Sugar Land Skeeters fans are no stranger to sellout crowds, long bathroom lines, or parking in far-flung dirt lots. Fifty out of the 52 home games played at the $37 million Constellation Field, just a 25-minute drive from downtown Houston, have been sellouts.
What’s new to them, however, is tickets exceeding $200 (according to StubHub, 33 of them eclipsed that mark) or the national media coverage. But that comes with the territory when Roger Clemens, a 50-year-old seven-time Cy Young Award winner, is making his Skeeters debut, five years after his last appearance on the mound with the New York Yankees.
To read the full article on Clemens’ debut with the Skeeters, visit ESPN Playbook.
Texans Duane Brown in a Smart Car (Photo: Sunshine Winters Photography)
Can an NFL tackle fit in a smart car?
Standing at 6-foot-5 and a “light” 320 pounds, as he puts it, you wouldn’t think Houston Texans offensive lineman Duane Brown could fit inside a two-seat smart car sitting in the media parking lot at Texans training camp.
The smart fortwo model stretches 106 inches in width, but the 5-year NFL veteran was convinced he could fit inside.
Brown towers over the car, and if he were to lie down, he would make up 79 percent of the car’s length. But he insists he can fit inside — and do so comfortably.
To read the full article on Duane Brown’s Smart Car ride, visit ESPN Playbook.
Duane Brown in a Smart Car (Photo: Sunshine Winters Photography)
HOUSTON — Linsanity officially ended at 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
At that moment, point guard Jeremy Lin became a member of the Rockets, perhaps transforming Texas into the Lin Star State. Or maybe the 6-foot-3 Asian American phenomenon will inspire the era of Linergy, in homage to the self-styled Energy Capital of the World.
To read the full article on Linsanity in Houston (otherwise soon known as Lin Star State), visit ESPN Playbook.
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Battier's Frivolous Dom Celebration via his Twitter page
Shane Battier played 29,001 minutes in the NBA before reaching his first NBA Finals. He responded by being a serious perimeter threat for the Miami Heat, making 16 3-point shots over the five games, scoring in double digits in three of them.
Battier has completed the trophy trifecta, winning a high school state championship, an NCAA title at Duke and an NBA title. And he has been enjoying his victory lap, banging on pans in the Heat’s victory parade and throwing out the first pitch at a Marlins game.
To read my entire interview with Shane and the full article, visit ESPN Playbook.
Let’s be clear: Minute Maid Park is not a good place to catch a first-class baseball game and hasn’t been for some time, dating back to ‘05 when the Astros won the National League championship. Coming off one of the worst seasons in Major League Baseball in which the Astros posted a franchise-worst 56-106 record, they aren’t providing much enjoyment.
But that doesn’t mean you won’t find a different form of entertainment under that retractable roof, thanks to a guy whose job it is to provide entertainment, even when the Stros are striking out left and right.
For the past 14 seasons, that job has belonged to Nunee Oakes, audio engineer (fancy words for a DJ, he says) for the Houston Astros. After logging 14 championship-less seasons, the music man has lasted almost a decade longer than any of the 18 managers in the team’s history. But Oakes does a lot more than play variations of Jay-Z between innings. He’s the guy who controls every bit of sound you hear inside the 1,263,240-square foot ballpark — from the video board (the first 1080i HD scoreboard in MLB) to the PA system to longtime broadcaster Milo Hamilton’s radio show. He does it all.
While the team sporting the uniforms hasn’t been above .500 since 2008, the team “behind the glass” above left field (which is comprised of three other full-time employees and 50 game-day employees) has been honored numerous times, including winning the Best Overall Display Award (known as the “Best Show in Baseball”) for five straight years.
The team tries to instill a balance of Latino, country, hip-hop, top 40 and classic rock music for its fans.
Oakes works in tandem with Kirby Kander, senior director of creative services, doing everything from scripting music, picking player intro music (not all the guys pick their songs anymore), planning features/inning breaks and troubleshooting potential problems.
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