The Round Rock Express are a Minor League Baseball team of Pacific Coast League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros major league club. They are located in Round Rock and play their home games at the Dell Diamond; the team is named for Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, nicknamed "The Ryan Express." Ryan, along with son Reid Ryan and Don Sanders make up the team's ownership group, Ryan Sanders Baseball. The Express was established as a Double-A team of the Texas League in 2000; the team won the Texas League championship in 2000. The team was replaced by a Triple-A PCL team in 2005; the Triple-A Express carried on the history of the Double-A team. The ownership group led by Nolan Ryan and Don Sanders began its operations in Round Rock in 2000 as the Dell Diamond opened, moving the Double-A Texas League's Jackson Generals to the new park, affiliating with the Houston Astros and setting attendance records for the Double-A level. By 2003, Corpus Christi had offered the Ryan-Sanders group $20 million to build a stadium and move a professional franchise there, the ownership group was convinced Round Rock could support Triple-A baseball.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Coast League's Edmonton Trappers franchise, left isolated by the departure of the Calgary Cannons after the 2002 season for Albuquerque, was under pressure from the rest of the league to relocate to the United States. After the 2003 season, the Ryan group purchased the Trappers franchise with plans to relocate that franchise to Round Rock for 2005, once the Corpus Christi stadium would be ready for the Double-A franchise; the Triple-A club would carry on the Round Rock Express identity. In 2006, the Round Rock Express clinched the Southern Division of the league's American Conference with a win–loss record of 85–59. After defeating the Nashville Sounds in five games to take the American Conference championship, they advanced to the PCL championship series, but lost to the Tucson Sidewinders in three straight games. In 2011, after 6 seasons of serving as the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, 11 seasons of being affiliated with the Astros overall, the Express became the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers.

Through the end of the 2018 season, attendance figures have dropped 8% since changing affiliations from Houston to Texas. Each of the top 9 season attendances all occurred in the 11 seasons the team was affiliated with Houston. In 2016, Forbes listed the Express as the sixth-most valuable Minor League Baseball team with a value of $40 million. On September 20, 2018, the Express announced a 4-year Player Development Contract with the Houston Astros. Season average attendanceAttendance ranking by affiliation Josh Banks, MLB pitcher Jason Hirsh, MLB pitcher Roy Oswalt, MLB pitcher John Buck, MLB catcher Humberto Quintero, MLB catcher Taylor Teagarden, MLB catcher Hunter Pence, MLB outfielder Craig Gentry, MLB outfielder Willy Taveras, MLB outfielder Chris Davis, MLB first baseman Morgan Ensberg, MLB third baseman Roger Clemens, MLB pitcher Mike Gallo, MLB pitcher José Urquidy, MLB pitcher Keith Ginter, MLB Infielder The "Play Ball" episode of The Simple Life, a reality television series starring young wealthy socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, took place during an Express game.

The show aired on July 2004, as the 15th episode of the show's second season. The team made headlines in 2010 when it "signed" Billy Ray "Rojo" Johnson, described in a press release as an East Texan who grew up in Venezuela and had run-ins with the law. In reality, Johnson was actor Will Ferrell, who took the mound at Dell Diamond to promote his nearby charity golf tournament. Official website

Monika Maria Brodka is a Polish singer, who rose to fame as the winner of the third season of Polish Pop Idol in 2004. She has since released 3 albums, including the 2010 album Granda which received critical acclaim in Poland and abroad. Brodka has received several nominations to the Fryderyk award, while her singles "Ten", "Dziewczyna Mojego Chłopaka", "Miałeś być" and "Znam Cię Na Pamięć" have all topped the official Polish Music Charts. After winning the 2004 edition of Polish Pop idol, Monika Brodka released her first studio record titled Album, certified gold after a months. In November 2006, she released her second album, Moje piosenki, which turned gold. After a four-year hiatus, Brodka's third studio album Granda was released in September 2010; the album showed a big change of musical direction, was described in The Guardian as "drawing on electro and roots music, but remaining resolutely pop in its approach and execution, the record has a vitality and adventurousness that puts most of Poland's alt-rock acts to shame".

