Bum Steer Contenders
Texas Monthly hints at 2014 Bum Steer Award winners
For fans of Texas culture, politics, sports and, well, the Lone Star State in general, December 13 was a big day: Texas Monthly announced the nominees for the 2014 Bum Steer Awards. Although we have to wait until next week, when the magazine hits newsstands, to read the full report, TM did announce that 2013 was the "fourth-bum-steeriest year in Texas history."
So, who was named the Bum Steer(s) of the year?
Texas Monthly's steertisticians (using undoubtedly highly scientific methods) honed in on Houston for 2014, lauding the Astros, the Texans and Lt. Gov. David "unruly mob" Dewhurst with a very special triple Bum Steer Award.
The national magazine of Texas notes that the winners were selected because of the "unfathomably horrible baseball team, a phenomenally bad football team [and] a lieutenant governor prone to embarrassing moments on the telephone." Although he doesn't have an official share in this year's award, Ted Cruz did receive an honorable mention for being "prone to shutting down the federal government while reading nursery rhymes from the dais."
Texas Monthly already got flack for its January 2014 cover depicting, as the HoustonChronicle points out, "the Astros' 2012 brick pinstriped uniform, not the orange-and-blue uniform design that debuted for the 2013 season." The Texas Monthly Twitter staff responded to the criticism saying:
About Astros uniform: we told artist, watch a game on TV to do the illustration. He could only find an MLB Network rerun from 2004.
— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) December 13, 2013The Bum Steer staff also gave kudos to Dallas for their bad behavior this year. The magazine says that while the city usually has Jerry Jones to blame for its Bum Steer kudos, this year Dallasites had no one to blame but themselves. Austin (for now) remains unscathed. Looks like Romeo Rose wasn't enough to get it on the short list.