“Can you really not be aware we’ve been building a RICO case against Tony Soprano for five f**king years? And then you blow this popcorn fart?” — Federal agent to local prosecutor in Sopranos episode “Soprano Home Movies”
“Popcorn fart” is an appropriate term (actually, it’s probably somewhat inappropriate if you’re at a dinner party in River Oaks or something) to describe this summer of sports so far in Houston for our professional teams, each of them taking various swings at trying to remain moderately interesting and thereby giving freelance bloggers, like yours truly, something (ANYTHING) about which to write.
The Texans have tried — Lord, have they tried. I mean, we had a good ol’ fashioned performance enhancing drug (PED, for children of the Steroid Era) scandal with Brian Cushing that included the following:
1.) An athlete testing positive for a hormone found most often in pregnant women (Manny Ramirez nods in dimwitted approval)
2.) Revelation of Fox’s Jay Glazer as the biggest hothead jock-sniff in the free world.
3.) An unprecedented re-vote (and show of sanctimony by AP voters) for the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year award.
4.) Cushing ultimately dropping a mention of fear of tumors (like real casually, like bizarre casually, like they were zits or something) that plagued him throughout the 2009 season
I managed to suck five blog posts out of that week-plus worth of drama, but in the end, Brian Cushing could have stepped up to the microphone that fateful Thursday and, in French, said that alien dustmites crawled up his lower intestine and planted hCG pods in his blood stream and we would have forgotten about it in two days.
It’s football. Guys juice up. We get it. Go win games, And stop getting suspended.
Ultimately (and somewhat amazingly), it became nothing. Popcorn fart.
Andre Johnson, for every shred of all-world physical ability that he
has in his body, did his best to give the Texans a storyline worthy of
hand-wringing and national attention by holding out of voluntary
organized team activities, but even he could only keep that facade of
“me first” up for three days before rejoining his teammates in the Texas
heat and whacking his family members doubling as “agents” hiring new representation to negotiate a new long-term deal.
Hell, in this day and age where “obscure equals surreal,” it’s
actually far more entertaining when a fourth or fifth wide receiver like
Patrick Crayton or Sam Hurd act like they deserve the
privileges of a Pro Bowler by demanding a trade and lamenting how an employer is
“messing with people’s careers and lives.” Well, I guess if by
“messing with people’s careers,” Patrick, you mean “drafting a player at
your position who is worlds better than you” then I guess,
yeah…guilty as charged.
I mean, I guarantee that a David Anderson holdout and/or trade demand
would be a jillion times more entertaining than Andre Johnson’s three
days worth of posturing during OTA’s. To wit, I give you his ESPN
video of his trip to Prague and his
near scrap with Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle that took place right in my very studio.
Yeah, a D.A. contract dispute, while possibly not ending well for
D.A. nor fans of infotainment, would be a highly infotaining ride.
So sorry, Dre. Your little “stay away”? Popcorn fart.
As for the Astros, for all of his greatness on the mound this year
(despite his 3-7 record) there’s only so much that Roy Oswalt can do to
keep us interested in baseball when the team is on pace to lose 108
games. Skipping out on a media session here and there, demanding mentioning that he wouldn’t have a problem with a trade
a trade
to a contender, and having the overall stat profile of Walter Johnson
with a won-loss record of Walter Matthau (or as I like to call him, the
Real Buttermaker…suck it, Billy Bob Thornton) are all valiant efforts.
And, Roy, your near heel turn this weekend with a third-inning
ejection in your last start is going above and beyond the call of duty.
But wake me up when you’re doing all of your interviews like this….
Sorry, suck is suck, and the Astros suck. When your most promising
storyline of the season is the development of your fifth starter (who is
0-7, if you need him), it’s not good. When your 3-7 ace is about to be
traded and he was your no-brainer All-Star representative, it’s
mindnumbingly terrible. And when your $34 million middle-of-the-order
pairing of Berkman and Lee (or as my son is now calling him, Chunky C)
combined have three fewer home runs than Ty Wigginton and one more than
Luke Scott — two guys the Astros scrap-heaped — that’s comedically
tragic (sports tragic, not real-life tragic — a little perspective).
At this point, I’m starting a grassroots movement to bring Shawn
Chacon back just to see someone in Astros’ management get chokeslammed
into the ice cream bin again.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2010 Houston Astros! One big collective
popcorn fart.
So now it’s your turn Rockets. I know this is a lot to ask, you were
back in the lottery this season for the first time in a few years.
Barely, but still. As our only “big three” sports team to win a title,
the bar is set a little bit higher for you. The fact that we’re not
complaining about an early fade this season more represents a one-year
reprieve than the softening of the Houston sports fan.
Yao Ming opting out of his deal would have been relevancy inducing,
but now it’s been watered down. Everyone’s doin’ it. Hell, even Matt
Barnes — yes, the tatted-up Orlando Magic journeyman — is opting out of his deal when free agency signing
season gets here. Opting out as a storyline is soooo May 2010.
Hopefully, Aaron Brooks isn’t watching Tyreke Evans make headlines in Sacramento with his,
um, hastiness in getting from here to there. The Houston roadways are
unsafe as it is — treating them like your own personal Daytona is
neither interesting nor advisable. Don’t do it, AB.
So it’s now up to you, Daryl Morey. A guy with an M.I.T. pedigree
now faces his toughest conundrum yet — saving the summer of 2010 for
the Houston sports fan. Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudamire, something. It
may not win a title for our fair city, but it just might save our
summer. And at this point, we’ll take it.
Listen to Sean Pendergast on 1560 The Game from 3-7 p.m. weekdays on
the “Sean & John Show”, and follow him on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/SeanCablinasian.
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2010.