Granda was certified double platinum in Poland in November 2011. In May 2012, Brodka released an extended play LAX, recorded at Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles together with music producer and engineer Bartosz Dziedzic; the EP contains two new songs in "Varsovie" and "Dancing Shoes", as well as some remixes. Brodka won the 2013 Fryderyk award for Song of the Year, received two nominations in categories Album of the Year and Artist of the Year. Official homepage Awards Full Artist Discography Pop musik: the sound of the charts in … Poland Monika Brodka at culture.pl

Anna Benson is an American model, former stripper, ex-wife of former Major League Baseball pitcher Kris Benson. Anna Benson was born in Mableton, outside of Atlanta, Georgia on February 12, 1976. Benson dropped out of school following her sophomore year of high school and left home when she was sixteen. About that time, she says, "I was a dancer in the Atlanta strip clubs. I had a baby and a husband when I was seventeen". In 1996, Anna Benson was charged with murder when 18-year-old Michael Evans was executed in her Tennessee apartment. Police found Benson's apartment covered in satanic anti-police graffiti, but Benson and her boyfriend had fled in a stolen vehicle; the national manhunt for the suspects was featured on America's Most Wanted. Witnesses said that Warren told her boyfriend to "get rid of" Evans; the murder charges were dropped, prompting the victim's father to state that "she got away with murder... I don't know how she can live with herself knowing that she conspired to kill my son."In 1998, she met her future husband, Kris Benson, while she was dancing at the Mardi Gras, a strip club in Atlanta.

They had attended rival high schools in Georgia, but had never gotten to know one another prior to this meeting. She and Kris were married in October 1999 -- his first; as she described it, "when I came to Kris, I had nothing -- two pairs of one bra. The Bensons were soon labeled "baseball's most incongruous couple," with Anna having "diverted attention" from a star pitcher who "often fades into the periphery." Anna filed for divorce on March 2006, citing an "irretrievably broken" marriage. She withdrew the petition, subsequently had another child with Kris. Altogether, they had four children: her daughter Alyssa from a previous marriage, their daughter Haylee, sons P. J. and Devin. Benson's daughter claims that Benson threatened her with a gun in 2009. Sometime around July 19, 2012, Kris served Anna with divorce papers, she was arrested on July 8, 2013 after threatening Kris at his home with a gun and metal baton while wearing a bulletproof vest. She was charged with criminal trespassing, she pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and weapons charges on November 5, 2013 in Marietta and was sentenced to 15 years' probation.

In August 2016, Benson was arrested again after she trespassed at a home in Mableton and stole mail in April of that year. While in jail, she was scheduled to appear at a probation revocation hearing in Cobb Superior Court in Marietta but did not show up. A representative for the district attorney said the judge signed a consent decree, allowing Benson to apply to mental health court. On July 30, 2004, the Pirates traded Kris Benson to the New York Mets. In November 2004, Benson posed for the cover and a spread in FHM magazine and was named "baseball's hottest wife." In an interview with Howard Stern that year, she vowed that if her husband cheated on her she would take revenge by sleeping with the entire Mets organization. Benson explained the comment as "stupid humor to be understood by these idiots who take everything so literally." In July 2005, she began playing at the 2005 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. She was ejected for excessive cursing; the New York Times, having noted Anna Benson's "calculated outrageousness," wrote that "in her one year in New York, Anna Benson drove the Mets to distraction."

Sports reporter Murray Chass wrote of the Mets–Orioles trade, "Kris Benson doesn't have a good enough arm for the Mets to overlook his wife's mouth.... And by trading Anna Benson, the Mets may have achieved what Casey Stengel called addition by subtraction." Kris Benson himself said that he felt New York traded him to Baltimore because of his wife, but Omar Minaya, general manager of the Mets discounted speculation that her behavior had played a role, saying, "We just made a baseball trade." Mirroring Chass's linkage of the Bensons, Sports Illustrated opined that Anna Benson's "outlandish antics" had come to overshadow her husband's "few good years" in the major leagues. Benson has worked with charitable organizations over the years such as the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital, Salvation Army and American Red Cross; the couple has a non-profit charity called Benson's Battalion that helped area police forces in the cities where her husband played. Benson was interviewed on The Howard Stern Show, November 30, 2004.

Benson has been featured in several publications, including FHM, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker and on the cover of The Sporting News. In New York, she was featured in Daily News. Benson appeared on the radio during the Dan Patrick Show. Ranked #29 on FHM-U. S.'s 100 Sexiest Women 2006 Ranked #48 on FHM-U. S.'s 100 Sexiest Women 2005