It’s not uncommon — with the dinner hour approaching — it’s not uncommon for a gentleman or -lady to partake of such a beverage as might stimulate the appetite and brighten the mood. An apéritif, is how one generally calls this brand of libation.
While, at first blush, this GIF of Charlie Blackmon (courtesy of Twitter user @ChadMoriyama) may seem like an actual low-light as far as Charlie Blackmon is concerned, it’s only because we are looking at it through the wrong scope. When put through the NotGraphs Magic GIF Reverser (i.e. my very expensive laptop), we can now see the beauty in this act.
This is not a bumbling outfielder chasing down a ball in haste and self pity. This is a man romancing his childhood, a puppy chasing a whisper, a keynote presentation at a capoeira convention.
Behold. This is no longer a low-light played backward. It is a lusty tango played forward.
This has been Highlights in Reverse.
LOS ANGELES — Dodgers pitcher Chad Billingsley will have decade-ending surgery this week to repair seventeen partially torn flexor tendons in his right elbow.
Billingsley, who had already been working his way back from Tommy John surgery on the same elbow, Tommy Hilfiger surgery on the opposite elbow, and John Quincy Adams surgery on six of his feet, is hopeful he can pitch again in 2020, or maybe 2025.
“I’ll have spent the majority of my adult life in rehab, but I’ve got to do it,” Billingsley said. “Or at least the terms of my contract say I have to do it. So I’ll do it. They tell me it should only be five or six years of rehab, so that’s good. I’ll catch up on a bunch of old New Yorker issues I’ve been saving. I hear there are some good George Saunders stories in a few of them. I love George Saunders.”
The surgery will be performed by a team of thirty-six doctors over the course of nine days, with provisions being flown in by the National Guard to keep the entire 108-member surgical team properly hydrated.
Billingsley began having surgeries when he appeared on the FOX reality show, “The Swan,” insisting that he wanted to look “more like a surgical patient” than he had been appearing until that point. His elbow initially began bothering him when he was a six-months-developed fetus, but he was hopeful he could avoid surgery until he finished his pitching career.
The Dodgers were initially hopeful Billingsley could disappear, so they could avoid paying his salary, especially after he had setbacks at each step of his rehab, including during each step he took to get to the rehab center. (He lost at least four tendons on the concrete path from the parking lot to the main entrance.)
The Dodgers signed Billingsley to a three-year, $35 million contract extension in March 2011. There is a dispute about whether the contract is valid, since Billingsley was unable to actually sign the physical document, due to elbow pain.
Despite having joined the European Union at the beginning of last July, Croatia remains excluded from the Schengen Area — a place both different from and also similar to the Swimsuit Area. As a result, the citizens of that same proud republic (i.e. Croatia) still conduct their money business by means of the kuna.
Apropos of his recent visit to Croatia, the author has produced a default Excel chart of the top-five MLB payrolls as expressed in either kuna or maybe kune, the latter representing the plural nominative form of the relevant noun.
Somewhere over 1.25 billion kuna, is how much the Dodgers are currently spending on their roster — enough, that, to purchase approximately 18.75 million liters of travarica, a strong herbal liqueur, from Caffe Bar Lero, located in central Zadar.
I’m in a 5×5 keeper league, languishing in last place (Fielder, Verlander, Holliday, etc). I’ve spent the past three weeks working day and night to dump some of my veterans for prospects who could potentially help me turn this around in the future, but obviously underperforming old guys are a pretty hard sell. Nevertheless, I took each team’s roster and spent hours entering projections and running simulations to demonstrate that my proposed deals were fair, and they should take the risk of, say, a Holliday turnaround in exchange for a risky bet like Noah Syndergaard. Hours on the phone, missed tons of family stuff, really dedicated my past few weeks to this and got a whole bunch of blue-chip prospects and risky wild cards (Danny Salazar, etc). My question: is my wife going to leave me?
Yes.
I’m in a crazy dynasty keeper league, we have three in-season drafts to pick up new guys, just had one after work last week to grab players from the draft. I ended up with Rodon and Pentecost and feel pretty good about that, but I feel pretty terrible about the fact that I missed my wife’s 12-week ultrasound to go to the draft, told her I had to work late but she found out I was lying. My question: is my wife going to leave me?
Yes.
After years of putting our league before our family, my husband somehow convinced me things would be better if I joined the league too and became fantasy-baseball-crazy like him. Turns out I actually love it, it’s been the best spring of our marriage, we’re both now totally into it, we spend more time together than ever before and don’t hate each other because of it. Problem is I’m demolishing him, am in first place by a whole bunch, basically stole Tanaka and Josh Donaldson from him in an early-season trade, and he’s in eighth place with no hope, mopes around the house all day, blames me for his sucky team. My question: is my husband going to leave me?
