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On Super Bowl radio row, book signings, puppies, ponies and a good cause: 5 topics for a Monday

On Super Bowl radio row, book signings, puppies, ponies and a good cause: 5 topics for a Monday
Like the Texans, Dynamo will be watching the Super Bowl.

Doing something a little different today, with a look at 5 topics to kick off your week:


1) The value of radio row

Theo Rossi and Ron Pearlman at radio row.

You might have heard the Super Bowl is this week in Atlanta. One of the side stories every year is Radio Row. Multiple stations send their shows to get interviews and broadcast live. We have done roughly eight or so Super Bowls, but did not go last year and will not be going this year.

Usually, if you don't go, you talk about how forced the interviews are, how everybody gets the same people and it does not make for great radio.

I actually like Super Bowl Radio Row. Yes, you have tons of interviews and everybody has to give their take on the Texans and who is going to win the big game and then hawk some product. But every year, you get one or two gems that you did not expect. One of my all-time favorites was when we had Theo Rossi and Ron Pearlman on to talk Sons of Anarchy. Other memorable interviews included Kevin Costner and the reverend Jesse Jackson. Getting guys who are not sports stars often creates the best interviews.

In a perfect world, you would do 1-2 interviews a day and pick out the ones you think will be interesting. But that's not how it works. So we will still do good shows this week, talk a lot about the game and find some entertaining angles. Many stations have stopped going due to costs, but hopefully in the future we will get a chance to go back. I honestly believe not doing it for a couple years will make the experience fun again; it can get to be a bit of a grind. But those occasional gems make it worthwhile.

2) Ready to party?

Save the date: Saturday Feb. 9 at Around the Corner bar and restaurant (1510 Hutchins Street in East Downtown) we will have the official Jesus Just Left Chicago book release party and signing. There will be a Karbach tap takeover, a D.J. and all around fun. It will be 3-6 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Copies will be available and if you already have yours bring it and I will sign it. The response has been awesome so far and there is a lot more to come. Ken Hoffman wrote a nice article about it here.

3) Running for a great cause

I have not been doing a lot of organized runs lately, but will be getting back in the game on March 3 with the Terry Fox run. Terry Fox was a Canadian hero and you can learn more about him here. Please join me for the 5k or 10k and help raise money for this cause. It will be a lot of fun, and I am sure there will be an after party.

4) Pup (non) fiction

Yes, she is much bigger now.

Sometime this week I will have a story on how to get proper training for your puppy. We have a 13 week old Dalmatian and she has been to four training sessions. I honestly do not believe I would be sane if we had not taken her. So look for that on CultureMap and SportsMap later this week. If you have a new puppy, it's not too late.

5) Not horsing around

Midnight Bisou won the Classic.

Coady Photography

Sam Houston Race Park opened its 2019 meet on Friday night and concluded a terrific opening weekend with the Racing Festival that featured several big stakes races. Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith came to town for the first time to ride, and it was easily the best thoroughbred racing in the country on Sunday. The Ladies Classic, which featured the seasonal debut of talented filly Midnight Bisou, was featured on the cover of the Daily Racing Form. Those kinds of things have not happened for a long time, so it was great to see. This is year 25 at the track, and hopefully it will be the best one yet.

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Nobody saw this coming! Composite Getty Image.

It’s a fun series between the Astros and Rangers through the weekend in Arlington, but by no means is it a critical series. It would be nice for the Astros to not lose three out of the four games (or obviously all four) to their upstate rivals. The Astros have lost their last five road series, dropping two out of three games in each of them. As with the Astros, pitching has been the strength of the team for the Rangers thus far. After the humdinger Hunter Brown-Jacob deGrom mound matchup Thursday night, the Rangers give the ball Friday to Nathan Eovaldi with his earned run average at 1.78, then Saturday it’s Tyler Mahle with his even more sparkling 1.47 ERA. Heading into Thursday play, the Mariners having lost five of their last six games meant just a game and a half separate first from fourth place in the American League West. The Astros, Rangers, and Athletics are all right there. Only the Angels are inconsequential.

Star power!

There is an asterisk to attach but Jeremy Pena is making a real charge at becoming a first-time All-Star game selection. Among American League shortstops, the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. is clearly the best. The clear number two in the pecking order coming into this season was the Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson, who is on fire after a slow start that began with him missing seven games on the injured list. Athletics’ rookie Jacob Wilson goes into the weekend batting .350 and amazingly has struck out just nine times in 164 at bats. Rangers’ stud Corey Seager being on the injured list with a balky hamstring for the second time this season helps the Astros this weekend and likely frees up an All-Star spot.

Now to that aforementioned asterisk. Pena has been sensational so far, indisputably the Astros’ best everyday player. We just need to see more staying power of performance before fully slotting Pena in the top tier of shortstops. Pena’s four-hit game Wednesday night hiked his batting average to .315, his OPS to .840. Well, last year Pena put head to pillow the night of May 15 with his batting average at .333, his OPS at .830. The rest of the season Pena hit .240 with a meager .653 OPS. That Pena drew a paltry 18 walks over his last 114 games. 2025 Pena has showed markedly better plate discipline. He’ll never be a high walks-drawn guy but incremental improvement matters, and can bear fruit in other ways.

Fruitless continues to describe an awfully high percentage of Christian Walker’s plate appearances. 2023 Jose Abreu was better (2024 Abreu was not). Plenty of season still remains for a turnaround, but more than a quarter of the season is gone and it’s not as if Walker is trending in the right direction. In three games against the Royals he went zero for 12 with seven strikeouts. With his final whiff, Walker reached the 50 strikeout “milestone” for the season in his 154th at bat. Feeble and lousy are fair characterizations of a .208 batting average and .625 OPS, magnified for someone batting clean-up most nights. Starting play Thursday 13 big leaguers actually had struck out more than Walker so far this season, among them only the Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds carries a lower OPS. Walker has been even worse with runners in scoring position, batting just .171, with a sub-abysmal 20 strikeouts in 41 at bats.

Using Baseball-Reference's Wins Above Replacement statistic, the Astros’ three worst non-pitchers this season are Walker, Yordan Alvarez, and Jose Altuve. Those are the three highest paid players on the team. Altuve’s extended funk has him hitting .202 over his last 27 games with a .538 OPS. Altuve was dropped to second in the batting order basically at his request. It has not sparked him. If Altuve doesn’t pick it up, manager Joe Espada will have to consider dropping Altuve several more spots down the lineup. Alvarez is at 11 games and counting missed with a muscle strain in his right hand. He will not be approaching the career-high 147 games played last season.

Relief pitcher Tayler Scott was a revelation last season. Before joining the Astros at age 31 Scott had a big-league ERA of 9.00 in 46 innings scattered over three seasons. So it was pretty much out of nowhere that the only South African pitcher in MLB history posted a scintillating 1.36 ERA into early August before fading and winding up with a still stellar 2.23 mark. The clock struck midnight on his Cinderella story this year though, and with the Astros needing to open a roster spot this week, Scott was designated for assignment.

Book it!

Longtime Astros’ broadcasting stalwart Bill Brown has authored several books. His latest is Wartime Athletes, which tells the stories of athletes across a number of sports who served in the U.S. military during various wars. If you know anything about Bill Brown, you know each story was meticulously researched and makes for an interesting read. I’m no Oprah when it comes to the power of suggestion for reading material, but Wartime Athletes is worth your time and/or is a worthy gift for someone else.

For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!

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