FanHouse Astros

You mess with the fat old bull you get the fat old horns!

Today the Dugout continues its Spring Training tradition and its center-of-the-Earth-like journey through the NL Central with the Houston Astros, a team so into media coverage that you'd almost forget they play baseball.

I like to think that Clemens is just a fan of Larry David and is doing this as an artistic homage to getting in trouble at work, quitting dramatically, and then just showing up the next day like nothing happened. Either that or he is just SO GUILTY that his body can't handle it and his guilt is seeping out of him and turning him into a giant Tetsuo monster. Either way, "hey guys, the Astros."

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.

Apparently the Cardinals "1 million to 1" shot at signing Roger Clemens is significantly less than that. After the Cards told agent Randy Hendricks they were interested in signing the Rocket, the response was less than glowing.

"Let me repeat," Randy Hendricks said. "Houston, Boston, New York. Only three teams will be picked from if he plays. And he hasn't decided."

I think that's pretty clear. And since the linked article appears on Astros.com with a picture of Roger in an Astros jersey, is it fair to assume that Houston is still the front-runner? I really wish Clemens would hurry up and just make a choice. I know it's a little hypocritical to complain about his inability to pick about a team as I literally write an entire blog post dedicated to him, but sheesh, even Brett Favre's made up his mind for next year already.

Roger Clemens told a Houston TV station on Tuesday that the chances of him staying home vs. playing again were about "80-20" right now. Of course no one really holds great athletes to that kind of statement these days. Everyone remembers Michael Jordan's "99.9%" retirement speech and Mario Lemieux's retirement from the "Garage League" he felt the NHL had turned into and both of them came back despite age, their own reservations, and common sense.

Just out of curiousity, what do you think the odds that the Clemens-less Pettitte-less Astros are still in contention on July 1st combined with the odds that the Red Sox or Yankees desperately need a starting pitcher so badly that they will literally give someone a boat stuffed with $100 bills to pitch for them are? Maybe 20%?