Here’s video of five different and recent home runs by Miami Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton, paired — as they’re clearly intended to be — with verbal ejaculations found in the works of late-18th century playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
1. Zounds!
Warning: this entire post is about my fantasy team. I’ve been told that, like hearing about someone’s dreams, this is something that no one cares about. However, I personally am actually fascinated by reading about other people’s fantasy teams, so I’m going for it anyway:
My “home” fantasy league is a very deep fourteen team 6×6 (normal categories + OPS + holds) roto league with a snake draft and eight keepers with contracts. The league has been going for for nine years but this is only my fourth year after inheriting a terrible, terrible team — my best keeper when I got the team was Bobby Abreu. I didn’t really realize how long it would take me to get to a point where the team felt like it was completely mine, but it turns out that the answer was “three full seasons.” Going into this year’s draft, I knew that I had a collection of keepers that could win the league, and I just had to draft around them correctly. My keepers were, in no particular order
Back by popular demand.
Warriors 10, Bishops 7
“I do not delighted with the fruits of my personal.” – Tim Hudson
“We did not do what we need to do, give us a chance to make some adjustments.” – Mike Matheny
“I can see it all matters.” – Freddie Freeman
Notes: Warriors increase in the eighth off Jason jungle, the Council set up two points and Eric Hinske and Bern from all walks of life.
Hi! I’m Kent Tekulve! I’m being reborn! Right now! Out of the very fabric of NotGraphs!
I’ve been to the other side, and I have a lot of neat things to tell you. Like, baseball, over there, on the other side? Way different! You wouldn’t believe it! Like for instance, over there, on the other side? The bases are filled with things. They’re actually bags full of stuff! But that’s not the differentest thing about the bases even. What’s even differenter about the bases over there is that the stuff that they’re filled with, well, one never knows what they might be filled with! Like, you can be running and step on a base and POW! Landmine! There goes your leg! But sometimes they’re just filled with jelly and stuff, so they pop and you slip and then you and the infielder nearest to you just roll around laughing getting covered in jelly. For minutes! They stop the game just so you can laugh and roll around in jelly! Boy howdy, that’s something, over there, on the other side.
Look how happy I am! Look how happy I am to have never stepped on a landmine! I’ve had my share of jelly though. It actually even tastes okay. It’s also funny when the bases are filled with whoopee cushions. Let me tell you, as a pitcher, that sure takes the sting off giving up a homerun: here you just gave up a homerun but then the batter has to round the bases and cause four big old farts before he even gets to homeplate! I tell you, if I knew when the bases were going to be filled with whoopee cushions, I’d throw meatballs all day and pray they’d hit ’em out. I’d die of laughter! I’m Kent Tekulve! Look at me!
Wanna know another thing that takes the sting off a homerun when you give one up over there, on the other side? When they hit home runs? The balls vanish not into the bleachers full of fans, but into a interdimensional cesspool, where they (the balls!) end up in new universes where they lead new lives! One of them ended up back here and became the President of the United States! What a country!
The coolest thing about the interdimensional cesspool, though, is that all the balls have cameras built into them, so when they arrive in a new universe and begin their new lives, a reality television show automatically begins about them! You can follow the new lives of all your favorite homerun balls! MLB FanCave has nothing on the promotional tactics over there, on the other side, let me tell you. No, sirree!
Well, time is a little different over there, on the other side. It’s actually been four days since I started talking to you. I wish I had more time to tell you all the cool ways that baseball is different over there, but now it’s my turn in the rotation again. I hope the bases are filled with whoopee cushions today, or quicksand, or mayo. That’s always funny. Mayo! Gee whiz! Okay, gotta run.
Oh geez, I seem to be stuck here, in the very fabric of NotGraphs. Oh dear, haha…
Beloved ballplayer Billy Clarke has died.
Clarke passed earlier this week from an all-consuming malaise. In spite of his slow, almost mocking descent into non-existence, the very end was said to be a shock to those near to him. This raises the possibility that Mr. Clarke was actually killed in an auto-crash pyre, or perhaps murdered by a desperate criminal. Upon reflection, the cause of his death scarcely matters.
