I read Tim Layden’s very solid Blood, Sweat, and Chalk a couple weeks ago and I learned something about Huston Street. I knew he was a Longhorn (and thoughts go out to the campus after today’s incident), but I’d never connected him to Jim Street. The elder Street was the initial wishbone QB for Darrell Royal’s Longhorns when they introduced the formation and proceeded to run wild over everyone for the next decade.

I won’t ruin Layden’s story by telling you how Street, the backup to a schoolboy legend, got to run the offense, but when Jim Tracy refused to use Huston Street time and time again this week, as Joe Sheehan has been pointing out, I wondered why. I made a couple calls and what I was told was that Tracy didn’t want to tax Street too much, especially in “an uncomfortable situation.” 

Sorry, I thought relievers - especially the real “firemen” (and when did we lose that term?) - thrived on discomfort, both relieving it and causing it for batters. I thought they traded for Street for precisely those reasons (and Carlos Gonzalez, to be sure.) I guess Tracy didn’t know the story about how Huston’s dad came to run an offense that made a lot of defenses uncomfortable.

Tracy should have plenty of time in October to catch up on his reading.