#Rays Rodney has a plantain tucked in his pants for team photo. That is all.
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) May 11, 2013
In either case, according to Rays beat reporter Marc Topkin, he really does have a plantain in his pocket.
Cardinals outfield prospect Mike O’Neill has appeared within the author’s Fringe Five column of late neither because of his tremendous raw power nor even his nearly average power. Indeed, as of yesterday, O’Neill had accumulated only one professional home run since being drafted out of USC in 2010.
What he did Friday night, however — in the second game of Double-A Springfield’s double-header against Tulsa — was to hit a home run. And what the present author did after that was to render footage of the home run into animated GIF form such that it might be viewed and enjoyed by no fewer than one other person, and up to as many as seven or eight other people.
Regard, here’s the first half of the home-run sequence, which the author has split into two parts with a view to Maximum Loading Ease.
Not so long ago — last gibbous moon, if memory serves — I availed myself of a Firefox extension that alerts you any time anyone Irish does anything on the Internet. Needless to say, when Mets infielder Justin Turner came to bat earlier this week, my computer grew arms and seized my tailored lapels. I clicked on the relevant Maximum Irish Caution icon, and it took me straightaway to this …
Let’s just say that, upon viewing Mr. Turner’s mien and bearing, I saw to it that the recommended protocols were followed.
Billy Buckner is famous for, well, you know what he’s famous for.
But did you know that, since retiring from baseball, he’s had serious work done by Flavor Flav’s orthodontist? Well now, thanks to this week’s edition of the Friday Grill & Bill, which is as efficient as it is a waste of the reader’s time, you do know about Bill’s grill.
“Grilly” Buckner
In conclusion,
No, you aren’t having fun yet.
Anyone whose family, or who he himself, purchased an Apple-brand computer anytime before, say, 1995 will likely have more than a passing knowledge of the genre commonly known as edutainment, a very specific sort of software program that, in striving to provide users with content that is both educational and entertaining, typically provides neither.
That fact having being established, allow the author to announce that, in every relevant way — both in that it is neither very educational nor very entertaining — the present post is a goddamn exemplar of the edutainment genre.
What follows is a collection of five baseball players (most past, one present) whose names most resemble popular Danish ejaculations — at least so far Wiktionary has led the author to believe.
Readers can use this post to both not learn Danish and also learn very little about baseball!
Player: Willie Horton (Profile)
Who He Was: Mostly Tigers outfielder, 1963-1980
Relevant Danish Ejaculation: Hørt! (Real Dictionary Entry)
Meaning: Hear, hear!
Roger Maris, what have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
You’ve cashed in your fame and fortune for a laboratory of horrors — to perform your monstrous and unethical experiments. You’ve crudely melded man and beast, and for what? What is your end goal?
Why must you dabble in the dark sciences, Roger Maris? What possible motivation do you have? Look at that poor thing to your left. Look in its eyes. Well, pick an eye, I guess. Explain to this jumbo rodent why you did what you did. Tell it why you sewed a belt to its skin. Tell it why you grafted what appears to be some sort of 2×6 to its chest. Why the thigh implants? Did you give it a watch so it could track exactly how long it’s endured excruciating pain and suffering? Your cruelty is as sharp as that thing’s widow’s peak.
Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, you fink. There is no joy to be found in this dugout. You have done heinous things.
Your skills at the plate do not match your skills in genetics, Roger Maris. You sicken me.
(h/t to Chris Mottram for the original link)
Managing editor Dave Cameron wrote this morning about the formerly quite impressive and more recently less impressive Scott Kazmir’s very impressive start on Thursday against Oakland — during which start Kazmir not only posted a 10:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio, but also (and perhaps more importantly to the left-hander’s immediate future) featured a fastball that was sitting at 95 mph by the end of the game (box).
What follows, for sake of reference, are Kazmir’s last three pitches — which pitches (a) represent three of the four hardest fastballs Kazmir threw all game and (b) were thrown consecutively, all for strikes, to Luke Montz.
Here, recorded at 95.78 mph, is Kazmir’s first pitch to Montz — which Montz fouls off:
As made more or less clear by the present author’s recent conversation with him, Voice of the Cardinals Mike Shannon is both (a) a man among men among still more men and (b) not likely to concern himself unduly with those matters which fall outside of Mike Shannon’s purview.
Such a matter appears to be a promotion currently being conducted by Mobil — which promotion invites listeners to advocate (via text message) on behalf of an already extant Mobile jingle, that it might become the walk-up music for a Cardinals player this season.
The motivations for the consumer to participate in said promotion aren’t immediately clear — neither in a general sense (to a person with reason, for example) nor, specifically, to Mike Shannon himself, who remains adamantly perplexed by it (i.e. the promotion) even while explaining it to listeners of Cardinals radio.
Elimination Number: 118
It is not lost on the present author that a visitor to this hamlet of the Internet might either have a small amount of knowledge about a large swath of subjects, or perhaps the exact opposite. Either way, it seems like possessing one of the other (perhaps the latter more so) causes society to label one as a nerd or geek. I would add dweeb but I don’t hear people say that any more. I might research why that is. But not right now.
Right now I want to talk to you about singularity. For those who know, I apologize both for the redundancy as well as my surely-lacking description. The general idea of singularity is that some time in the future (the consensus of when differs), technology will advance so much that humans will reach a place of super-intelligence. No one can tell you about what this future world will look like due to the anchoring theory of singularity — our puny stupid brains have no way of conceiving this world. The craziest, most futuristic thing we can think of will pale in comparison to what will actually exist, where we will actually be. We simply are not equipped to visualize this future. The only thing that will allow us to understand it is to advance technologically as a species to the point in which it actually happens, at which point thinking about it will be irrelevant. Science is weird.
Via a series of Action-News FOIA Requests, your correspondent was able to steal a glimpse of Banknotes Harper’s Amazon.com shopping cart. Presented largely without comment, here is said cart …
Banknotes Harper’s levels of discretionary income barely felt a thing. Fuckers.
