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Who do Houston fans love to hate most? Check out these dream crushers
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Albert Pujols is a Houston dream crusher.
Houston fans don't have a lot to root for on their own.
Let's face it; the Astros are on their way to being completely irrelevant. The Rockets might make a nice run in the playoffs, but unless Kobe Bryant blows a knee, they won't be winning a championship.
The Texans? Maybe this will be their best season, but so far, they've been mediocre.
The good news is each team has some stars that we have the pleasure of watching. Yao Ming is an international superstar. Andre Johnson is the best receiver in the NFL. Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman are worth the price of admission.
But for Houston fans, that's not always enough. We need someone to hate.
Fortunately, we have no shortage of athletes and teams willing to fuel our hatred.
With that in mind, here are the five teams/players we love to hate the most. We limited it to pro sports (so no Lorenzo Charles. That's one for another day, UH fans).
Keep in mind that the reason these players (and teams) are hated is because they are pretty darned good. They have made plays to break Houston fans' hearts. In some cases, they are whiny little cheaters, too.
So here they are:
5) Frank Reich, Buffalo Bills. He might have singlehandedly been responsible for the Oilers leaving Houston. He engineered the great comeback (or great choke?) in 1993 where the Bills rallied from a 35-3 deficit to beat the Oilers in a wild-card playoff game. The Bills went on to the Super Bowl; the Oilers started a spiral that sent them to Tennessee to become the Titans. While a lot of people blame Bud Adams, the blame goes back to Reich and the Bills.
4) Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts. OK, we should hate Manning more than we do. He has one career loss to the Texans. He flaps his arm like a goof. He is ridiculously efficient. Perhaps because the Texans have been somewhat responsible for their own fate against Manning -- see Sage Rosenfels -- he avoids our true hatred.
OK, maybe we are sick of your stupid commercials, too.
We're sort of projecting here, because the Texans still haven't played a game with any meaning. If they do, you can count on Manning being the one to crush their dreams.
3) David Carr. Maybe it was the too-cute hair. The bizarre gloves. The inability to handle a blitz. Carr was the first pick in Texans history, and much was expected of him. Maybe he didn't have an offensive line, but maybe he just sucked. When he was drafted, he had most-favored status. But with each sack from holding the ball too long, bad fumble, terrible interception, knucklehead decision...Carr lost the fans.
He is the only one on the list to actually play for a Houston team and be hated.
Carr was never really interested in being a quarterback; he didn't live and breath the game the way the truly great ones do. Houston fans have low expectations, but they respect passion, even if you are bad. They hate antipathy.
Carr will probably play a few more years as a backup, but for his sake, hopefully he never has to set foot on the floor of Reliant Stadium again as an opposing quarterback. The booing will be heard as far away as Guatemala.
2) Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals. Why do the Astros even pitch to him any more? He ruined Brad Lidge's Astros' career -- Lidge had to leave and undergo therapy before he could win a World Series in Philadelphia. Pujols has just kept beating on the Astros ever since. Maybe the Astros should try walking him. Or better yet, hitting him with a pitch every time he comes up. Because if they throw it over the plate, he's going to crush their dreams. Again.
1) The Utah Jazz and anyone associated with them. How pathetic is our sports world when we hate Utah, a team that has never won anything? But the hatred goes way back, to the flopping John Stockton and Karl Malone. Stockton's killer 3 in Game 6 of the 1997 playoff series essentially doomed the Rockets to mediocrity for 12 years. They haven't won a playoff series since. Three times since, the Jazz have put the dagger through the Rockets' hearts -- 1998, 2007 and 2008.
Jerry Sloan has been the one constant. He outcoaches whoever is on the Rockets staff. His teams play hard and smart. A true Houston fan will also tell you they cheat like the devil, foul, flop, grab, anything they can do to win. It all started with Stockton, the pasty, annoying point guard who personified true evil.
But Houston fans' hatred goes much deeper than that. Even players like Greg Ostertag, Greg Foster, Antoine Carr -- they all played like Hall of Famers against the Rockets. The names have changed -- now it's the Mehmet Okurs and Paul Millsaps of the world crushing dreams -- but the Jazz have the Rockets' number.
If you are a betting person, you can assume the Jazz will knock the Rockets out of the playoffs again in 2009.
And stay No. 1 on the list.
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