His young son, now fatherless and forever arrested in so many ways, thought, upon seeing the body of his father, that he looked at once as though he were asleep but also hopelessly beyond the reach of anything like sleep. Years later, while drinking alone in the dark, he will utter to no one, least of all himself, “There was nothing peaceful about my father’s body.”
Mr. Clarke leaves behind a wife. She is comely enough to remarry, but she will be reduced to a mate she never would’ve considered in an earlier, childless state. Mr. Clarke also leaves behind a daughter. You can imagine how things will go for her.
It should be noted that, despite a practiced image to the contrary, Mr. Clarke was not a religious man. If his booming pastor is right about that which he booms on Sundays, then Mr. Clarke is not now at rest and never shall be. Or it’s possible that, at the moment of Mr. Clarke’s passing from relentless disease or something less permissive of absurd, at-marathon-length goodbyes as terminal as his final slaughter, the lights simply went out. Others will remember him until they have to go to the store, but Mr. Clarke? Given his current station, Mr. Clarke might as well have been a stone for all these dumb years.
In his playing days, Mr. Clarke brought illusions of joy to a narrowly defined segment of those who watched him. Some of those are long-dead central bankers or union machinists. One of those died weeping so ferociously that he continued weeping for several seconds after his physical death, which was owing to cancer or falling ice.
Mr. Clarke enjoyed nothing that didn’t distract him from other things he failed to enjoy. His favorite hobby was staring vacantly at something he needed to take care of at some point. He was more respected than respectable.
The cold avenues of his city are astream with mourners. Or perhaps they are people going to work or lunch. A local funeral home — an ugly, low-slung building surely not up to code — will be the staging point for whatever it is we’re going to do next. His awful pastor will say things with a strange degree of curricular regimentation. On pain of ridicule, some will believe him. Outside, the red lights of those cold avenues will be turned to a salmon color by the fog and mist. Or perhaps it will be sunny, being that this is not a movie.
Mr. Billy Clarke played baseball. He is now dead. He leaves behind remnant urges and other people who themselves will die soon enough.
With Freddie Freeman putting up a huge game last night immediately upon the arrival of his new sports goggles, don’t be surprised if we see some people in the media making a big deal about it. The first of Freeman’s three hits was a booming home run to center field, and a few Braves were pretty dang excited for him. Most notably? David Ross. Check it out.
And I believe that’s Brandon Beachy in the background, showing with his hands that yes, Freddie Freeman was wearing goggles as he hit the home run. Apparently, unlike for Radioactive Man, the goggles, they actually do something.
This one comes from a young gentleman by the name of Trevor Plouffe. Click to embiggen, silly:
Raul Ibañez is gonna give you a high-five, but he’s not gonna like it. Because, honestly, your hand looks kinda gross, and it kinda smells bad, too. Pine tar? More like poo-tar, bro. You might wanna wash them phalanges after you done doing what you do, you know?
“You pulling a Posada, bro?”
For real though, next time? Isn’t gonna be no high-five unless you scrub wit’ hot water, grapefruit soap, and a pumice stone. I mean, damn.
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Over at CBSSports.com’s Eye on Baseball blog, which, I have it on good authority, is a great place for baseball fans to gather and click repeatedly on all that they survey, you’ll find this …
Look, empowered urban youth, what with their ghettoblasters and James Worthy New Balance basketball sneakers and break-dancing battles and disregard for old-line immigrant merchants and their simple quest for peace and quiet, frighten me as much as the next guy who hates it when things like the water bill and his yard and society change. But, truth be told, I’m impressed by the punks who made this song. If nothing else, it kept them off the street for a while instead of spray-painting graffiti on the side of the pharmacy where I buy my overpriced sugar pills.
In the end, though, we’re united by the fact that our onslaught is indeed Don Slaught.
(Update: It comes to the attention of the dumb-assed writer that the lovely and talented Ms. Burton has already made use of this fetching hymn. Please know that we here at NotGraphs Concern are always working to eliminate supply-chain redundancies.)
