Author Archive

For Everyone’s Reference: Evan Scribner’s Curveball

For everyone’s reference — like, for those people who aren’t currently watching the Texas-Oakland game (live) — this is Oakland reliever Evan Scribner’s curveball.


Podcast Preview: Dayn Perry Donkey Noise, Yes

The author will refrain from explaining under what circumstances, or in which context, the following occurred. What he (i.e. the author) will state is that the audio clip embedded here is from the very recently concluded recording of Dayn Perry’s weekly appearance on FanGraphs Audio.

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The Red Sox-Yankees Game Recap in Comic Sans

Resident of the internet @dianagram has requested — for reasons as beautiful as they are mysterious — has requested that the recap for Tuesday night’s Red Sox-Yankees game (box) be reproduced in what the students of Rundlett Junior High School named the Most Stirring Typeface of 1993, Comic Sans.

In his perpetual quest never to disappoint anyone, anywhere, the author has executed the aforementioned demands, from the Associated Press’s able recap of the game in question.

To wit:

NEW YORK (AP) — Raul Ibanez tied it with a pinch-hit homer in the ninth inning, then had an RBI single in the 12th, helping the Yankees remain a game up on Baltimore in the AL East with one game to go by beating the Boston Red Sox 4-3 on Tuesday night.

With a second comeback spurred by Ibanez in the last 10 days, the Yankees need a win or Orioles loss on the final day of the season to secure their 13th division title since 1996. The Orioles beat Tampa Bay 1-0 earlier.

If the teams end up even after Wednesday’s games, they’ll play a tiebreaker Thursday in Baltimore.

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Commemorative GIFs from R.A. Dickey’s Final Start

All surfers of the internet receive three free GIFs from R.A. Dickey’s final start of the season tonight in Miami (box).

Below are the three knuckleballs Dickey threw tonight that both (a) moved the most (calculated Pythagoreanly, that is) and that (b) were also strikes.

3. Turner, Fifth Inning

This knuckleball to opposing pitcher Jacob Turner features 4.1 inches of gloveside run and 11.1 inches of “rise” (vertical movement that is, relative to a ball unaffected by air current or drag):

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A Brief and Fictional Account of Meeting Bob Uecker

I was trying to listen to the game, but turned to the station and heard only silence. “Must be a rain delay,” I told my wife, except — and, please note, this is where events skew decidedly fantastic — except it wasn’t my wife in the next room, but radio voice of baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers, Bob Uecker, instead.

“This is clearly absurd,” I said. “You’re supposed to be in Milwaukee, not in my affordable apartment in Madison.” To which sentiment he responded: “Supposed to? I’m 77 years old, man. My only obligation now is to greet the abyss with something not unlike dignity.”

That was a great moment between us — probably one of my top-five as an adult so far, were I to make a list.

***

In conclusion:


GIF: Glen Perkins Doesn’t Care for That

I don’t know what you just did, reader — like, wear white after Labor Day, maybe, or make a comment in defense of that inveterate plagiarist Jonah Lehrer. What’s obvious, though, from the footage embedded here is that Glen Perkins does not care for it. Not even a little, really.

GIF courtesy @BlueJayHunter via Greg Wisniewski.


Wikipedia’s Entirely Unbiased Entry on WAR


Click, with a view to embiggening.

According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia is “a free, collaboratively edited, and multilingual Internet encyclopedia.”

Also according to Wikipedia, Wins Above Replacement (or, WAR) is — among other things — both “a bunch of crap” and “differnet [sic] from source to source.”

Truth is what has been spoken here, America.

Credit to He of the Terrific Cheekbones, the internet’s Matt Hunter.


Erotic Video: Yu Darvish Strikeout Montage

Reader DShep of SB Nation Rangers blog Lone Star Ball not only edited together a single video of all 221 of Yu Darvish’s strikeouts this season, he also set said montage to the hottest jams of the author’s childhood.


Photo: Fidel Castro Wearing His Sunglasses at Night

Apropos of nothing, here’s an image of Fidel Castro pitching for a team called Los Barbudos (i.e. The Bearded Ones) during an exhibition game shortly after he (i.e. Castro) led a successful revolution to remove former Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista from power.

Why he would wear sunglasses (or, at the very least, dark-looking spectacles) at such a late hour remains a mystery even into the present. Asked at the time, Castro replied (quite mysteriously), “So I can, so I can watch you weave then breathe your storylines.”


Gary Cederstrom Next to the World’s Tallest Buildings

Last night, colleague Jackie Moore brought it to the author’s attention that the home-plate umpire of the Angels-Mariners game was large — was, in fact, larger than any of the players for whom he was calling balls and strikes.

A brief inspection of The Facts reveals that said umpire — in this case, Minot-native Gary Cederstrom — isn’t just large relative to American athletes but, also, to the world’s tallest manmade structures.

Consider, this unimpeachable and incapable-of-being-not-peached chart (click to embiggen):