If you're anything like me, you found that Thursday was a tease. I must have checked the Chronicle's website fifty times throughout the day to see if a certain manager had been fired. Nope. Maybe today will be the day?

Here are a few pieces of speculation that haven't been posted on TCB yet: Ken Rosenthal expects Cooper to be fired soon, despite his signing a contract extension through 2010. Candidates to replace Coop include current third base coach Dave Clark, and former Phillie manager Jim Fergosi. I think if we replace Cooper with one of Ed Wade's old boys from Philly, I probably will upset...to say the least.

Another report basically re-iterates what Rosenthal said:

Cooper appears a goner in Houston after owner Drayton McLane said he will thoroughly evaluate the organization following the season.

Maybe my Joe Morgan inspired trivia question yesterday didn't fool anyone, but the topic of Astros' team MVP did spark a bit of a discussion. Michael Bourn seems to be the front runner in most people's minds, and I tend to agree:

"I'd be hard-pressed to think of anybody more deserving," Astros president of baseball operations Tal Smith said. "I certainly don't want to denigrate anybody else, but Michael has been just superb in all respects, offensive and defensively. His speed is such a factor."

This study on the chattiest baseball announcers absolutely shocked me. Apparently, Bill Brown is a fairly talkative guy in the booth, more so than even the Rangers' Josh Lewin. Say what you will about the Rangers and how well they've played in 2009, but their announcers leave a great deal to be desired. Subjectively, I guess I always associated Lewin as being over talkative and rarely on point.

Without the internet, how much would you know about the Astros' minor league affiliates? Probably not much. Zach Levine started to do a minor league notebook this summer in the Chronicle, but outside of him there isn't very much information to be had. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that.

**DQ Insert**

J.R. Towles will be returning to the bigs tonight.  It doesn't sound like, however, that he'll be given much playing time. Frustrating, frustrating, frustrating.  Why not have him work with Bud Norris, Feliepe Paulino and Yorman Bazardo? Why do we need to get further looks at Humberto Quintero? Or Chris Coste for that matter? Why do I consistently continue to hope that decision making will make sense with this team?

Richard Justice, who is pretty much solely responsible for all the "Will Cecil Cooper get fired?" hoopla yesterday, tries to deduce who is to blame for the state of this franchise, and therefore be fired.  The arguments are many, but the basic sub-conclusion which Justice reaches and should not be lost is that Cecil Cooper should be fired.  Other than that, it seems like Justice might just be stabbing at, but never arriving at the fact that Drayton McLane is his own worst enemy at this point.