The depression that is the Houston Astros and Gary Blair does all the right things

It's been a while since I have wrote on this thing, have I missed much?

Ok I have, but honestly I couldn't pass up the opportunity that lies before me. That's right it is finally baseball season! However, for Astros fans that only means the official countdown to football season in Texas is finally on. The 2011 Astros are only 5 games in to this young season, but already they have given ALL fans reasons not to show up to the ballpark this year. But doesn't anybody want to see the new HD scoreboard? Sadly, that might be the only thing that would be worthy of going to see the Astros play at Minute Maid Park this season.

Even on Opening Day, the Astros found a way to blow not only the game, but any hopes to get behind this team this season. Obviously fans are going to have certain expectations of the team they cheer for going in to each season, and Astro fans clearly weren't having high hopes for this team in the first place. But with baseball being the funny game that it is, you never can count any team down and out the first week of the season; unless it is the Pirates.

The few things the Astros have going for them is that they are going young and they are sticking to it. Brett Wallace is getting the every day role at first base and we finally will get a chance to see how Chris Johnson can handle a full year at third. But when Jason Castro went down with a torn ACL during spring training, that should have been a sign that the curse continues for our beloved Astros. It would have been great to see a young guy like Castro that the team was trying to start building around have this year to get accustom to catching a full big league season but now we have to rely on watching J.R. Towles and Humberto Quintero one more year. No thanks.

The pitching staff gets no better. Sorry Brett Myers your excluded from this. Minus him what do you have to look forward to on the mound? Oh yeah, the inconsistency of Wandy Rodriguez, Bud Norris, J.A. Happ, and Nelson Figueroa. Can Ed Wade please make the call already and get Jordan Lyles up? He would be a reason to go to Minute Maid and watch these Astros.

I don't even want to get started on Carlos Lee and Hunter Pence; I can save that for another venting session.

But the Astros will win some ballgames this year, I guarantee it. I mean they can't go 0-162 can they? This team has pieces, but that is it. Bill Hall is not the answer and neither is Clint Barmes, whenever he gets off the DL of course. Brandon Lyon is not a closer, but he is a good fit for the bullpen as a set up guy. But the problem is for fans is it is going to be this bad for a while and we have to live with it. Drayton can't sell this team fast enough.


Ok now to a MUCH brighter note.

How about that Fightin' Texas Aggie women's basketball team? Who would have ever thought that the next National Championship that came to Aggieland would come from their women's basketball team? Well if you followed Gary Blair any, you probably would have guessed right.

With the resurgence, or at least Aggie fans hope, of the football team last season and how well the men's basketball team has played making the NCAA tournament the last 7 years, the women's basketball team takes a bit of a backseat to these teams in College Station. Ok your probably going to read this and say why am I so excited about women's basketball and care this much about it. Ok that is understandable, because lets face it, not that many people do, but the true story is how Gary Blair turned this program from nothing and turned into something in such a short period of time.

Blair should be the model for new coaches and even current coaches on how to run their program. This is the guy who started off his coaching career at South Oak Cliff high school in Dallas before later becoming the head coach at Stephen F. Austin where he became a household name. After SFA, Arkansas was the next destination for Blair for 10 years, which including heading to the Final Four in 1998 as a number 9 seed, which at the time was unheard of in women's college basketball. In 2003, Texas A&M come calling and Blair hasn't looked back since.

Much like the men's program, the A&M women's basketball team was the doormat of Big 12 hoops and it took Blair to drag it out of the grave and back to recognition. He got fans to start to come to the games again, he got good recruits to want to come to A&M instead of Texas and Baylor. He did what he had to do, and he did it the right way. Blair is the kind of guy you would want your daughter to play for. He treats his players with the up most respect and treats them as his own instead of someone else's kids.

Even when time's do get bad for Blair, he looks down at his hand where he draws a small plus sign to remind him to stay positive at all times. Forget the fact that he is one of a handful of coaches that have taken 3 teams to the NCAA tournament, or 2 different teams to the Final Four, and now being the oldest coach to win a National title, Blair is what is good for not only women's basketball or college basketball, but for coaching in general. He is a player's coach and in this day and age you don't have many of them. Blair doesn't need all the attention on him, he rather it be on his players and assistants instead. After the winning the biggest game of his career he wanted to thank before anybody else each place that gave him a chance then put all the attention on his players before describing how he felt. Who wouldn't want Gary Blair coaching their team whether it be women or even men? All I know is that the same guy I saw drinking a beer and having fun at the Cotton Bowl being just a regular guy, is the same guy I would want running my team.