I've not seen any writing on the Astros AL move that really captures what I think (read FEEL) about things. So here's an attempt. First of all, not that it matters one lick, but I strongly suggest as a part of your Astros healing process, you shout into the abyss by sending Bud Selig a piece of your mind:

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
Address: 245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor
City: New York, State: NY Zip Code: 10167
Phone: 212-931-7800
Fax: 212-949-5654

His 3:00 minute video press conference after the move was announced was enraging. He did not come close to even acknowledging how sickening the process was to Houston fans. Not one lick of apology. NOTHING.

"The greatest thing this sport has going for it is its history and tradition." ENRAGING.

No apology. No even basic recognition of how bad Astros fans got hosed in this. He goes on and on about how Drayton McLane left a great legacy and left the team better than he found it. Yeah, we got a stadium, but that was partly Bud Adams' doing. McLane sold a weak team and made it weaker by switching it to the AL. Just an infuriating video.

Overall here's my thoughts on the move:

The Purchase Price Reduction. I actually don't mind the purchase price reduction as much as some. Selig's demand that the Astros move to the AL certainly hurt the value of the franchise. Jim Crane has to try to create a winner out a terrible team with huge debt burden, an angry or indifferent fanbase, during a recession. Good luck with that, guy. I would contend even with the discount he overpaid.

There's Nothing the Astros Can Do to Make this Good Short Term. The move to the AL creates a huge sense of loss to me. (for reasons stated below). Price discounts at the ballpark doesn't make this better for me. Uni changes don't make this better to me. I can't fathom anything in the entire planet that Crane could do to make this good.

His press conference was a bunch of big fat, no hope, depressing real talk. Yeah, it was truthful, and likely all they can do, but it doesn't make me particularly enthusiastic about the near future of the team, or supporting a league that intentionally kicked the fourth most populous US city in the teeth. They say that winning will fix everything but good luck with that any time in the near future. Crane already had a difficult road without the AL move. Bud Selig handed him an anchor...encased in concrete.

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I must confess that every single time I read the acronyms BESF*, and BE-SF at Battle Red Blog, it brings me tremendous joy.

I don't like to hate things. But I am still traumatized by the 4th largest city in America losing their football team.  Just think, if Bud Adams had any sort of social skills whatsoever, he could have kept his team in a city that has the second highest number of Fortune 500 companies in the nation and could just print money. Glad he's gone, but that was just a very terrible time in our city's history.

The story behind the BESF video comes from a poster on the TexansTalk.com message board name "Overalls."   He liked to trash talk trolling Titans message board posters telling them that their team was appropriately named after the inbred children of Uranus.  The best trash talk is always true.

In any event, the year I made the video, I was pretty sure that the Texans were going to lose to the Titans. It's no fun writing a blog post when you are pretty certain your team is going to lose, so I started thinking of ideas of what I could post. I decided that no matter what the result of that particular game in that particular year, the Titans would always have a stupid flying meatball logo, the worst, most-repulsive name in all of sport, and vulgarian Bud Adams as their owner until he kicked it.

At this time, AOL Sports' FanHouse still existed, and for that readership, I had a lot of Titans fans who would post snide comments my general direction, so I wanted to put something lasting and pointy-sticked together. Something that could be found all over the internet no matter what team the Titans played.

Over Thanksgiving, I was hanging out at my parents' house in San Antonio with family in from all over Texas. And we were bored waiting for the turkey to be ready.  I told my brothers what sort of video I want to shoot, and they were all in because they like doing silly creative things too.

We gathered a variety of my niece's toys to shoot the video, and we shot it in my parent's bedroom. (They do not have a basement despite blogger stereotypes).

Someday, I will have to do a Director's Cut of the video if I can find the raw footage. The outtakes were indescribably hilarious.  I was holding the camera, and I kept shaking it because I was laughing so much at some of the stuff my brothers were doing.  It got rather X-rated in bits, and I was trying to make it okay enough that the no-cuss-word folks at AOL would let me post it. 

Here it is:

Not only did AOL post it, but they repeatedly promo'd it because my editors then were very cool, and it got tons of comments from irate Titans fans. (It used to be hosted on AOL's video service before I switched the video to the YouTubes).

The sad thing about old FanHouse shutting down is that the comments are lost to history. They were hilarious variations of Titan fans saying "Don't you know that Nashville is the Athens of the South," and me responding, "Well, ew, you named your team after inbred, child-eating, mother-brother-sister fornicating children of Uranus who were ultimately defeated. Aren't there any Greek myths that are less disgusting?"

Yeah, not very mature but terribly fun.

Fortunately, my all time favorite comment from Titan fan lady still exists on the YouTubes:

"This doesn't even belong on the internet. It appears that the child who made this video should be doing homework instead of fantasizing over an unsavory and perverse subject that has nothing to do with the NFL's best team. Perhaps this kid's parents need to ground him and confiscate the video cam. Someday, maybe this misguided and obviously unsupervised child will see how this kind of nonsense does nothing but point out how desperately he needs attention and help. Titans are 4-0. Enough said."

Hahahahahahahahaha. Response: "It's Greek history. If you have a problem with the video, maybe you should blame the ancient Greeks or Bud Adams who named his football team after such an "unsavory and perverse" myth."

