calkins's Blog

Shaking and stirring while always recommending Artista for your greater dining pleasure.  

Enjoy with a discerning friend.  Or an attractive stranger. 

The great state’s great reputation as football first and football foremost is a burned out cliché that burns as deeply the Friday Night Lights of generations past and present. 

The elite basketballers emerging from Texas, from grass roots through AAU to high school hip-hip and cross-over, routinely rank hightop to hightop with that from any other on the hoop horizon.  And have for roughly the last decade.  And the will continue to be featured in college programs near and far, major mid-major and modest, coast-to-coast. 

A quick review of the current campus hardball playoffs again confirms that the baseball skills nurtured within these borders is equal if not superior to any from any corner of the U-S of A. 

Houston and Rice.  Texas and Texas A&M.  Texas Southern and Sam Houston.  Dallas Baptist and TCU and LSU and Tulane and UNO and Oklahoma and Oklahoma State all in the regional round of the College World Series pursuit.  All fueled in doses large or small by tall Texas talent running every bit as deep and as prized  as Texas crude. Well, almost.

The upcoming major league draft may not feature a Rocket or a Beckett or a Berkman or even a Jay Bruce at the top of the board, perhaps not a Kazmir or Crawford for quick impact.  But without question the state will again be well represented. 

Texas Tech’s Roger Kieschnick and UT’s Jordan Danks (brother of White Sox pitcher John) are ranked in the top 100 position players available.  

Second Baptist right-hander Ross Seaton, Rice’s Bryan Price, Baytown Sterling’s Brett Marshall, Klein Collins’Austin Dicharry are all rated among the top 100 pitchers. 

Just below that first tier are Klein’s Adam Smith, UT’s Kyle Russell (Tomball), Rice’s Cole St. Clair, Kempner’s Kyle Winkler, and UH’s Wes Musick. 

Not quite in that mix but certainly worth watching in the following years – a second kid K from Collins (Sam Stafford), a second primo performer from Sterling (Hunter Cervenka), Westside’s Taylor Wall, Lamar’s Anthony Rendon and the Rice duo of Adam Zornes and Aaron Luna. 

Here’s a trend to consider regardless of how the next round-by-rounds play out on draft day. 

In the last 11 drafts, the big league outfits have invested 18 number one picks in pitchers with direct Houston ties.  From Matt Anderson and a $1.55 million dollar bonus for number one overall in 1997, to Jeff Austin ($2.7 million bonus) to Kip Wells to Kenny Baugh to Joe Savery ($1.4 million bonus). 

From three in the same draft in 2003 (Ryan Wagner, David Aardsma, Brad Sullivan and bonuses worth $4.1m ) and again in 2006 (Brad Lincoln, Kyle Drabek, Kyle McCullough and bonuses worth $5.2m) to three from one rotation in the first eight picks of the same draft (Phil Humber @ $3.7m, Jeff Niemann @ $3.2m, Wade Townsend in 2004) to the same pitcher (Townsend) taken in the first round in consecutive drafts.

Since the Brewers reached out for Texas Aggie and Bellaire-ex Kelly Wunsch in 1993 and dropped $400,000 in his pockets, 24 pitchers with direct Houston connections have gone in the first round.  And that’s just the round one tally. And just pitchers.  And just Houston.  You get the idea.

The lights that shine and discover and reveal promise and potential, from good to great, from the great state, burn season to season and night to night, not just Friday nights.  And have for some time.