FanHouse Houston

If there is a lesson to learn from the life of Juan Diaz, the former unified lightweight champion of the world, current college senior and boxer with a motor so powerful NASCAR would stick a restrictor plate on it, it is simply this.

Don't mess with the fat kid.

In an amount of time smaller than any second could be split, and faster than even he can bob, weave and hurl a counterpunch, Juan Manuel Marquez leaps to an answer with enough enthusiasm you'd be forgiven for thinking someone had just asked a kid to the prom.

This isn't getting any easier for the New England Revolution. For the third consecutive year, and fourth under coach Steve Nicol, they failed to win an MLS Cup final. A talented roster with quality players at every position, the Revs just haven't seemed to have that rare quality only seen in champions. Without that spark, that luck, or that fate, whatever you want to call it, they only draw comparisons to perennial bridesmaids rather than a storied dynasty. Their history more resembles that of the Buffalo Bills than their "brother club," the New England Patriots. The franchise having boasted such national team standouts as Clint Dempsey, Steve Ralston, and Taylor Twellman over the years only compounds their frustration.

As for the Houston Dynamo, they have become only the second MLS team to win back to back titles. Not since DC United won the '96 and '97 titles has any team even had the chance to repeat. While United lead the league with four MLS championships, only circumstance prevents the Dynamo from claiming the same supremacy. Had the league not "wiped the slate" when the club moved from San Jose to Houston in 2006, the Earthquakes' 2001 and 2003 MLS Cups would make four stars in seven seasons, a feat similar to DC's early dominance.

You know what would make me nervous? If I was the fan of a baseball team that had just spent $100 million on an outfielder that probably wasn't worth anywhere close to that kind of cash and then someone said something like this about him:

"He's a cattleman; he's a calf roper; he's a horseman," said Skip Wagner, president of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. "I think he plays baseball because he's great at it and everything. But you can tell his heart is in the West with horses and cattle."

Anyways, for some context, Carlos Lee showed up at the Grand Entry of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Thursday and rubbed elbows with ex-President Bush and his family among others. And on top of it all, the article opened with a great paragraph that's still making me giggle after reading it like seven times.

As Carlos Lee mounted a gray quarter horse for the Grand Entry festivities at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Thursday night, several cowboys fixed their eyes on him to see if he was truly a horseman or merely a celebrity posing as one.

Yeah. I'm still 12 years old. Get over it.