In a series of blunt observations and admonitions Friday to a dozen-plus lawyers in the fractious Comcast SportsNet Houston bankruptcy case, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes encouraged the Astros, Rockets and Comcast to work toward making the network financially viable while the legal aspects of their dispute wind their way through court.

Hughes will preside over the Astros’ appeal of a decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur to place the CSN Houston partnership into Chapter 11. While attorneys submit arguments to Hughes on the appeal, Isgur will continue to preside over decisions concerning practical matters of keeping the network on the air while it is reorganized.

But while the judges and lawyers do their work in that area, Hughes said, the Astros, Rockets and Comcast need to work outside the courtroom on ways to make the network profitable.

“Let’s try to focus,” he said. “Do the legal part, but it shouldn’t be the dominant part. The dominant part should be how should we resolve the problem.”

The judge in fact, questioned the wisdom of allowing the future of the teams and the network to be subject to court rulings and said that on first glance, the case has less to do with legal strategies than fundamental concerns that should be worked out among partners.

“I see the problem as having nothing to do with the bankruptcy code or Delaware law,” Hughes said. “It’s about whether these guys can make the deal work. It sounds like you need some kind of arrangement.

“You don’t want to turn this over to two aging bureaucrats with tenure like Isgur and me, because that is what you’re doing. You’re letting me run a sports league and a network. I guarantee you that’s like doing eye surgery with a chainsaw.”

The chainsaw reference was one of the more colorful references, but hardly the only one, to come from Hughes during an hour-long hearing he convened to discuss basic contentions by the feuding parties and to receive a schedule on how the appeal should proceed.

Hughes, for example, was displeased with the decision by Astros owner Jim Crane to file a fraud lawsuit against former Astros owner Drayton McLane and Comcast. The suit accuses McLane and Comcast of fraud by failing to inform Crane about some financial aspects of the network when he purchased the team from McLane in 2011.

“I don’t know if it throws a monkey wrench into the gears,” he said. “Maybe closer to manure in the gears. That is not a rational way to approach this.”

He said the Crane-McLane lawsuit, which the Astros said was filed to meet a deadline in their sales agreement with McLane, struck him as “guerilla warfare by litigation” at a time when “it is in the best interests of all the parties to prompt thoughtful resolution that achieves a legitimate business expectation.”

Hughes, who described himself as a “museum and library guy” with little interest in sports, asked frequent questions as attorneys Paul Basta, representing the Astros, and Craig Goldblatt, representing Comcast, ran over basic details of their dispute.

Basta repeated the Astros’ argument that Comcast/NBC Universal had been unable to present a profitable business plan for the network and had failed to pay rights fees, which as of last week totaled $27 million, according to court records.

That failure, he said, gave the Astros the right to reclaim their media rights, which would signal the network’s demise. However, Comcast prevented that from happening when several affiliates filed an involuntary Chapter 11 petition last September.

While the Rockets, who supported the bankruptcy filing, also are owed $27 million in unpaid rights fees, Basta said the failure of CSN Houston has been more of a burden on the Astros than the Rockets because the Astros need profit from the network in addition to rights fees to enable them to compete with well-funded American League West teams like the Rangers and Angels.

The result, he said, is a “toxic environment” that can be best served by the Astros retaking their rights and letting the network fail.

Hughes noted during his questioning of Basta that the Astros, when the network partnership was formed during McLane’s ownership, never asked for or received a guarantee that the network would be profitable and suggested that enforcement of contract disputes in Texas is stricter than in some other locales.

“This isn’t California,” he said. “We don’t interpret contracts by getting naked and getting in a hot tub or talking about aspirations (regarding business plans).”

Goldblatt spent less time detailing Comcast’s arguments but said that Comcast continues to believe the network can be a success if it is reorganized in bankruptcy court. Attorney Alan Gover, representing the Rockets, said the team believes Judge Isgur “got it right” with his decision to place the network in bankruptcy.