There's always next year.

Of course, you know I watched the game last night and that's really all that's on my mind right now. I may write about something else later today if the urge strikes me. But, if you don't want to read about sports, you may want to stop reading now because here it goes.

While I sit at my desk staring at my computer screen, over-analyze last night's loss for the Astros, I'm still beaming with pride that they had such an incredible season. There is always next season. But what went wrong in game 7. I'll tell you what went wrong ...

First of all, Roger Clemens did not come through as expected. He usually breaks after the 4th inning and adjusts his pitches. He didn't do that this game. Also, HELLO, he should have walked Pujols and pitched to Rolen. We had the leeway there.

But Clemens definitely is not entirely to blame for this loss. Too many of our guys swung at balls they shouldn't have, balls that landed in the dirt before the plate or that were even way out of reach. And there was not nearly enough hustle in our defense or our offense for that matter. This was the last game, our last chance to make it to the World Series for the first time ever. You get your butt out there and break your back and eat dirt to dive for every single ball that comes in your vicinity, and you run for that base faster than you've ever run in your life. Houston teams all carry the same bad habit ... if they don't break into a good lead initially and keep that lead, they start to loose confidence and give up at the first sign of an opposing gain. And I think that's what happened. Once the Card's started scoring runs, our guys just gave up. In the end, I guess they just wanted it more.

Agh! But in the spirit of good sportsmanship, and with the realization that our guys had a great season and played their hearts out all year, there's always next year. I'll still be in the stands as often as possible routing for our Houston Astros.