Cougar Hunting
I hate to be irrational, but I am predisposed to disliking the city of Houston. This is silly for a number of reaons. For starters, it seems like a fine city. Furthermore, I fully support NASA and I have always felt "Knockin' Da Boots" by H-Town is one of the greatest slow jams of all time. Unfortunately, the city carries too much sports baggage from my childhood.
First, it was the site of the legendary Game Six between the Mets and Astros in the 1986 NLCS. The Mets won and I am a Mets fan so I should be happy about that, but for some reason that isn't the case. The Mets were pretty much unstoppable that year, but in my six-year-old mind the Astrodome was the only place that seemed to scare them. To this day, there is no place I feel less comfortable watching the Mets play than Houston, and they don't even play in the dome anymore. Like I said, this is not rational.
That's just the beginning though. What the dislike really stems from is the 1994 NBA Finals, when the Knicks came within one shot of winning the title in Houston in Game Six, only to lose a heartbreaker in Game Seven when Pat Riley let John Starks undermine the team's chances by allowing him to shoot 2-for-18 (Hubert Davis, anyone?). It was a tragic series for Knicks fans as we realized that Hakeem was definitely better than Ewing and we were forced to endure all those references to "Clutch City." In reality, it was New York that was "Choke City."
Duty calls though, and if Going Yard meant going to Houston, the I was going to do it. My feelings towards the city lightened up soon after I entered Cougar Field when I encountered Cal Hitchman and his two sons, Nathan and Brandon. I hate to get all sappy here, but there is something so Norman Rockwell about a father at the ball game with his two sons. Cal's wife is expecting a third child so he took their boys to the ballpark to give the Mrs. the afternoon off.
After sitting with them for a couple of minutes, a foul ball came our way and Nathan, 5, came up with it. As I told him, in all the years I have been coming to games I have never gotten a foul ball. Not surprisingly, he seemed more interested in his new ball than listening to an old-timer like myself lamenting my lack of luck with foul balls. Fortunately, I got this footage on video and I ran with Billy Cosby's time-tested theory: Put kids on camera and hilarity ensues.
The Cougars were taking on East Carolina today with hopes of salvaging the final game of the weekend series. The Pirates won 3-1 on Friday and got a grand slam from left fielder Jamie Ray in the top of the ninth on Saturday night to spur them to a 6-3 victory.
Sunday's game involved far less drama as ECU put up six runs in the top of the fourth and never looked back in a 9-2 win. Second baseman Drew Schreiber was the offensive hero today with three hits and four RBIs. The sweep allowed the Pirates to leapfrog the Cougars in the Conference USA standings and now trail only Rice and Memphis with a 10-7 record. Houston fell to fourth place and own a record of 10-8. If you want a reason for why the series was so one-sided, chew on this stat: Houston was 4-for-25 with runners in scoring position on the weekend and ECU was 12-for-34.
ECU does a little TCB.
Almost as impressive was the fact that ECU had at least a dozen fans on hand, and they were louder than the Houston contingent. Then again, the Houston fans did not have much to cheer about. ECU fans love their Pirates, and they deserve credit for making the trip from Greenville, NC to Houston to watch their boys pummel the Cougars.
Thanks to some new pop culture slang, it has become harder and harder to take the nickname "Cougars" seriously. In the parlance of our times the word has also come to refer to older women who prey on younger men It might just be me, but if I were a Houston undergrad I would make up some t-shirts that had the school logo and the phrase "I Love Cougars" printed on it. Juvenile? Yes. Amusing? You betcha. In fact, I am betting these shirts already exist, and if they do, drop a comment on the page. I'll also welcome other potential Cougar shirt slogans as I am pretty sure there is something more creative than what I came up with.
My trip to Houston also allowed me to catch up with cstv.com brethren Doug Kroll, who has been traveling with ECU this weekend. It was kind of like the the Laff-a-Lympics, but the Yogi Yahooeys were nowhere to be found.
Fear not, Doug Drabek fans. The mullet has been immortalized by his alma mater on this plaque.