Yes.
I was about the pull the trigger on a great deal, had the e-mail written, just needed to push send, and I suddenly started vomiting blood. Went to the ER, the e-mail never got sent, and by the time I got back to my phone, the guy had pulled the offer. The blood is just the tip of the iceberg– everything that could be coming out of me is coming out of every orifice. Doctors say it’s a medical mystery. How do I get the guy to offer the trade again?
Sorry. You probably can’t. Good luck.
I think I accidentally traded my daughter for Carlos Gomez. Wife is furious. Well, sometimes. Depends on her mood. Was it a good deal?
Not sure.
Is it actually the middle of the season yet?
Not quite. Soon.
Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. doesn’t know the difference between at bats and plate appearances, and how to calculate batting average, according to a recent broadcast, in which he was unable to comprehend how Jimmy Rollins and Mike Schmidt have almost the same batting average when they have the same number of hits, but Schmidt has so many more PAs. The audio, from Crossing Broad, is below:
Here is a list of other questions Ruben Amaro has, the answers to which he should probably already know, given his job: Read the rest of this entry »
In baseball we often hear the term “three true outcomes.” What this means, for those of you who need to know what things mean, is that the outcomes known as the home run, the strikeout and the walk, being three and not two or four in number, are the only outcomes that are true and not false. (If you didn’t know this, you are lucky that it wasn’t an essay question.) For those of you who need to know what things mean on a deeper, more satisfying level, know this: The outcomes are “true” because they do not involve long, detailed stories of my sexual conquests, including the ones in Canada. They are “true,” too, because when it comes to pitcher-hitter showdowns, they represent the only events that don’t rely on the defense, be it a nickel package or a 3-4. As an aside, I should say that a 3-4 would be a good defense to run against Mike Trout. He is very fast, and very strong.
As another aside, I should say that when it comes to the pitcher-hitter showdowns as previously described, three false outcomes would be these:
1) The measles outbreak of 1687
2) The Pat Metheny album Orchestrion
3) Helium
But “false,” if you must know, is patently different than “untrue.”
Why? Because I say it is, and I am not kidding.
And so, in the spirit of the vast but subtle difference between untruth and falsehood, I give you a list of three untrue outcomes from my baseball past:
Read the rest of this entry »
While the advent of things like MiLB.tv have made it easier to view certain minor league baseball games, many times the fidelity of such footage falls somewhere between 1993 Magnavox TV/VHS combo and wax pencil on onion paper. The recent game between the Frisco RoughRiders and the Corpus Christi Hooks featured both HD footage and a performance by Rangers prospect Joey Gallo. While the resolution is improved, the cameraman’s anticipation-induced trembling gives the following footage a little bit of a Zapruder-film vibe. It can be described, nevertheless, as impressive.
Back, and to the left.
(Editor’s note: Felix Pie is a professional baseball player currently employed by the Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization. He is walking home from the stadium after a game.)
The phantoms surge past and across and through the streets.
The moon hides in shame behind a lachrymose black veil
An oily candle, burnt too short, lapping cheap tallow.
Headlights roar and shudder, blood-drunk wet lions
Thrashing like dying fireflies in the puddles of soju underfoot.
The summer wind licks like a consumptive’s warm sigh.
This is a place where the flying birds do not reach.
Bamboo and grasses grew wild where they tread,
Long since crushed into gray powder lining the roads
Their colors boiled, wrought into neon, pumped into the signs
Calling the chirping moths, their only direction toward.
This world bears no names, offers no constellations.
Hidden in shadow, scattered along the littered sidewalks
The old men cry out hoarse laughter from the pojangmachas
Huddled motionless under tent flaps, gripping small green bottles,
Scraping their scarred beards with the backs of their hands
The crust of crimson sauce outlining lopsided grins.
When the hour comes they will sink into the asphalt.
The way is difficult to find, among all the dead ends.
Life pours into the drains in the abyssal alleyways behind every corner.
The serpents and the courtiers and the chrysanthemums have long since vanished.
There are no dew-teared blossoms to mourn the pilgrimage of the exile.
Felix Pie squints at the symbols, hunting for some willowisp
To illuminate the path and lure him home.
Because I’ve been searching for a new theme/writing crutch, I present Highlights in Reverse.
Here’s George Springer doing a barrel roll, flipping the ball back the plate, and backpedaling to right field.
This has been Highlights in Reverse. Should I die before I see my mother again, please tell her I tried.
