In which the decreasingly Royal We insert various passages representative of the Western Canon into works of Dick Allen, thus adding to those various works the grandeur of perspective.

In today’s episode, Dick Allen finds himself decked in the gold and green garb of the Oakland Athletics, unsure of what purpose he serves baseball and of how it serves him. The date is June 19, 1977, and the Athletics, led by Bobby Winkles, face Francisco Barrios and the Chicago White Sox in the second game of a doubleheader. It is a dark and stormy night.

Top of the 7th, Athletics Batting, Behind 1-4, White Sox’ Francisco Barrios facing 4-5-6

• Wayne Gross singled to center.
• Earl Williams grounded into fielder’s choice to pitcher, Gross out at second.
• Willie Crawford walked, Williams to second.
• Jim Tyrone grounded out to second, Williams to third, Willie Crawford to second.
• Dick Allen pinch hits for Tony Armas (CF), batting eighth.
• Dick Allen took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone pride and put it against the ball’s agony and the ball came over onto the outside corner, its stitches almost touching the edges of the plate.  Allen dropped his shoulders and put his foot forward and lifted the bat as high as he could and drove it down with all his strength, and more strength he had just summoned, into the ball.  He felt the wood go in and he he leaned on it and drove it further and then pushed all his weight after it.
• Dick Allen struck out swinging.
• Dick Allen to tears. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought.  He never knew how easy it was.  And what beat you, he thought.  “Nothing,” he said aloud.  “I went out too far.”  He returned to the dugout and dozed, dreaming about the lions.

0 runs, 1 hit, 0 errors, 2 LOB. Athletics 1, White Sox 4.

This has been the latest episode of Inserting Literature Into Works of Dick Allen.

Earlier today, the wise and enterprising Bradley presented us with an equally the rookie hazing of an equally wise and enterprising team: the Tampa Bay Rays, who went the route of forcing rookies to dress up as various characters (and apparently, one rookie was dressed as a pregnant green fairy) because, you know, they’re rookies. Those bastards.

The Diamondbacks are no stranger to this anti-rookie ideal, but they chose to go with a much different method of hazing the new meat, something a bit more straightforward in its shame.

Bikinis! How embarrassing!

I’m honestly not sure who gets hazed worse here, the rookies who have to wear the bikinis or those who have to look at them (especially you, the reader!).

Also, the question is raised: how in the world do people who spend so much of their lives in Arizona (or even Reno, if they were down in Triple-A) end up so white in the middle of September? I, for one, am concerned about the levels of Vitamin D around the Arizona clubhouse.

As the distinguished parlor-dweller may have noticed, the Football-Caliendo-Industrial Complex is once again inflicting itself upon polite society. Yes: The NFL, where even the commercial breaks have commercial breaks, is back!

Still, it might come as a bit of surprise to learn that the two gentlemen tasked with using English words to describe the 11 minutes of foot-and-ball action, tease the upcoming season of “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.” and, more generally, Move Product, seem as unmoved by all of this as the baseball loyalist of noble breeding. Embiggen and regard!

And the people say: Viva baseball.

Long before he mastered the finer points of agriculture — and, if these history books are correct, even a couple of years before he discovered fire — man had considered deeply, and with great depth, the art of spitting.

Because it comes out of your mouth, is kinda gross, and you can do it onto your bros, spitting is fun. But don’t take my word for it — take Yankee catcher Russ Martin’s.

Held out of Sunday’s game in Anaheim due to a thumb injury, Martin used some of his free time to expectorate. Above, we see Martin practicing a classic, single-stream situation. Below, the Yankee experiments with what I believe would be called a “pulse” technique.

When asked about his skill, Martin replied by saying that he does birthdays and wedding — but mostly weddings, if you know what he means.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every MLB team has a lot of fun with rookie hazing, typically requiring the young ‘uns to dress in the most humiliating of outfits to celebrate their entry into the Wealthy World. The Rays are no exception to this tradition and last night put their rookies through the rigors:

Well, the Rays are not satisfied with just the tradition, choosing to break Halloween’s monopoly, playing themed dress up on most every road trip.

Observe their recent Grunge Theme for their road trip to Seattle earlier this year:
Read the rest of this entry »

I have never been excited about anything for 15 seconds as much as Hanshin Tiger fans are excited about baseball for 15 minutes …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x8sLOs_q3s

People with no taste and incorrect opinions say baseball is boring. May they be roused from sleep and then deafened by the partisans of the Hanshin Tigers.

Regular patrons of Wrigley Field will be glad to know that watery, intoxicating Old Style will continue to flow at the friendly confines. Also available to the discerning epicure? Black slime!

Fortunately, as you may have noticed in the Action News Video embedded abovely, we have a Television Journalist and Food Safety PhD on hand to break it down like a fraction …

Television Journalist: “They found black slime inside an ice machine. That sounds awful. Bad?”

Food Safety PhD: “Yes, it’s terrible.”

Terrible Black Slime!

It’s becoming increasingly evident that Peter Gammons’s “pocket tweets” are not actually pocket tweets at all. Unless Gammons’s pocket lint is able to form sentences like “You’re really helping me” and “I was worried it was the pancakes,” the more likely explanation is that he is unable to distinguish his phone’s texting interface from its Twitter client. Thus, rather than being sent discreetly to his intended interlocutor, these messages are broadcast to his nearly 100,000 followers.

Indeed, one of the great joys of Twitter is being there when one of these gems is set free into the internets. Gammons’s latest mistweet (presented for your consumption in LOLGammo form above) is like a puzzle and a joke all tied into one. The statement “Buy her a washing machine” raises a few questions:

Read the rest of this entry »

I wonder if that is ever going change.

“That is never going to change,” says Yankees supreme exchequer Randy Levine.

Fine.

“That” refers to the playing of “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch at Yankee Stadium. And “that” is too bad.

I could argue that songs oozing religious certainties have no place in the public square (we the taxed mostly pay for these ballparks, after all). I could even argue that Mr. Berlin’s “GBA” is a saccharine load that sounds like it was composed on a low-end Casio. And I could absolutely submit that the Yankees were creepy “Dear Leader” types about the whole thing for far too long.

But mostly it’s the idea of making a baseball game — a light, airy thing when not intense for reasons independent of world events — into something solemn. That’s why “GBA” should go away. Dead-ass Bin Laden is enriching the sea floor and being stripped for parts by gilled beasts. The Arab Spring, to continue the metaphor, flowers apace. So after almost 10 years of this, where’s the harm in letting baseball be baseball? Is it that we’ll … forget?

Read the rest of this entry »

Reader Adam (and also my former roommate Pete) have been so kind as to tip me off to this excellent cartoon featuring Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder spending a night together on the Miller Park grass beneath a beautiful Milwaukee night sky.

The relationship between Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder — two, at least on the surface, very different people — has always been a point of interest for me, the consummate Milwaukee Brewers fan. Prince, the gruff, brash slugger. Braun, the renaissance man bringing the bold flavors of the coast back to the midwest. The two seem hardly compatible, and yet they’ve formed one of the most productive (and just plain awesome) friendships in the major leagues.

And now, we finally get a glimpse inside this friendship: