The Houston Texans finally produce their first non-losing season by going 8-8 in 2007 and there's reason to believe they may go 10-6 and challenge for a wild card spot for the first time ever in 2008, and I feel it's a little disappointing for the HPF.com forums to be shutting down during what I feel will be the Houston Texans' finest hour in 2008.


It wasn't about the Texans' fortunes, Ryan. It was about the people who ran HPF losing interest in keeping up the site while life's other needs competed for their attention. The same was true with Darrell Pittman at AstrosDaily. Back in January, Darrell said he would "freeze in time" AstrosDaily because he was tired of running the site but didn't want to take it down. Meanwhile, I'd known for a year that HPF.com was heading in the direction they were going. Faced with losing the two websites I had invested so much of my writing in, I decided to save AstrosDaily (even though I had little programming or html experience) and sacrifice my involvement in HPF. Now that the regular season is here, I spend 1-2 hours every night updating the AD site. I'm really amazed at what I've been able to do there in such a short time but there is still much more to do and I am probably doing some things the hard way because the easier (perl scripts) way doesn't get the desired results for me.

I think receiving the Cease & Desist letter from the NFL was also a body blow to the HPF folks. They had to remove most NFL-related images last fall which then made the venture less visually appealing. If you have a blog (much like Astros Dugout or the Crawfish Boxes) which is all text and no photos, then the NFL will leave you alone. AstrosDaily.com received a Cease & Desist letter from MLB over the same issues about 5-6 years ago but Drayton McLane and Pam Gardner stepped in and worked out a compromise for which I remain very grateful. While the Houston Texans have always treated HPF and similar sites with disdain, the Astros went out of their way to save AstrosDaily, plus my love for baseball probably outweighs my love for football ever so slightly.

Hope this wasn't TMI, but I just wanted to explain why you and other viewers of both sites are seeing the changes you are seeing.

"Astro Fan Since They Were First Called Astros."