Texans Loss Last Week Harder To Take…Could Have Gotten to SuperBowl
Any Houston Texan fan who watched the Patriots 23-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens to punch New England’s Super Bowl ticket has to be ill about now. The Texans were good enough—almost—to not only enter the playoffs for the first time- which they did- but to go to the Super Bowl themselves. A full strength 2011 season Texan team (meaning one that had their first string quarterback healthy) is better than either the Pats or Ravens.
Watching the game Sunday one of the first things that came to mind was what the Texan defense would have done to the Pats. The Ravens have a strong defense, but really didn’t put much pressure at all on Tom Brady. The Patriots don’t have as strong a defense as either the Ravens or Texans and allowed Joe Flacco to look quite good much of the game. Oh well, wait till next year.
Astros Not Making Headlines But Are Making Headway
Jed Lowrie, Fernando Martinez, Jack Cust and now Chris Snyder are four players added to the Astros 40 man roster in the last few weeks. All are intriguing additions to a club that wants to be better than in 2012, but not harm the long term plan to build with youth.
To a man the acquisitions listed above are: 1. Veterans or once highly rated, but still young prospects. 2. Relatively low salaried and 3. Not on long term contracts. They also have done enough on the major league level (except for Martinez, who is the prospect) that should some of the younger players who finished the season with Houston last year not step up in the spring are capable of claiming regular spots on the field.
Competition in spring training will be real and not a façade. The acquisition of Houston native and former UH star catcher Snyder may also allow the club to work out a trade involving Humberto Quintero as part of a package with another club seeking a back up catcher. “Q” has signed for about $1-million and if Snyder has a good spring and Jason Castro is able to be physically fit “Q” could be expendable. With the Astros trying to trim payroll for several reasons they could save a few hundred thousand if Quintero moved on. I know of no possible deals working, but don’t be surprised at some point.
Rockets Surviving Killer Schedule So Far
The Rockets won their sixth straight Saturday night and almost seem to be enjoying the heavily condensed schedule so far. Certainly they have had to give their all every night and have been impressive in so doing. While other clubs like the Spurs are resting some key players here and now the Rockets have been able to send everyone into battle and it has paid off. Samuel Dalembert has been especially impressive with his all out effort battling fellow big men and blocking shots. The team has also shown that when things get rough and fatigue starts to hit the big men the guards have to come through. On Saturday that was the case. The NBA may turn out to be more guard oriented that usual due to the fatigue factor of the killer schedules. If so, the Rockets depth at those positions will continue to pay off.
Honors for a Founder
On Saturday night dozens of current and former co-workers and friends of Jack Stanfield gathered at the mammoth Fox Operations Center in The Woodlands to honor the co-founder of Fox Sports Southwest and Fox Sports Houston’s ancestor, Home Sports Entertainment (HSE.) Jack recently retired from Fox after over 30 years with the company. The former hockey player who was with the old WHA Houston Aeros before getting involved with radio and then television partnered with Dick Barron to put HSE on the air in Houston on January 4th 1983. Then a few months later with Ed Frazier running the show in the Dallas area helped with the launch of that part of the network. His greatest success along with Dick and Ed was to find backers for HSE after the original owners planned to shut the network down. The trio then planned and executed expansion into Florida and Denver with new networks beginning the interlocking regional networks that became the proginators of Fox Sports Net when Newscorp bought the operations.
Jack isn’t really retiring professionally—just from Fox—where in recent years was Senior Vice President of International Programming. He will be free lancing and continuing with other projects he has been working with in the past. Many of us who work for Fox Sports Houston owe a lot to Jack Stanfield.
Texans Programs Producer Now a Mom
Congratulations to Stefani (Kazel) Montoya and Javi for the birth of their son, Xavier Cleveland Montoya. He was born early Saturday morning. Stefani is the producer for all Texans and Rodeo related programming on Fox Sports Houston. By the way, the middle name of Cleveland is an homage to Stefani's hometown. A huge fan of Cleveland sports she won't likely miss any Indian visits when the Astros join the AL in 2013.
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