Song of the Day: Modest Mouse – “The Whale Song”

Life after politics.

Meet your new manager of the Houston Astros, John McCain. Fresh off a defeat in the election of 2008, John’s been searching for an outlet for his unfounded scorn and totalitarian regime. The Vietnam vet has come to the game of baseball to get some of these whippersnappers into shape. Your Houston Astros will be the first to benefit from the bygone style that the American people kept from reaching the office of the President.

In order to fully make the transition to Houston Astros Manager, McCain has changed his name to James Bradley Mills and used his government contacts to create a history for his new identity. This “Mr. Mills” (his friends call him “Brad”) is a good 21 years younger. “Mills” played for the Montreal Expos (who?) intermittently from 1980-1983 (or so says his shoddy Wikipedia page).

The powers that be even went so far as going Forest Gump on our asses trying to make us believe that this new “Brad Mills” is actually a part of baseball lore by being the victim of Nolan Ryan’s record-breaking strikeout. Yeah, I’m so sure. And Gump showed his but-tocks to Nixon too. This story has “Hollywood” written all over it…

While we’re getting this nonsense jammed down our throat (TWSS) we may as well believe that Mills has also been the Bench Coach of the Bawston Red Sawks for his last gig. And was the first base coach under Terry Francona when he was the Manager of the Philadelphia Phillies (when Ed Wade was conveniently the GM of the Phillies).

On to the rest of your Houston sports conspiracy theories:

ROCKETS – LOST!!! Even though they managed to erase much of a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter, the Rockets eventually lost steam and the game. The guard play was good for Houston. Aaron Brooks led the way with 19 points, Trevor Ariza scored 12 and Mike Kyle Lowry managed the same. Shane Battier, DMizzle’s (Daryl Morey) one and only love, had a +/- of -22! Less than a year removed from being lauded as the NBA’s bestest player ever Battier does nothing to continue that trend. Oh, and the rookie, Chase Budinger managed six points on a little more than fifteen minutes.

AEROS – WON!!! The Aeros took the Bulldogs to a shootout and managed to pull out the victory. That is seriously as much as you’re going to get from me this morning about the AHL. Don’t get me started on the NHL… We’ve already seen how much you like it when I talk about hockey. Though… you really need to check out this hit by Philadelphia Flyer, Mike Richards on David Booth. YGKTFO!!!

UNIVERSITY of HOUSTON – Kevin Sumlin has been named a finalist for the Bryant Award. K-Sum should be a shoe-in for the award, mostly because we said so. But, also, the award dinner is being held in Houston. What better way to cap off the season than having the hometown hero win the award? Oh, a BCS bid, you say? I guess that would be nice too.

While we’re on the subject of awards. Head over to VoteObrien.org to cast your ballot for Case Keenum. Keenum has only received 3% of the popular vote thus far which is something of a travesty. Once you register you can vote once a day. So, get to it people. Make it happen.

TEXANS – Andre Johnson and his “lung contusion” are doing just fine. I feel like player injuries are getting more and more creative these days and equally more and more painful sounding.

- Septimus Rex

[Image from Here]