Since it was first put on the web, I've seen it in all sorts of random places, like Ravens and Chargers message boards. And it was created prior to Twitter and Facebook really taking so it still has room to find other places on the web to go. It should be every Texans fans' mission to spread the word about the legacy of the BESFs. Why? Because even if every human being in the entire universe knows about it, it still doesn't make up for how dishonorable it was for Bud Adams to take both the team and the history of the Oilers out of the town he still lives in.

Not really vengeance but the best I can do.

 

*(Who created the acronym? MDC? BFD? How can I not remember this? It hasn't been THAT long. I know it showed up first at DGDB&D).

Apparently, this is Roc Carmichael's Twitter account.  Anyone know for sure?

And well, I am having a hard time with the translation.  Given the Jacoby Jones scholarship over here at BRB, I figured I'd ask the experts.

WTH?  And I'm afraid to ask what "BAP" and "Bappin" are.  Tried to figure it out from context but it's all over the place. Given his job with the Texans, I hope it means knocking the bleep out of opponents, within the rules of course, and not to the point of penalties or league-rendered arbitrary fines and whatnot.

Thanks for your help.

Blogs with Balls is group that supports sports blogs. Quickish.com is a new site that aggregates interesting things about sports news. They are co-hosting a party during SXSW.

RSVP here.

I'm attending, and a lot of interesting sports bloggers from around the country are going.  Not just internet funny but real life funny. Thought I'd pass this along for folks who will be in Austin.

Details:

 

Join Blogs with Balls and the new sports-news recommendation service Quickish, and Darren Rovell for a South By Southwest Selection Sunday (3/13) event from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. CT at The Dogwood in Austin, TX.

Quickish founder Dan Shanoff will be updating Quickish in real time, and Rovell will be offering up live Twitter commentary – publishing all of the best quick-hit analysis about the 2011 NCAA Tournament bracket, from the pre-release speculation to the real-time “reveal” to the instant reactions.  Both will be taking suggestions from the crowd, both fans in-person and around the Web, using the hashtag #sx68 (in a nod to the newly expanded 68-team Tournament field).

The Dogwood
715 West 6th Street (Next to Molotov)
Austin, TX 78701
4-6pm

SB Nation is sponsoring "Kick! at SXSW 2011." You do not need a badge to attend. I'm planning on going and would love to see folks there.  Here's the info:

 

Kick! at SXSW 2011 via Facebook

Here's the info:

Time   
Saturday, March 12 · 10:00am - 12:00pm
Location   
Palm Playground
E. 3rd Street & Red River
Austin, TX
Created By   
Trei Brundrett, Anil Dash, Ryan Gantz
More Info   
Coffee! Tacos! Friendship!

KICK! is the beloved unofficial kickball kickoff to South by Southwest Interactive. Join us at Palm Playground, just behind the Convention Center - you can play, or just hang out and chat with folks. No one gets picked last!

Anil Dash started this tradition in 2002 with a simple dream: to gather web geeks together for exposure to sunlight and marginal exercise. As the proud new father of a lovely baby boy, Anil won't be able to attend SXSW this year. But we shall KICK! in his honor!

This year's game will be again be sponsored by SB Nation, who will provide equipment, coffee, breakfast tacos and t-shirts. Whether you're attending SXSW or just staying in the Austin area, we hope you'll come on out and join us - no badge required.

SB Nation is the largest network of sports blogs powered by fans - fan perspective with pro quality. We're building a design and technology driven media company. And we love tacos.

In honor of Thanksgiving, a wine company asked me to do a guest post on who or what I wanted to give thanks to in sport.  I chose Andre Johnson because he's one of the few bright spots in a sea of Houston sports suckage and fail.

Blog post here in pop-up window: Giving Thanks for Andre Johnson

If I get the most comments on my Andre Johnson blog post, I win a silly prize and bragging rights of being, I don't know, queen of wine or something. (Being the actual queen of wine would be better than a Netflix gift certificate, I think). I don't really care about the prize--I just won't pass up an opportunity to say nice things about AJ to the world at large.

So far, my blog post has two comments, one from Lonespot..  The blogger from NYC has 24 comments in support of Mike Wallace. (Wallace, really? Out of ALL the people/things to thank?)  I am hoping that this is not symbolic of the score of Texans-Jets.

If you can help me out some, you don't need to leave a long comment.  Just saying "Hail!!" would be sufficient.  It asks for your email to deter cheating, but I've been assured they will not spam you.  One comment per person counts.  If you are a Twitter type person, RTing this also counts as a vote.

If the spirit moves, it wouldn't be bad to leave an actual comment at the blog post.  I'd like to see a bunch of Texans commenters talking about their thoughts on him.

I figure y'all appreciate Andre Johnson.  And BRBers are certainly prolific commenters. And I will go on to say, if it helps at all, how handsome/beautiful and smart you are online. So I'd appreciate any help you can give on this.

via www.blogsmithmedia.com

Hey, if anyone is going to the game in person, be sure to stop by at the tailgate.  You can usually find me at the Lonespot Tailgaters front row of the Platinum lot.  Yellow pickup truck, across from the Raging Bull Tailgaters (a great group of generous fans).

BRBers are good peoples.

Durnit, I'm being told by the software that I don't have enough words in this post. Usually I'm too verbose.

Okay, BRBers are very very good peoples. There. I'm done.

via www.memeticians.com

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