The sale of the Houston Astros to Houston businessman Jim Crane from technological monster Drayon McLane is official, and after the 2012 baseball season wraps up the 50-year strong National League squad will pack their their things, wait a moment, then unpack them in the same spot as an American League West stalwart. Finally, Texas can get rid of National League baseball and focus on what we love: hitting as many home runs as possible, then losing out of nowhere for no reason.

From an AP Source:

Crane reportedly agreed to the move in exchange for a drop in the sales price valued earlier this year at $680 million. The person who spoke to the AP could not confirm the sales price.

“We’ll let baseball talk about that,” current owner Drayton McLane said Wednesday night. “There were a lot of adjustments, so we’ll just wait and see what they have to say (Thursday).”

The players’ association believes two 15-team leagues would create a more proportionate schedule and has urged baseball to make the switch. With schedules for next season already completed, the earliest such a move could take place is 2013.

And here we are on Thursday, googling “Houston Astros” for the first (and possibly only) time in the calendar year.

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Like that scene with the awesome Regina Spektor song in 500 Days of Summer. Your expectations for the Morning Links: 12 links to galleries of Kate Upton, possibly with a Kate Upton video at the top. Okay, 11 links to galleries of Kate Upton and one about MMA. Reality: That lady can only do so much in a weekend, so you have to read about angry, heavyset soccer parents in Iowa and 11-foot tall Chinese guys.

Sports

Yao Ming: Expectations Vs. Reality - Outside of the Taiwanese Animation recap we haven’t said much about the retirement of Yao Ming, because “he was a nice guy who did pretty well at basketball” and “you guys don’t comment on posts featuring actual sports news” are hard to express in 350 words. [Smoking Section]

#Podcast: The Chris Kluwe Interview - @PUNTE continues his run of talking to real sports folks about real sports things by talking to the Minnesota Vikings punter. My New Year’s resolution now is “talk to somebody who plays for the Houston Texans, or at least knows somebody who does. Possibly one of the cheerleaders”. Who am I kidding, definitely one of the cheerleaders. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Hitpost Will Make You a Sports Reporter - So will getting an editor position at a popular sports blog because you made a funny webcomic, but don’t tell anybody. [Uproxx]

Olympics In The Deep South: A 15-Year Retrospective Of Atlanta’s Summer Games - 15 years later and about 10 after I found out, and I’m still jealous of Jon Bois for going to the Kurt Angle Olympics. He won a gold medal with a broken freakin’ neck! [SBN]

With Leather

The Chained Heat of Iowa Softball - If you didn’t read this because 1) it was Friday, 2) the story was a day old or 3) it is about preteen softball, you’re missing out on a great example of lookism and a video featuring Thora Birch and Christina Ricci before they were dragged onto the Hollywood F and D-teams, respectively. I miss you, Thora. Be in movies I don’t have to buy at Wal-mart to see. [With Leather]

The Great Foul Ball Debate - Last week’s best feature, still making me angry well into Monday and only slightly hurt by Burnsy not being able to recognize a developmentally-disabled guy. [With Leather]

Bynum’s Life is a Flagrant Foul - Parking across a crosswalk and a handicap spot is bad, but at least he didn’t forearm shiver any child-sized people in the parking lot. As recommended, I’m permanently associating the “Andrew Bynum” and “assholes” tags. [With Leather]

Tim Pawlenty Is The ‘Miracle On Land’ - Don’t care about politics or magical hockey stories? You should still read this, because I make the closest thing I’m ever going to make to a good political joke. Usually I just type “Obama? More like NO-bama! Keep ‘The Change’!” and stare at my monitor until my brain farts and convinces me that’s an okay thing to put on the Internet. Also, SMDH @ Tim Pawlenty. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Comic-Con Photo Diary: Part One - New professional goal: be cool/good enough that my bosses send me to places like Comic-Con to do things like photo diaries. Sure, I’m taking 200 pictures at the Round Rock Express game, but nobody’s paying me to do it. [Film Drunk]

Corgi Cosplay for Comic-Con - Keep your skinny girls trying to pass themselves off as hot by wearing dumb clothes, give me cute dogs. Arguable point: outside of Halloween and young adult mixers, only animals should be put in funny clothes for our amusement. [Warming Glow]

Super Fun “Where the Wild Things Are” Tattoos - I was going to make fun, but 1) Where the Wild Things Are (in book and movie form) is great and 2) I have a Charlotte’s Web tattoo, so who am I going to make fun of? [Gamma Squad]

