Announcements

Attention, Astros fans. As you may have noticed last week, the Astros now have a new manager. Oh, and GM too. Drayton McLane decided that the club needed new "direction" and "enthusiasm." Or something.

So, Purpura and Garner are out. I was glad to see Purpura go, I always though he was in over his head but somehow didn't seem to have enough sense to realize it. Or maybe, he realized it, but had too much pride to ask for help. Garner, on the other hand, got a bit of a raw deal in my opinion. The manager can only do so much, and the players have to do the rest, and they haven't been doing it. Whatever "it" is. Meh.

Anyway, I did also sort of think that Garner had been phoning it in for a while. I don't know if he had something going on in his personal life, or if he just saw the writing on the wall. Or perhaps he just grew weary of trying to motivate this group of players, who knows.

The new manager--unfortunately burdened with a label--is Cecil Cooper. And the label I'm talking about is "interim." (You thought I was going to go to the race card, didn't you?) On the one hand I can see, at this point in the season, not making any firm commitments to a new manager and to use the remaining games to familiarize the club with the style of the potential new hire. On the other hand, Coop has been put into a difficult situation. The Astros have just not played like a good team this year, and I doubt he can really change that in a month. But say they pull off one of their crazy runs again--will Coop get the credit, or will the owner simply say that he expected the turnaround anyway?

I personally am very excited that Cecil Cooper is the new manager, and I hope he gets to keep the job. There are two reasons for this: first of all, he is reputedly a very good baseball guy, and secondly, I think he's hot. Yes, as a fan I'm grasping at straws here, but I want to have SOMETHING over the other NL Central clubs. I mean, Tracy's okay I guess, haven't really seen Mackanin, but compared with Piniella, Yost, and La Genius, Coop is George Clooney (hope he's not insulted by the comparison! [Coop, I mean]).

Enough of that. In other news, additional changes are deemed necessary. I have decided to pick a different favorite player this year. Having studied my history with this particular designation, I think a change is appropriate. Let me elaborate. In 2005, my favorite player was Morgan Ensberg. He subsequently flamed out and is no longer with the club. In 2006, my favorite player was Mike Lamb. He has been informed that he will remain in a bench role, despite having shown that he should be a starter, and so will be gone next year to free agency. My favorite player this year was Adam Everett. He freakin' breaks his leg and may not be back before the season is over. So, in light of these developments, by new favorite player is: Chris Burke.

Good luck, dude. You're gonna need it (heheheheheh!).