The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston Texans GM Rick Smith: On his way to his office to pull the plug on the deal that will send team captain DeMeco Ryans to the Philadelphia Eagles for draft choices and chump change chops at the salary cap.

What is it with Houston Sports teams? Or maybe we should start with: How many different ways are there to keep raising the same question or keep striking at the same point? Is Houston the most “bad luck” cursed sports city in America? Or are we just excellent at creating our own bad luck and then disguising it as so-called “random circumstance” in interplay with the laws of probability as our best explanation for why, most of the time in major professional collegiate sports, except for the Rockets in 1994 and 1995, when Michael Jordan was taking a two-season nap, our teams always end up in the “close, but no cigar” chair?”

The other day I wrote (again) about the painful UH Cougars loss in the 1983 NCAA basketball title game to NC State, 50-48. It all came down to a last second stuff at the basket that only became possible when Akeem Olajuwon allowed himself to be pulled out of defensive position under the basket.

Was that bad luck?

Was it bad luck in Pittsburgh at the 1979 NFL Championship Game when Oilers receiver Mike Renfro was called pout-of-bounds on a TD catch that could have turned the game around for Houston over the Steelers?

Was it bad luck in 1980 when Nolan Ryan couldn’t hold a 3-run lead at home in the 8th inning of a game that could have sent the Astros to their first World Series?

Was it bad luck again in 1986 when pitcher Bob Knepper of the Astros couldn’t hold a 3-0 lead at home in the 9th inning over the Mets in the NLCS Series, blowing a win that would have tied things and forced New York to face nemesis Mike Scott in Game Seven?

Was it bad luck in 1989 when Nolan Ryan left the Astros for the Rangers after Houston owner John McMullen asked him to take a pay cut?

Was it merely bad luck in 2005 when Albert Pujols of the Cardinals hit that monster shot off Astros closer Brad Lidge in the NLCS, forcing the club to use Roy Oswalt one more time for the clinching NL pennant win that also knocked him out of his planned start in the World Series – a series that included plenty of its own “bad luck” plays on the way to a 4-0 sweeping win by the White Sox?

Are the Texans’ current personnel losses due to the bad luck fall out of signing superstar running back Arian Foster and now being to close to the salary cap to keep two of their best defensive players, Mario Williams and DeMeco Ryans, plus several others who have now signed elsewhere?

Houston has a bad habit of reaching for the top rung and then falling short. Is that because our clubs don’t reach high enough? Or because they don’t see where the top rung really is? Are we just being led by stupid and inept office people? Or is it because meddlesome owners eventually always get in the way? Or is it due to the fact that the cost of getting there is always just a little too steep for ownership’s pockets? Or is the cost of winning today so high that it can  only be sustained for a season or two before you have to give up the players who made you competitive?

Or, in our case, is it just plain old bad luck – served up Houston-style?