Adult Swim’s Never-To-Be-Aired-On-TV “Black Dynamite” Pilot’s Online Premiere - In a better world, the Black Dynamite cartoon will get four season and be hilarious. Also in that world, cooler people appreciate “The Venture Bros.” and “Tom Goes to Mayor” never existed. [Adult Swim]

Taiwain’s storied Next Media Animation has commemorated the retirement of Yao Ming by putting together a short film about his life and career, as interpreted by a person on so many drugs their brain is about to explode. I love these things and never miss a chance to post them (with my favorites being Gay Softball League Can Continue To Discriminate? and Leslie Knope being possessed by the spirits of Wamapoke ancestors) but this one might be the best yet. Besides the highlights mentioned in the title, Ming rides a shark through a sea of rose petals and we find out the amazing way a Taiwanese lady says “Charles Barkley”.

See for yourself:

A more subtle highlight is hilarious little animated David Stern. He looks like he should be getting jumped on by Mario. Also sort of funny is the outro, which features a little bit of English, because the people that make these are totally on to us.

[h/t The Last Angry Fan]

Remember that really tall Chinese guy who came to the NBA, because he was so good at basketball in China, and featured in crazy soda commercials of him having an army of pandas?

That poor soul is dead and gone, yet Yao Ming’s body keeps chugging along, playing a couple emotionless games until the inevitable bone explosion. He fractured his right knee in 2006, had a stress fracture in his foot in 2008 and suffered a stress fracture in his left ankle just a couple weeks ago, ending his season and possibly longer. He’s just awfully break-y, huh?

If you’re a normal person, you’d think that the Rockets would let him heal and keep him around, since he’s been good his whole career when he’s healthy, almost averaging a double-double in his career in Houston (19.1 PPG, 9.3 RPG). What do the Rockets say, though? “WHO WANTS HIM?”

It actually makes sense, though, as Adrian Wojnarowski from Yahoo explains:

The lure of acquiring Yao for potential suitors is the $8 million in savings that insurance will provide for his $17.7 million expiring contract this season. Some teams are considering re-signing Yao on a short-term deal with hopes of restoring him to playing health, while others see his contract as a cost-saving measure.
…
The Rockets are dangling Yao to acquire a good young player with an upside, if not an established talent. Despite offering Yao in trades, the Rockets haven’t ruled out the possibility of re-signing him to a short-term contract extension.

Take a physically (and maybe mentally at this point) broken former great, save a lot of money. A very crafty sell, Daryl Morey. I’m sure Bill Simmons will write something about this, most likely inserting it as a tangent inside his NFL picks column (that’s how he rolls, brah).

As a final note, I present to you another great commercial featuring Yao. It’s great because his name sounds like an informal American greeting, and it’s also great because New York stereotypes are hilarious!

So that silly little foot injury that knocked Rockets big man Yao Ming out of the NBA Playoffs may also keep him on the shelf for all of 2009-2010. Reports are conflicting as to how much time Yao is expected to miss. If I had a dollar for every time one of these Chinese sat out of games because of a broken left foot. From SI.com, who has no annoying autoplay videos on their site that I can find:

Yao suffered a hairline fracture of the tarsal navicular bone late in a May 8 playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers. The team said last week the injury hasn’t healed and he was out indefinitely.

Yao played in 77 regular-season games in 2008-09, his most injury-free year since 2004-05, when he played in 80. Before last season, Yao missed chunks of previous three seasons with leg and foot injuries.

Like many of the NBA’s stars, Yao had a limited offseason last summer while competing in the Beijing Olympics. I’m sure soaking that foot in mop water hasn’t helped much. Fortunately, tall Chinese players are a bit of an aberration, like four-leaf clovers and games where Tracy McGrady actually plays.

Both teams from last year’s NBA Finals couldn’t close the book on their respective conference semifinal opponents. The Lakers, fresh off of drubbing the Rockets by 40 points on Tuesday night, found themselves trailing the Rockets for most of the game behind more clutch shooting from Aaron Brooks and a fine defensive effort from Shane Battier, limiting Kobe to 11-for-27 shooting from the field. If you don’t like Aaron Brooks right now, you have no soul. The Rockets prevailed, 95-80, to tie their series at 3-3.

“They all have the same mentality, they all fight for everything that they get,” Bryant said of the Rockets. “That’s why we’re in the position that we’re in right now. They don’t quit. So Game 7 is going to be exciting.”

The winner will play the Denver Nuggets, who finished off Dallas on Wednesday night and now have a few extra days to rest.

Also forcing a Game 7: the Orlando Magic, who managed to put aside their differences long enough to beat Boston last night, 83-75. Dwight Howard finished with 23 points and 22 rebounds and Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy still resembles a popular adult film star.