Today I come to you with two different stories, both of them are sad, however not for the same reasons. First I start with the announcement that Eddie Griffin, the former Seton Hall, and Houston Rockets player who was identified as the person who lost his life in the collision with a moving train last weekend. The second is Jason Jennings, Baylor Bear, and Houston Astro who's season came to a sudden end yesterday with the announcement that he was having elbow surgery for a torn flexor tendon.

You may be wondering how these two athletes can be brought together, let alone have anything in common, but they do. Both young men were blessed with god given talent to participate in professional sports, both came to Houston through trades that now look like huge mistakes. Griffin was the 7th pick in the NBA Draft and the Rockets gave up THREE first round picks, one of which turned out to be Richard Jefferson for him. He came here with a record of having problems, and those problems followed him throughout his entire career and the remainder of his life. I will not go into the details, suffice it to say that Eddie's personal demons were his eventual downfall, and may have possibly lead to his premature death at the age of 25.

Jennings came to Houston, was touted as the man who would step in behind Roy Oswalt as the #2 starter and be the foundation of the Rotation for the next 5 to 10 years. The team gave up our top starting pitching prospect and our starting center fielder, who was both a good hitter, and had speed that the team had not seen since the days of Jose Cruz, and Ceasar Cedeno. We now find out that Jennings was damaged goods, and that apparently the Rockies did not tell the Astros about his arm problem, nor did Jennings fess up about them himself. I blame the Astro's management for not doing more to find out about the physical health of the player they were trying to get, however once he got here and started to have problems, Jennings dropped the ball literally by not being honest with himself about his health. The fact that an Astro would hide his health status comes as no surprise, it has become part of the clubhouse environment, starting with Bagwell, and others including Morgan Ensberg, and Brad Lidge.

I realize that these guys are under enormous pressure to play everyday considering the amount of money they are getting paid, as well as the pressure to win that is heaped upon them, both by team ownership as well as the fans. However that is no reason to ignore, or try to play through an injury that could cost you your career.

 So there you have it two players who have Houston ties, and who for one reason or another, had battles with personal pressures and failed to rise above them. The only good news is that one of these two will live on to play again, while the other will slowly fade into oblivion.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/507
3074.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/507
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Random thoughts 3.0

NBA regular Season is over, I really am not excited about the playoffs.  maybe because there is no real dominant team that everyone is trying to knock off the mountain.  I mean in the east there are 3 serious contenders,  Detroit, Miami, New Jersey.  2 Potential contenders Cleveland and Indiana, and 3 that are either on their way up or down in Milwaukee, Washington, Chicago.

In the West it is a little bit different.  You really have one contender in the Spurs.  You have Phoenix, and Dallas as the challengers, who need to prove they can play a half court game.  Denver, Memphis, LA Clippers are all potential spoilers if they play up to their talent level.  Then you have the Lakers and Kings where you never know what you are going to get from 1 game to the next.  The Lakers have one ace in their hand and that is Phil Jackson who has only lost 1 first round series as a coach EVER..

MLB is entering it's 3rd week and as usual there is talk about performance enhancing drugs, juiced baseballs, huge HR totals to start the season.  Get real folks.  The pitchers are ALWAYS behind the hitters at the start of the season.  For as long as I can remember there has been one or two guys who jump out to an early hot streak, very few keep it alive into May let alone June.  Tuffy Rhodes anyone?

NFL Schedules are out.  The Texans have the 8th hardest schedule possible in the NFL according to last years records.  They will play 7 games against 5 playoff teams.  If they end up 8-8  Kubiak gets my vote for coach of the year no matter what.

Rockets will have no worse than the 11th pick in the draft.  Probably will have the 9th.  what do they look for?  I personally would be looking for a Shooting Guard, or another Power Forward.  any way they will have another young body and should be more athletic next year.

Astros are 10-5 and have not lost a series this year.  Brandon Backe's Elbow is shredded.  I like the way Nieve, Bucholtz, and Rodriguez, have stepped up  If we can get 2 Quality starts out of them every time through the rotation we are looking good.  Oswalt and Pettitte are doing well. Now if we can only get the bullpen back on track.

Congrats to the Astros for reaching .500 as a franchise this week.  They are the 13th team to reach that mark.  To bad it took 24 years to get back to that point, however it does say something for Drayton McLean as an owner and being dedicated to bringing a winner to town on a yearly basis.

Spring Football is almost over and the talk about who's #1 can start..

Hoping to be able to go see a Michigan game at the Big House this year.

Is it my imagination or do any of the spring NCAA Sports get any pub at all?  I mean as far as the media goes, College sports end after the NCAA Tournament.

NFL Draft a little over 1 week away.  Will be interested to see who goes where. 

I am participating in a bloggers mock draft here check it out.  some interesting discussion and comments.

Kudos to Braylon Edwards for his endowment of the scholarship at UM.  More athletes should do things like that to help the institution that assisted them.  Randy Moss has also stepped up at Marshall.  Despite the negative press he tends to get.  I think he is smart enough to know when there is an opportunity to step up and shine.

Astros file suit to get the disability claim against Bagwell paid and Jeff is looking at surgery again however this time the decision is more to do with life after baseball.

I really think we have seen the last of Roger Clemens.  Now the question is how much longer can Greg Maddux continue to pitch and when should he step away. 

Morgan Ensberg went deep for the fifth straight game.  If he is healthy all year he is an all star and 30 hr threat in the middle of the lineup.

What is wrong with this story, I mean not allowing cheerleaders to have bare midriffs?  I would understand it if they did not look like this, or this, or even this but instead looked like this... or this  That and the reasoning behind it is strictly ####...

time to get off my soap box.

I'll be back post draft with comments and remarks about the Texans and the NFL in whole