is in pretty bad shape. Reporters, editors, support staff, etc. are being laid off left and right. I think anyone who reads the Chronicle on a daily basis can see how that paper has been hit by this - smaller sections, more wire sto ... More >>

John Royal's Top 25 Random Baseball Facts

There's this new list craze going around Facebook in which you list 25 random things about yourself. And the geniuses at the Big League Stew baseball blog got hold of this and made it into a list of 25 Random Things About Yourself As It Relates to Baseball. Thus... 1. I am happiest in a baseball ... More >>

John Royal's Top 25 Random Baseball Facts

There's this new list craze going around Facebook in which you list 25 random things about yourself. And the geniuses at the Big League Stew baseball blog got hold of this and made it into a list of 25 Random Things About Yourself As It Relates to Baseball. Thus... 1. I am happiest in a baseball ... More >>

A Dream Team for Barack Obama

Ten Rejected Hockey Names for Sarah Palin's Sixth Child

Savage Sports Fans and Mexican Overcrowding

Miguel Tejada, If That’s Your Real Name…

Leave Chris Berman the !@$&#% Alone

New Year's Resolutions

The College Football Preview, Week Six: The Red River Showdown, the Tears of Touchdown Jesus, the Glory of the Rice Owls

The College Football Preview, Week Four: Longhorns in Jail and Cougars with Excuses

Houston Chopper

Meet Roman Blum, the next TV biker star

Shallow Pop

Bernie Mac needs three more hits. He won't likely find one here.

More of the Same

Houston braces for an invasion of TV news

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