Daily Archives: May 2, 2004

Stros comeback nips Reds

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The Astros continued to roll Sunday afternoon as they scored 3 runs in the bottom of the eighth — spiced by a Brad Ausmus squeeze bunt that plated Lance Berkman with the go ahead run — to beat the Cincinnati Reds for the third straight day, 6-5. The suicide squeeze play was preceded by Mike Lamb‘s key bases loaded single that scored two runs to tie the game as the Stros clawed back from an early 4-0 deficit, which was the result of yet another ineffective Tim Redding outing (3 innings, 4 runs, 5 hits, 2 walks). Redding appears to be headed for either the bullpen or AAA New Orleans for awhile until he works out his problems, which appear to be control-related.
The Stros are now 15-9 and lead the NL Central by a game over the Cubs. Roy O hopes that the Stros are ready to provide more than the five total runs that he has received in his last three outings as he takes the hill on Monday evening in the finale of the four game series against the Reds. The Pirates come to town on Tuesday for a three game set before the Stros visit Atlanta for a three game series with the Braves over next weekend.

Billy Cohn, M.D.

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This Chronicle story does a nice job reporting on Dr. Billy Cohn, one of newer wave of cardiovascular surgeons who are fulfilling the legacy of great heart surgeons at Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center that Drs. Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley began.
Dr. Cohn, 43, has already improved the relatively new method of operating on a heart that is still beating by inventing a cardiac stabilizer that secures the part of the organ that needs surgical attention while the rest of the heart continues to pump blood. Moreover, Dr. Cohn is one of the leaders in a movement within cardiovascular surgery that is attempting to make heart surgery less costly and burdensome to the patient. Eventually, this movement among heart surgeons believes that open-heart surgery will be done without cutting into a patient’s chest.
Dr. Cohn grew up in Houston, attended Memorial High School, and has recently returned to Houston from Boston to practice at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute. The entire article is well worth reading and provides a good summary of developments in heart surgery in the Medical Center.
As an aside, whenever I see an article about a doctor such as this one, I cannot help but recall noted medical academician Dr. Walter M. Kirkendall‘s (my late father) standard observation about such articles:
“Good advertising.”

OTC begins Monday

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One of Houston’s oldest and largest annual conventions — the Offshore Technology Conference — begins on Monday at Reliant Park. This is the 35th straight year that the conference has been held in Houston. Over 50,000 engineers and industry executives will descend upon Houston this week. More than 2,000 exhibitors from 27 countries will fill nearly 400,000 square feet of space at Reliant Center.
Although the size of the conference has varied through the years as a reflection of the state of the offshore oil and gas business, the conference is again in an upward mode as offshore oil production now accounts for about 30 percent of domestic production, and industry estimates predict that to increase to around 40 percent by the end of the decade.