In this, the latest episode of Men Surrounded By Things, we present nine-year major-league first baseman and outfielder Pete LaCock surrounded by (as you have surely imagined and feared) …
Le Coq Sportif athletic footwear! Look at Pete LaCock, happy to be surrounded by Le Coq Sportif athletic footwear.
This has been Pete LaCock surrounded By Le Coq Sportif athletic footwear. This has been Men Surrounded By Things.
Accomplished German filmmaker Werner Herzog is not a baseball fan, per se. He is, however, a particularly astute observer of the human condition — which qualification lends to his thoughts on the cruel beauty of Matt Harvey’s slider a real and certain credibility.
Today installment of Some Common Phrases, GIF-ustrated, features a man that has long embodied the very essence of “grittiness.”
There are a number of mysteries in this life. Like what scabies are, for one. And if they’re just a combination of scabs and rabies, for another one.
Something that was never a mystery — to Kansas City first baseman Willie Aikens, at least — was whether his fly ball against Philadelphia’s Dickie Noles in Game Five of the 1980 World Series would be a home run.
“This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time,” Aikens seems to say while laying down his bat — if not necessarily in those same words or meter or even language.
This weekend I found myself, in succession:
1. In a depressing, rundown coin shop with sunbleached boxes of forgotten baseball cards, each coated with layers of increasingly-marked down price-tags
2. Purchasing a box of 1989 Sportflics baseball cards for six dollars
3. Opening packs of Sportflics baseball cards in my living room and seeing, in their shiny plastic coating, a reflection of myself.
For those unaware, Sportflics were an engineering marvel, a golden age of ballooning among the baseball card culture. For the low, low price of 79 cents, nearly double what a pack cost in those days, a kid could rip open a pack to find three whole whopping cards. But these were no ordinary cards. These were cards instilled with Magic Motion: a ridged plastic coating that caused the image of the card to move when you tilted it, theoretically. In reality it just made the picture hard to see most of the time.
Maybe I’m a Sportflic, I thought, ridden with angst, as I pulled a Gregg Jefferies out of a foil wrapper. Here I am still trying to convey thoughts and feelings with words, while the rest of the world is leaving me behind. No one has time to read words anymore; the future will revert to hieroglyphics, sad trumpet noises, animated GIFs and smell-o-vision. My fate is sealed, I thought. Then I looked at the cards again. But why must I martyr myself for the sake of literature, that fickle trollop? Why not join the future, already in progress.
And so, after relearning Photoshop for the hundredth time, I bring to you the latest in internet baseball pseudo-analysis, combined with the pointless charm of the Sportflic. I bring to you: the GIFCard.
It has not been a fun week.
Not that any of my weeks are particularly fun, but this time I had hope. Which is hard for me to have, but I did, I think. It was either hope or constipation. It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. I mean, thought I came through my fantasy draft with a great team. Wasn’t sure if I could win every category in my modified 5×5* but I thought I’d at least be competitive. And the last time I was competitive in anything was my third grade girls’ dodgeball league. (My parents wanted a girl. Fooled everyone, including me, until about two years into puberty. I was Hopeless Jo back then.)
So… first round, Albert Pujols. Can’t go wrong. Second round, Josh Hamilton. Third round, David Price. Off to a great start, right? Brian Roberts, Pedro Alvarez, Ryan Howard, Jeff Keppinger filled out my infield. Rookie of the Year candidate Aaron Hicks as my third outfielder. Chris Carter in the utility spot. No catcher. My league doesn’t have catchers.
Carlos Marmol and Greg Holland would give me a lights-out bullpen. Tim Lincecum, Brett Myers, Mark Buehrle, Hiroki Kuroda. Jake McGee and Joba Chamberlain.
Of course, as prone to overreaction as I am, I’ve already traded my entire team for J.A. Happ, Travis Wood, Gerardo Parra, and Franklin Gutierrez. And a couple of football players. This year will be my year.
*Batting average, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, wins, saves, ERA, WHIP, drug suspensions, and felony convictions.
Cubs color man Jim Deshaies called it the “best mustache in the majors.”
Objections?
(Below, the naked, uncut version of this clip.)
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Miami right-hander and 20-year-old Cuban emigre Jose Fernandez has, just seconds before the composition of these very words, finished his first inning as a major-league pitcher, retiring the New York Mets on three consecutive fly-ball outs (box).
And by virtue of this post, reader, you will be able to tell your grandchildren when you’re much older and much less useful than right now: “I was there, a long time ago, when Carson Cistulli made the first GIF of Jose Fernandez’ first pitch.”
Will you cry? Yes, a little. But only because of your sciatica. Because you will develop terrible sciatica, it seems.
Midwesterners are a hearty, kindly folk. They are polite and well-mannered.
They are hard-working, and though they find pleasure in but a few, simple things — a Josh Willingham homerun, for instance — they enjoy those things uninhibitedly. They sincerely hope that you are able to partake of similar wholesomeness in this earthly life before you roast in hell in the hereafter.
If you need directions, or the recipe for a high-carb, high-protein hot dish, just ask. If you need to be reaffirmed, please refer to the above GIF.
The first game-action video of Aaron Gleeman has recently emerged on the internet, as the noted blogger continues his remarkably under-reported transition from writing about to actually playing major-league baseball.
Here’s a brief scouting report on Gleeman’s main tools based entirely on the five seconds of footage embedded here.
Hitting: Extreme opposite-field approach. Like, exclusively.
