Scheduled Spring Training Television Broadcasts

Obviously, you'll need FOX Sports Houston in order to view these games.

Thursday, February 26, 12:05 p.m., @ ATL (ESPN)

Friday, March 20, 12:05 p.m. vs. CIN

Monday, March 23, 12:05 p.m. vs. FLA

Tuesday, March 24, 12:05 p.m. vs. NYM

Wednesday, March 25, 12:05 p.m. @ STL

Tuesday, March 31, 6:05 p.m. vs. ATL

Saturday, April 4, 1:05 p.m. vs. CLE (at Minute Maid Park)

Otherwise, you can catch games on the radio, usually on 790 AM. Most games are day games - 12:05 p.m., but it's all subject to change. For a complete schedule, go here: http://houston.astros.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=hou&m=2&y=2009

If you're listening on your computer, you can get the entire MLB radio package for $15 / year, which is a tremendous bargain.

Let 2009 begin!

12:05 p.m. Central on AM 790 (Houston)

End of Winter
by: Eve Merriam

Bare-handed reach
to catch
April's
incoming curve.
Leap higher
than you thought you could and
Hold:
Spring,
Solid,
Here.

A Deleted Scene from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

PSYCHIATRIC HELP, 5 CENTS


(Outdoors. From Peanuts, the “Psychiatric Help, 5 cents” booth. LUCY is singing to CHARLIE BROWN.)

LUCY: Yes! It’s amazingly true! For whatever it’s worth, Charlie Brown – you’re you!

CHARLIE: Gosh, Lucy! I feel so much better. You’re a true friend. A true friend.

LUCY: That’ll be 5 cents, please.

(Musical button. Playoff as CHARLIE BROWN crosses the stage to another booth, this one also advertising pyschiatric help for a nickel. Behind this booth sits CHRISTOPHER WALKEN.)

WALKEN: Hello, Chuck. Why so glum?

CHARLIE BROWN: Well, Christopher Walken, Lucy’s advice always seems like a good idea at first, but afterwards, I realize it’s all just a big joke at my expense. I don’t know what to do.

WALKEN: You know, I once had a problem much like the one you are describing.

CHARLIE BROWN: Really?

WALKEN: Yes. You see, one time, I was hosting Saturday Night Live, and Cheri Oteri got the idea up her pants to play a trick on me. She replaced my cue cards with nude images of Savion Glover. All in all, it was very distracting.

CHARLIE BROWN: What?

WALKEN: It made me feel very insecure, inside. I liken the sensation to being on a Japanese game show where they force you to eat your own dog... or, you know, having someone “thump” you on the forehead. I hate that.

CHARLIE BROWN: That’s terrible! It’s just like how Lucy always tries to get me to kick the football! I know she’s going to take it away before I can kick it, but somehow, I always fall for it.

WALKEN: I don’t think that’s the same at all. Now, listen to my story, because it’s very important. You see, Cheri thought she was making a big joke for people to laugh at, and perhaps she was, but what she didn’t know was that I was waiting for her in her car after the show was over.

CHARLIE BROWN: I don’t think I like where this story is going.

WALKEN: I took her back to the home I keep in upstate New Hampshire. There, under the watchful eye of the wheat fields, I cut out her tounge and taught her the joys and pain of a lifetime of yard work. Until the day she dies from exposure to the sun’s weathering elements, she will trim my hedge maze, grooming it until it becomes a mighty fortress.

CHARLIE BROWN: Oh my God.

WALKEN: You know, people tell me now that they never really liked Cheri Oteri when she was on Saturday Night Live. Still, no one has ever sent me a “Thank You” note. It’s very rude.

CHARLIE BROWN: Listen, here’s 5 cents. I think I’d better be going... Snoopy’s gonna be hungry, and...

WALKEN: Charlie Brown... is such a funny name. I watch a lot of “Murphy Brown.” Have you ever seen it?

CHARLIE BROWN: No...

WALKEN: It comes on Nick at Nite. Promise me you’ll never appear on “Murphy Brown,” Chuck. Because that would just be, (laughs) too weird!

CHARLIE BROWN: You got it.

WALKEN: That’ll be 5 cents, please.

CHARLIE BROWN: But I just gave you –

WALKEN: That’ll be 5 cents, Chuck. Don’t make me argue.

CHARLIE BROWN: No! No arguments here. Well, I’ve got to be going...

(HE bolts.)

WALKEN: What a strange child.

The End.

I'm Blinding You With Science

FYI - Tomorrow's poem won't be by me, it's something I re-post at the beginning of every baseball season when Spring Training games start. Today is me, though.

Adaptation

Lichen attaches to all sorts of surfaces,
and moss grows on trees
wherever it’s damp.
When it’s warm enough
sure there are ferns to be found,
and conifers are in need
of huge spaces to camp.
Then angiosperms
(those plants that have flowers)
grow in few places and may
bloom only one time
when the weather is right,
and the soil isn’t over-packed,
and the bedrock beneath
must be shale, or it’s lime.
Their pistils burst forth
with one type of pollen
for one type of insect –
it’s taking a chance,
when your needs are so tailored to the world
around you, you’d die otherwise,
and that’s called an advance.

Ashes to Northern Ash, Dust to Rosin

This Wednesday is

1. Ash Wednesday, one of the more obviously ritualistic days on the Catholic calendar, and
2. the day of the first Spring Training game for our local nine (or in this case, initial squad of about fifty)!

I'm bringing this up because I will consider giving up a great many things for Lent, but if someone were to suggest I go without baseball for forty days, starting on the very day that it returns to our lives, especially after this past off-season, I would laugh until you gave up the idea, and if you still persisted, I would beat you with a bat and then give you up for Lent.

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is nearly at a close. Rejoice, and be glad!

All for now.

Stopping By Robert Frost's Car on a Sunny Afternoon

Here's an oldie, but a goodie. One day at UST, a gentleman came to lecture on Robert Frost, and he brought a car that Frost rode in. He parked that car in the middle of the sidewalk on our academic mall. So I wrote this and put it on the car's winshield. It lasted all of five minutes.

Who's car this is I think I know,
he's slowly decomposing, though.
He will not mind me stopping here
to admire the automobile he drove.

My friend, he thinks it strange, you see -
the actions of the university.
The sidewalk is no place for cars
of the Poet Laureate of Kennedy.

He gives my striped shirt-sleeve a shake
to tell me it is getting late.
I hate to quit this old antique,
but see no cause to procrastinate.

The maroon hue is lovely, dark, and deep,
but I wish that it had been a jeep
with mileage that was not so steep,
with mileage that was not so steep.

All for now.

You Should Try Not to End Sentences with a Preposition at.

Taking a cue from The Blogess... I think this pretty much sums up what we've been about so far, wouldn't you say?



I would like to see someone like Lover of Strife or French Roast try this, as they have written roughly one billion words more than I have.

All for now.